An increased public knowledge of the health benefits of unsaturated fats has resulted in a surge of different cooking oils. Intense advertising of various oil brands claiming to provide the best dietary recommendations often leaves buyers unclear of what their best choices are. Herein, we describe a research-based project for upper-level…

Introducing a new framework for teaching and learning literature in secondary schools, this book presents Dialogic Literary Argumentation as an inquiry-based approach to engage students in communicating and exploring ideas about literature. As a process of discovery, Dialogic Literary Argumentation facilitates…

In this article, the authors share discoveries about how taking risks can expand students' and teachers' narrow experiences with academic writing. The article outlines four teaching strategies one of the authors implemented in her classroom, highlighting how these strategies fostered student and teacher flexibility, agency, and confidence in…

The so-called Diet Coke and Mentos experiment is initiated by dropping Mentos candies into a bottle of Diet Coke or other carbonated beverage. This causes the beverage to rapidly degas, causing foam to stream out of the bottle. Simple application of the gas laws leads to the straightforward prediction that ejection of greater foam volume is…

A common goal for mathematics teachers at any grade level is for "all" students--not just future mathematics teachers--to develop deep understanding of the mathematics they are learning and using. To that end, this lesson can be used in an upper-level high school mathematics course to introduce the concept of a radian in a way that…

One challenge of teaching chemical analysis is the proliferation of sophisticated, but often impenetrable, instrumentation in the modern laboratory. Complex instruments, and the software that runs them, distance students from the physical and chemical processes that generate the analytical signal. A solution to this challenge is the introduction…

Discovery sessions are usually based around a stimulus that the teacher has set up. When children are all doing something similar, watching what happens, talking about the science that is going on, the teacher has a way in to learn about their understanding, but then the teacher can take it deeper into exploring their skills in working…

Keeping a log of scientific investigations, discoveries, and notes is a process that scientists have used throughout history. Elementary-age children engage in similar types of documentation when they perform investigations and sketch, label, or provide details about their work and findings. This column includes activities inspired by children's…

How do we ensure that all students are engaged each day in meaningful, challenging, and joyful work and have equal opportunity to learn? That is the central question Regie Routman addresses in "Literacy Essentials: Engagement, Excellence, and Equity for All Learners." Her response is that such an outcome is only possible within a culture…

This paper will describe a guided inquiry activity for teaching ligand field theory. Previous research suggests the guided inquiry approach is highly effective for student learning. This activity familiarizes students with the key concepts of molecular orbital theory applied to coordination complexes. Students will learn to identify factors that…

In this article, the authors present an approach to developing open-ended problems through capturing contextualised mathematics in photographs. They draw upon their research with the Problem Posing Research Project, a collaborative venture between an Australian and a Canadian university to broaden pre-service teachers pedagogical practices in the…

In the STEM classroom, students can work in collaborative teams to build those essential skills needed for the 21st-century world. In project-based learning (PBL), teams of four to six students are often randomly selected to describe a realistic situation that may occur in today's workplace; this may be done by counting off in fours, fives,…

Family Math and Science Nights engage students and parents in active investigations tied to the curriculum in a fun, informal environment. Through this program, families actively explore math and science ideas, discover together through guided inquiry, and apply their discoveries to solve a problem at the end. All activities are hands-on, use…

We describe a new approach to teaching introductory biology. Our introductory experience for undergraduates is a laboratory course that is entirely inquiry and discovery based. We introduce our students to fundamental concepts in biology in the framework of three multi-week laboratory modules, each of which is an open-ended investigation of a…

This article draws on the 21st Century Skills Movement and the successful teaching practices of Asian schools in order to provide five suggestions that secondary math teachers can incorporate into their classrooms in order to promote the skill set necessary for an ever-changing global economy. Problem-based instruction, student-led solutions, risk…