To improve the teaching and learning materials for a curriculum it is important to incorporate the findings from educational research. In light of this, we present creative exercises and experiments to elicit, confront and resolve misconceptions in geometrical optics. Since ray diagrams can be both the cause and the solution for many…

Research globally has shown that many children lose interest in science towards the end of primary school and throughout the post-primary phase. This article explores children's experience and views in Irish schools that have adopted innovative practices that aim to empower, excite and inspire children in science. One of these focuses on explicit…

Our focus is on the effects that dated ideas about the nature of science (NOS) have on curriculum, instruction and assessments. First we examine historical developments in teaching about NOS, beginning with the seminal ideas of James Conant. Next we provide an overview of recent developments in philosophy and cognitive sciences that have shifted…

By the 1970s a fundamental shift had taken place in German science education. This was a shift away from the learning of more-or-less isolated facts and facets in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics towards a restructuring of science teaching along the general principles of the respective science domains. The changes included also the addition of…

Documents the benefits of teaching chemistry through history. The experimental group consisted of seniors enrolled in a teacher preparation program in which they learned how to teach chemistry through the history of science. The results of the analysis of covariance revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group on an…

We describe a longitudinal study of a secondary education biology teacher at two moments in her career (1993-2002), determining the changes in her conceptions of the nature of science and its teaching and learning, and the factors that favored or hindered such changes. The changes were analyzed using cognitive maps, constructed on the basis of the…

Demonstrates the use of geological concepts and principles as an effective approach to teaching evolution and in turn the nature of science and the scientific method in the classroom. This approach to teaching makes it easier for students to understand the basic concepts of evolution which is really important in order to understand nature as it…

This document supports the integration of the scientific method not only into science teaching but also into the entire curriculum. It argues that the methods and attitudes that have made science the most productive enterprise of the past 300 years can be adapted to most areas of secondary education. The scientist's way of thinking is described,…

Surveys reveal that many in our society have an inadequate and inaccurate understanding of evolution (Alters & Alters, 2001). Much of this can be traced directly to popular misconceptions about the nature of science. This, in turn, can be linked to misrepresentation by those opposed to evolution, although inadequate or ineffective treatment by ill…

Reports on a study to elicit junior secondary students' understandings of the nature of science (NOS) through peer collaboration instruction based on science stories specifically developed to present several aspects of NOS. Investigates how students reacted to the stories and whether they were able to extract the aspects of NOS presented in the…

Describes a method of introducing secondary or college students to direct-current electricity via a technique used for elementary level students. (SL)

Outlines a way for instructors to teach astronomy and the nature of scientific inquiry. Highlights a discussion with students during coverage of the Earth-Moon system. (CCM)

Describes a method for teaching advanced ecology to juniors and seniors at an independent high school. Uses questions as the primary organizational tool to organize the curriculum. Facilitates teaching science in a manner closer to how it is practiced by scientists and helps students understand and appreciate science itself. (SAH)

"Inquiry" is the enterprise by which scientists generate theory. It is also a broadly-applied label for instructional approaches in which teachers and students emulate the activity of scientists in order to generate personal knowledge of natural phenomena and to come to understand the canons of disciplinary knowledge-building. Despite the ubiquity…

This investigation was guided by the following research questions: (1) how do teachers' understandings of the nature of science influence classroom practice?; and (2) what factors facilitate or impede the influence of teachers' understandings on classroom practice? An in-depth, year long assessment of the classroom practices and goals of five…