Describes the use of plastic bottles in making science models and displays, including wall displays of leaf structure and function, model teeth, and a model villus. (WRM)

Presents ideas for Montessori early childhood educators to better support children's developing concept of time. Examines how families can use language more accurately to help children develop a meaningful time sense. Discusses how the concepts of sequence, order, and duration strengthen children's sense of time. Considers celebrations, calendars…

Describes a study of the effectiveness of using role-play in teaching the functions of the kidney to secondary science students. Results suggest that the teaching technique is effective. (Author/WRM)

Investigates whether and how peer collaboration facilitated students' problem solving in physics. Finds that students' success was due to how they interacted and whether and how they invoked the relevant physics principles. (Author/CCM)

Examines the significance of the accuracy and legitimacy of computer models through a recent case study of a local authority-operated air-quality model in the British city of Sheffield. (CCM)

Presents an accurate answer for a common problem related to Archimedes' principle in order to correct an erroneous one given in popular physics texts. (WRM)

Recent research has revealed the existence of intuitive representations strongly rooted in diverse knowledge domains and the difficulties of modifying those representations through instruction by means of conceptual change processes (Carey, 1995; Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1997; Vosniadou, 1994). According to some interpretations, these representations…

We describe an iteratively designed sequence of activities involving the modelling of one-dimensional collisions between moving objects based on programming in ToonTalk. Students aged 13-14 years in two settings (London and Cyprus) investigated a number of collision situations, classified into six classes based on the relative velocities and…

There are many ways of assessing students and the work they do, and many ways of getting them ready for those assessments. Special needs students provide an extra challenge to educators because they have difficulty preparing for assessment and often more difficulty communicating what they know. It is not enough to be a thoughtful, lab-focused…

In this article, we examine the role of visuospatial cognition in chemistry learning. We review three related kinds of literature: correlational studies of spatial abilities and chemistry learning, students' conceptual errors and difficulties understanding visual representations, and visualization tools that have been designed to help overcome…

The concepts of sky and visibility distance, as perceived by different learners, are investigated for the first time as a subject of a science education research. Mental models of students with regard to the subject were elicited. They were interpreted in terms of two-level hierarchy: schemes and facets-of-knowledge (defined in the paper). Our…

This study investigates how 25 junior high school students employed their bodies of knowledge and responded to problem cues while individually performing a science experiment and reasoning about a drops phenomenon. Line-by-line content analysis conducted on students' written ad hoc explanations aimed to reveal students' concepts and their…

This article explores the concept of the center of gravity and the geometry involved in locating the center of gravity of an object. (Contains 15 figures.)

In this article, the authors offer a safe, fun, effective way to introduce geology concepts to elementary school children of all ages: "coring" layer cakes. This activity introduces the concepts and challenges that geologists face and at the same time strengthens students' inferential, observational, and problem-solving skills. It also addresses…

Genetics is often a fascinating but difficult subject for middle level students. They can see the results of genes in every organism, but trying to visualize what happens at the level of genes is challenging for concrete thinkers. The author discusses an approach that helps students understand how genotypes can translate into phenotypes, then…