Most likely a large number of students have heard of the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis), and know that they are a phenomenon in the sky. Although they may not have seen the Northern Lights, most have probably seen other phenomena in the sky, such as a rainbow, shooting star, or super moon. These experiences provide an opportunity for students…

The Hofmeister series is a recurring trend that ranks ions' abilities to influence various aqueous processes in solution. Herein, a set of project-based experiments was developed for students in an upper-level physical chemistry laboratory to investigate the specific ion effects on the thermodynamics of caffeine partitioning between aqueous and…

There is a growing need for workers with STEM-aligned training in the modern global economy, but a paucity of workers to fill these positions. One important contributor to this issue is low student persistence in STEM. Nontraditional science courses that utilize more active-participation and learning are attractive as tools to increase student…

The purpose of this study was to determine Turkish primary teacher candidates' conceptual understandings of gases. In this study, a survey approach was used. The sample consisted of 240 primary teacher candidates. As the data collection tool, a questionnaire of six questions consisting of three open-ended and three multiple choice was used. The…

In this article, a series of activities on explicit teaching of specific aspects of the 'nature of science' are presented. The authors explore teaching the nature of science through inquiry-based activities on electric circuits. The activities concern classification of objects as conductors or insulators and took place in three classes of 4th…

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the views of parents regarding middle school students' learning of science at home via the Educational Information Network, prepared by the Turkish National Ministry of Education, during the course of urgent distance education to which an immediate obligatory transition was made with the outbreak of the…

Scientific inquiry has been advocated as a common curriculum goal in school science education in South Africa, and also throughout the world. In South Africa, the introduction of inquiry-based instruction in a reformed science curriculum has met with serious challenges, such as the under-preparedness of in-service teachers. The purpose of this…

Curriculum materials can play a major role in shaping teachers' thinking about instruction and content as well as serve as a support for teachers' learning. With the inclusion of engineering in NGSS, many teachers may be turning to existing curriculum materials to help them infuse engineering into their science classroom, especially when they do…

In deciding on a student's grade in a class, an instructor generally needs to combine many individual grading judgments into one overall judgment. Two relatively common numerical scales used to specify individual grades are the 4-point scale (where each whole number 0-4 corresponds to a letter grade) and the percent scale (where letter grades A…

Two pendula of length "l," suspended from points separated by a horizontal distance a, can be joined in a trapezium configuration by linking the bobs with a light inextensible string of length b < a. Here we introduce this 'trapezoidal pendulum' as a charming and novel oscillatory system suitable for introductory physics laboratories.…

One of the objectives of science education in science centres has been the enhancement of interest in science. However, museum fatigue has a negative impact on interest. Museum fatigue has been described as physical tiredness or a decrease in visitors' interest in a museum. The learning experience of students in science centres is also influenced…

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are an effective way to expose large numbers of students to authentic research, yet most laboratory courses still use traditional "cookbook" methods. While barriers to using CUREs have been captured postimplementation, little is known about the decision mindset before implementation…

The knowledge and practice of science are rooted in culture. One specific theory that reflects this idea is that of culturally relevant science teaching. The challenge in the Philippines, being a multicultural nation, is that each indigenous community would have its own set of culture and beliefs. Indigenous peoples suffer from the failure of the…

Based on the "analytical framework of nature of science" (NOS) in junior school science textbooks, a content analysis method was adopted to analyze the NOS in junior middle school physical textbooks (grade 8) of five editions authorized by the Ministry of Education of China, and the features of NOS were analyzed and compared. It was…

We conducted a study with introductory and upper-division level physics students in a Mexican and a Spanish university to learn how students recognize the main characteristics of the electric field in three of its more widely used representations, namely, algebraic notation, vector field plot, and electric field lines, and how the students do…