Students have several misconceptions about thermodynamics. However, an understanding of basic concepts in this branch of physics remains fundamental to explain thermal phenomena. The purpose of this activity was to extend students' conceptual understanding of heat, temperature, energy, and thermal insulators and conductors. Two groups of students…

Constructing causal mechanistic explanations of observable phenomena is a key science practice that is often challenging for students as most mechanisms involve interactions of unobservable entities and activities. In this study, we examined how gesturing with a computer simulation that depicts the molecular mechanism of thermal conduction…

Sixth-grade science students at Gauger-Cobbs Middle School in Newark, DE, had misconceptions about how heat energy moves in the hydrosphere through conduction, convection, and radiation. As a result, students struggled to develop and connect ideas that correctly and completely explained heat transfer in the hydrosphere at the end of the lesson…

Augmented reality (AR) has the potential to fundamentally transform science education by making learning of abstract science ideas tangible and engaging. However, little is known about how students interacted with AR technologies and how these interactions may affect learning performance in science laboratories. This study examined high school…

In this paper, we demonstrate how machine learning could be used to quickly assess a student's multimodal representational thinking. Multimodal representational thinking is the complex construct that encodes how students form conceptual, perceptual, graphical, or mathematical symbols in their mind. The augmented reality (AR) technology is adopted…

A versatile and portable apparatus was developed to demonstrate exciting visual displays of catalytic phenomena that introduce basic concepts in catalysis, renewable energy, and chemical safety, in order to pique scientific curiosity in a variety of audiences including middle and high school students, undergraduate and graduate students, and the…

Comics have an important role in non-formal learning environments. However, how comics may be effective teaching/learning activitities in formal education is an ongoing debate in literature. The purpose of this study is to create and evaluate a series of instructional comics about heat related concepts to be used as teaching/learning activities in…

Science education could be made more accessible to students with visual impairments through collaboration and specific adaptation in both the science classrooms and laboratories. For example, by providing simple adaptations or doing some essential modifications, students can gain experience with measuring, balancing, and weighing a variety of…

Comics have an important role in non-formal learning environments. However, how comics may be effective teaching/learning activitities in formal education is an ongoing debate in literature. The purpose of this study is to create and evaluate a series of instructional comics about heat related concepts to be used as teaching/learning activities in…

In the United States, there has been an increased emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and especially engineering, in pre-college settings. There are several potential benefits of this, including: increasing the quantity and diversity of students who pursue STEM careers, improving all students' technological…

This research aims to investigate the use of Edmodo as web-based learning in learning thermal physics in junior high school. The analysis of this research focused on students' cognitive and motivation in the classroom. The method used in this research was quasi-experiment with the pretest-posttest design. One class taken as a sample in this…

Elementary, middle-level, and high school science teachers commonly find their students have misconceptions about heat and temperature. Unfortunately, student misconceptions are difficult to modify or change and can prevent students from learning the accurate scientific explanation. In order to improve our students' understanding of heat and…

The purpose of this study is to introduce a problem-based learning (PBL) scenario that elementary school science teachers in middle school (5th-8th grades) can use in their in-service training. The scenario treats the subjects of heat, temperature and thermal expansion within the scope of the 5th and 6th grade science course syllabi and has been…

Middle school students struggle to explain thermodynamics concepts. In this study, to help students succeed, we use a natural language processing program to analyze their essays explaining the aspects of thermodynamics and provide guidance based on the automated score. The 346 sixth-grade students were assigned to either the critique condition…

We observe teachers in professional development courses about energy constructing mechanistic accounts of energy transformations. We analyze a case in which teachers investigating adiabatic compression develop a model of the transformation of kinetic energy to thermal energy. Among their ideas is the idea that thermal energy is generated as a…