This article reports on an experimental scheme in adult education designed for people with curiosity about, but limited formal education in, science. It is offered within a department of humanities and focuses on "ideas" drawn from science, rather than on facts, phenomena or formulae. It involves different approaches to teaching,…

Energy is not only a core concept in physics but also a major issue in our post-Kyoto world. When using a constructivist approach to teaching, we need to be aware of students' preconceptions. A palette of alternative frameworks, which includes those used by adults within the community, can facilitate this. An exploration of energy issues with…

The teaching of energy throws up many different approaches and causes many arguments. This paper describes yet another approach to teaching the subject matter using a system of diagrams, but hopefully one that will be an acceptable compromise for many teachers. Lord Rutherford is often quoted as saying, "All science is either physics or stamp…

A person's first significant "hands-on" encounter with mechanical things during childhood often comes through use of a bicycle. Almost all of us have personal experience with this element of transportation technology. Educators can use the bicycle to address a variety of standards that involve tool use, mechanics, science, math, and the interplay…

The development of the concept of matter was explored in children aged 3-13. Eighty four children were asked to classify four sets of objects and matter and to explain their classifications during interviews. Younger children tended to classify using a mixture of extensive properties (properties of objects) and intensive properties (properties of…

Investigation involving children's understandings of scientific concepts have been a dominant area of research in science education over the last 2 1/2 decades. One fruitful outcome of these studies is to alert teachers to difficulties in learning science. Although this information is commendable in highlighting their existence, not much is…

Attempts to frame the study of teaching and learning in explicitly scientific terms are not new, but they have been growing in prominence. Journals, conferences, and centres of "learning science" are appearing with remarkable frequency. However, in most of these invocations of an educational "science", "science" itself is understood largely in…

Quantum fields are introduced in order to give students an accurate qualitative understanding of the origin of Feynman diagrams as representations of particle interactions. Elementary diagrams are combined to produce diagrams representing the main features of the Standard Model.

People usually talk about "hot and cold" colours without really thinking of the impact these definitions may have on scientific understanding. These colours are associated with the human sensations of hot and cold, and this idea is consistent with commonsense and daily experience. Interacting with students, we detect conceptual conflicts when they…

In April 2005 the World Year of Physics (Einstein Year in the UK and Ireland) was celebrated with an Einstein week in Stockholm House of Science. Seven experiments illustrated Einstein's remarkable work in 1905 on Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect and special relativity. Thirteen school classes with 260 pupils, 30 teachers and 25 members…

A serendipitous finding involving static magnetic fields can be used to design experiments suitable for both science and nonscience majors. It has been reported that organisms respond differently to high-gauss magnetic fields generated by north poles than they do to those generated by south poles. Experimental tests of this hypothesis are ideal…

Several chemical concepts to the extraction of a water pollutant OPC (octylphenoxyacetic acid) is presented. As an introduction to the laboratory experiment, a discussion on endocrine disrupters is conducted to familiarize the student with the background of the experiment and to explain the need for the extraction and quantitation of the OPC which…

An equation derived by Albert Einstein in 1905 that expresses a relationship between mass and energy, formulated as E = mc(super 2) is discussed with reference to the extent mass is conserved. This query can be used to challenge students and develop their language and critical thinking skills.

A number of chemical concepts can be easily illustrated in a more friendly way to children by using toys as teaching tools in the classroom. Some of the examples illustrated are shrinking toys, drinking birds and hand boiler.

Genetic engineering and biotechnology made possible of gene transfer without discriminating microorganism, plant, animal or human. However, although these scientific techniques have benefits, they cause arguments because of their ethical and social impacts. The arguments about ethical ad social impacts of biotechnology made clear that not only…