Many undergraduate chemistry and biochemistry students pursue careers in healthcare. Biomaterials, designed to harmonize with the complexity of the human body, have become increasingly significant in medicine as implants, drug delivery vehicles and tissue scaffolds. We believe it is essential that undergraduates are exposed to biomaterial…

An experimental design by combining hydrogel and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid disodium salt (EDTA) for visually displaying chemical complexation reactions is developed. The Na[superscript +] ions on the [alpha]-l-guluronic acid (G) unit of the sodium alginate molecule undergo an ion exchange with a divalent cation, so that the G units are…

Cell biology research methods and techniques is one of the training courses for graduate students before enter the laboratory in many universities. However, due to the limited time of experimental teaching while the teaching contents are increasing, choosing suitable teaching content has always been a challenge faced by experimental teaching.…

Inquiry-based learning can be an effective approach when students are provided with sufficient guidance. However, there is an ongoing debate among practitioners about the nature, type, and level of such guidance. This study investigated the effects on middle school students' (N = 116) conceptual knowledge and inquiry skills acquisition of…

Einstein's derivation of special relativity theory (SRT), based on hypothetical reasoning and thought experiments, is regarded as a prime example of physics theory development. In secondary education, the introduction of SRT could provide a great opportunity for students to engage in physics theorizing, but this opportunity is largely being missed…

We present an integrative mixed-methods systematic review of research on laboratory work in secondary-school science education from 1996 to 2019. The aim of the study is to identify important aspects of how to successfully make use of laboratory work as a science-teaching strategy in secondary schools. By engaging teachers, our study uses a…

The COVID-19 outbreak represented a remarkable challenge in universities and colleges since it forced the transition from a face-to-face model in classrooms and laboratories to a remote, online model using computers, tablets, and cell phones. In Mexico and other Latin American countries, the return to educational activities was a slow-paced…

Three days into the academic year, the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly led to emergency remote teaching, ERT, of Chemical Experimentation--a revised alternative to the majors' General Chemistry Laboratory at the University of Costa Rica. The course was reoriented to support students' development of nontechnical experimentation skills and scientific…

Laboratory classes effectively enhance student understanding and appreciation of course concepts. With course delivery suddenly shifted into the online format due to the COVID-19 pandemic, four laboratory exercises in each of two introductory-level soil science courses were converted into virtual sessions delivered in the form of…

Descriptive statistics involves summarizing and organizing data so that they can be easily understood. Even though these are basic and simple concepts, many applied science students have misconceptions about their use in applied experiments in the laboratory. Students usually receive limited or no training in how to understand the meaning of the…

Background: Scientific thinking is an essential learning goal of science education and it can be fostered by inquiry learning. One important prerequisite for scientific thinking is procedural understanding. Procedural understanding is the knowledge about specific steps in scientific inquiry (e.g. formulating hypotheses, measuring dependent and…

The practice of RNA isolation in undergraduate experimental courses is rare because of the existence of robust, ubiquitous and stable ribonucleases. We reported here modifications to our original protocol for RNA isolation from plant tissues, including the recovery of nucleic acids by ethanol precipitation at 0 degrees C for 10 min and the…

This qualitative case study delved into students' understanding and positioning while they participated in solving an authentic, conceptually-based problem in a high-school chemistry class. Verbal and nonverbal cues, particularly gestures, offered broader awareness of students' engagement in sensemaking during the learning experience. The…

The ability of students to perform quantitative analysis is a fundamental aspect of analytical chemistry courses and laboratories. In this laboratory experiment, students quantitatively analyze both liquid and solid samples through the use of internal standard calibration and ATR-FTIR spectroscopy. Using a problem-based approach to selecting their…

This study is the result of a quantitative analysis of the previous paper reporting on four cases in which an LED is turned on by charge transfer occurring during the electrostatic induction process in a conductor connected to the LED. We were able to measure the charge transfer by using charge sensors and analyze experimental results by applying…