Plant morphology courses develop students' understanding of plant structures and identification skills through mini-research activities. Effective species identification requires a literature review and the ability to find, evaluate, and use relevant information. This qualitative study examines students' information literacy skills in completing…

This article is aimed at justifying sensible use of inventive tasks in physics teaching. The justification will encourage teachers to form learners' creative thinking; in particular, the course of physics has the great potential for forming learners' creative thinking. Being adapted to the course of physics, the basic stages to solve inventive…

Each January from 2010 to 2014, an undergraduate workshop on modeling biological systems was held at Lehman College of the City University of New York. The workshops were funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Expedition in Computing, "Computational Modeling and Analysis of Complex Systems (CMACS)." The primary goal was to…

Global progress has arisen from scientific advances and we currently live in the age of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM); science as a way of increasing the knowledge base, technology as a means of manifesting the science, engineering as a way of building and creating with it, and mathematics to devise the language we use…

The number of students majoring in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) is declining due in part to a lack of student interest (Fairweather 2008; NRC 2012; PCAST 2010). One reason may be the difference between how science is done in school and how it is done in the field (Osborne, Simon, and Collins 2003). An interdisciplinary…

How can educators provide children with a genuine experience of carrying out an extended scientific investigation? And can teachers change the perception of what it means to be a scientist? These were key questions that lay behind "The Human Condition" project, an initiative funded by the Primary Science Teaching Trust to explore a new…

In this article the author describes the "Derby Design Day" project--a project that paired high school honors physics students with second-grade children for a design challenge and competition. The overall project goals were to discover whether collaboration in a design process would: (1) increase an interest in science; (2) enhance the…

A common challenge for many primary pre-service teacher educators is to rekindle interest in science content with future teachers who often express a lifetime of negative associations with school science. This pilot study investigated if the notion of wonder could be utilized with preservice teachers as a vehicle to develop more positive…

The use of independent experimental investigations of topics of the student's choosing is described in physics courses at Wittenberg University. Various projects which have been done are listed. (TS)

Describes an interdisciplinary research project on production of food or fodder yeast from sewage. Indicates the presence of satisfactory educational and experimental results in operation of a pilot plant. (CC)

Reports on an investigation of a population of dandelions on a school lawn. Describes the objectives, rationale, study area, and the results of the study. Includes tables and graphs that show data collected. (RT)