This article describes a research study concerning students' conceptions and reasonings about fluids and pressure in static situations. After a preliminary survey involving interviews and observations in class, some written questions were answered by various groups, totalling 428 Italian and French pupils in upper secondary school, 458 first-year…

Many studies have investigated the classification of living things. Our study deals with a different problem: the attribution of life to one component of a living organism, specifically the bones. The task involves not only specifying what we mean by "alive", but also requires "informed thinking" leading to an understanding of…

Leaves of higher terrestrial plants have small pores--stomata--responsible for gas exchange. The opening of each stoma results from the osmotic uptake of water by two specialised cells--the guard cells. Because of the involvement in this mechanism of ATPase-proton pumps and active transport of ions across membranes, we have designed an Exploring…

Genetics is a difficult topic as it involves abstract concepts, which are not directly observable. Studies on using simulations to support the learning of genetics have largely been confined to the use of quantitative simulations to replace experimentation. This study describes the use of a new type of simulation built using an iconic modelling…

The paper reports a cross-cultural investigation conducted in 2001-2002 that seeks to reveal students' alternative ideas in two countries, Taiwan and Germany. It was carried out by means of semi-structured interviews in a story form. The targeted students were arbitrarily selected from grades 3 to 6 in both countries and amounted to 64. The…

This paper describes life-span development of understanding about pendulum motion and effects of school science. The subjects were 2,766 people ranging from kindergartners up to 88 years senior citizens. The conflict and consensus between children and their parent's understanding of pendulum motion were also analyzed. The kindergartner's…

What is a teacher to do when confronted with a student who says "I understand that theory (e.g., evolution), but I don't believe it"? The purpose of this article is to provide a rationale for answering this question. First we describe the various ways in which the terms "know/knowledge" and "believe/belief" are used and summarize the distinctions…

In our study, we focused on the conceptual understanding of the concepts and processes presented in the first lectures of an introductory course in cellular biology for biology majors. The study topic we considered was, "the structure of DNA and the functions of nucleotides". One hundred and eighteen students were asked to prepare concept maps…

Amateur astronomers regularly serve as informal astronomy educators for their communities. This research inquires into the level of knowledge of basic astronomy concepts among amateur astronomers and examines factors related to amateur astronomy that affect that knowledge. Using the concept questions from the Astronomy Diagnostic Test Version 2,…

This article discusses the viability of concepts such as complex systems theory, evolutionary theory and chaos theory as metaphors for being able to give a global perspective of one particular school described in a previous article entitled "Leading people in a chaotic world." The article restates and re-explains this one particular case in…

An evaluation was conducted to compare the impact of an 8-week cardiovascular disease risk reduction group teaching program for 92 individuals with mental retardation (MR; IQ less than 70) and 97 normal learners. The curriculum emphasized exercise, nutritional choices, and stress reduction. Body Mass Index (BMI; weight in kilograms, divided by…

The purpose of this article is to discuss evidence-based practice (EBP) from the perspective of a self-identified evidence-based practitioner. Discussion of EBP includes choosing an initial intervention and evaluation procedures, the iterative process of rechoosing and refining an intervention over the treatment life span, and the importance of…

It is customary for engineering syllabuses to include a substantial amount of mathematics, a fact traditionally justified through their usefulness in the analysis and resolution of many technological problems. In other words, usually the role of mathematics in engineering is emphasized. Nevertheless, the opposite viewpoint could be considered as…

The weak noncovalent interactions between substances, the handshake in the form of electrostatic interactions, van der Waals' interactions or hydrogen bonding is universal to all living and nonliving matter. They significantly influence the molecular and bulk properties and behavior of matter. Their transient nature affects chemical reactions and…

A computational experiment is described for the organic chemistry laboratory that allows students to estimate the relative strengths of the intramolecular hydrogen bonds of usnic and isousnic acids, two related lichen secondary metabolites. Students first extract and purify usnic acid from common lichens and obtain [superscript 1]H NMR and IR…