It seems hard to believe that Dolly the cloned sheep was born 10 years ago, kindling furious arguments over the prospects and ethics of cloning a human. Today, the controversy over cloning is entwined, often confused, with concerns over the use of human embryonic stem cells. Most people are unclear what cloning is, and they know even less when it…

School-based body mass index (BMI) screening and parent notification programs have been advanced as an obesity prevention strategy. However, little is known about how to develop and implement programs. This qualitative study explored the opinions and beliefs of parents of elementary school students concerning school-based BMI screening programs,…

Many students find it difficult to learn the kinds of knowledge and thinking required by college or high school courses in mathematics, science, or other complex domains. Thus they often emerge with significant misconceptions, fragmented knowledge, and inadequate problem-solving skills. Most instructors or textbook authors approach their teaching…

The main objective of the study reported in this paper was to construct a Lakatosian teaching strategy that can facilitate conceptual change in students' understanding of chemical equilibrium. The strategy is based on the premise that cognitive conflicts must have been engendered by the students themselves in trying to cope with different problem…

This document resulted from the efforts of the Brevard County (Florida) Science Leadership Team, a group of science teachers with a wide spectrum of experiences and philosophies. It contains a series of recommendations based on national trends for change in curriculum. Sections include Scientific Literacy for All, Stakeholders and Their Roles,…

The bilingual English/Haitian Creole dictionary is intended to provide teachers with Haitian Creole equivalents for basic English terms used in science. It contains over 3,000 English terms used in physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, earth sciences, medicine, geography, and so on, with Haitian Creole equivalents. The book is divided into two…

This study investigated fourth graders' (N=18) self-generated analogies and the effects of their collaborative reasoning and arguing over these analogies on individual understanding of three scientific phenomena concerning air pressure. The data were subjected to both a qualitative and quantitative analysis. The first showed that the children, on…

This book contains innovative hands-on science laboratory activities that teach basic scientific method skills and are designed to be used directly with 4th- through 9th-grade students. The background materials and instructions included in each activity are written for students to work together in teams. Lab titles are: observation lab,…

This paper presents research on middle school students working on large science projects in the Knowledge Integration Environment. The objective was to develop an exemplary program of metacognitive prompts to encourage principled knowledge integration by students working on large science projects. The research indicates that metacognitive…

The last decade has seen the development of a number of computer-based interactive physics programs at the university level. Set in a cognitive apprenticeship framework, such programs view the instructor as a mentor, and the essential learning constructed in a collaborative process. It is expected that such programs, grounded as they are in…

Today's curricula must incorporate activities that help students make science concepts and skills their own. Many suggest that teachers should allow students to relate classroom lessons to their own lives, explore a wide variety of applications and connections to other knowledge and experience, and consolidate the learning in ways they will…

The purpose of the WOWBug project was to promote "Melittobia digitata," a fruit-fly sized wasp, as a new organism for life science instruction and to determine the potential usefulness of the wasp to teach fundamental life science concepts. Fifty-five middle school teachers were introduced to the WOWBug and practiced with prototype…

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of eighteen 11th grade high school chemistry students' prior mathematical knowledge on their understanding of certain chemical concepts (symbol, formula, and equation). It also investigated students' ideas about the meaning of plus sign, reaction sign, and the relationships between subscript, and…

This report describes the June 1992 assessment of the Biologie 200 curriculum in schools in Manitoba, Canada. It contains a description and analysis of the test results and the teacher survey. The report also includes recommendations on ways to improve the Biologie 200 curriculum and how it is taught in the French Immersion program and…

Distillation in the chemistry laboratory is an essential part of a practicing chemists' and a chemistry educators' work. Nevertheless, regardless of the degree of importance in each of the aforementioned professions, few educational studies on teaching and learning distillation exist. In an effort to rectify this oversight, the Department of…