In a classroom or take-home activity, students are challenged to write their name as a combination of chemical-element symbols and calculate "their" molar mass. Age-appropriate versions ranging from middle school to entry-level college classes are discussed. Acceptable molar-mass suggestions may be used in a competition for the heaviest…

The cause of day and night is a difficult concept to master without concrete foundational skills of understanding shadows, rotation, changing point of view, and relative positions of objects in the sky. This pretest-posttest experimental-control group study examined student learning in a science-literacy-spatial skills integrated unit with…

Underwater robots (or ROVs: Remotely Operated Vehicles as they are typically called in industry) have recently become a very popular instructional STEM activity. Nationally, ROVs have been used in science and technology classrooms for several years in cities such as Seattle, San Diego, Virginia Beach, and other coastal areas. In the past two…

From the perspective of teaching, the huge natural laboratory that astronomy provides constitutes the most prominent connection between astronomy and other branches of science. The purpose of this research was to provide educators with activities of observation using simple materials that were developed to facilitate the teaching of basic concepts…

The integration of an undergraduate science content course and science methods course into a single combined course for preservice teachers, including a precourse field experience, was undertaken at a small, liberal arts college. The conceptual framework for this new delivery system was grounded in the "Next Generation Science Standards…

This study explores ways in which university science courses can be infused with opportunities for pre-service teachers to design student student interactions that promote language development and content mastery. Participants included bilingual pre-service teachers enrolled in an elementary science approaches course and its school-based fieldwork…

This study reports on the professional learning of two teachers of science who were learning to engage their grade four students in meaningful, hands-on learning. Teachers' learning took place in the context of a 10-month university-based action research program designed to help improve the practice of science, technology, engineering and…

Educative curriculum materials present a promising mechanism for promoting more ambitious science teaching in elementary classrooms, including engaging students in science practices. Integrating science practices with science content is emphasized in new education reforms. Elementary teachers, however, face challenges in engaging children in…

Few research studies have examined postintervention data from professional development interventions on science teaching and learning. Given the limited research, it is recommended that more studies examine the lasting effects of science professional development on teachers and students. The purpose of this current study was to examine the…

This classroom observation study explored how science teachers (N = 22) teach for creativity in grades 5-10 in Oman. We designed an observation form with 4 main categories that targeted the instructional practices related to teaching for creativity: questioning strategy, teacher's responses to students' ideas, classroom activities to support…

Students used a compass trail to show how they could perform service to their school. When students performed service learning, they completed a real task that was needed for a grateful audience conjoined with academic content in the lesson. Students worked on the school grounds and used content from their regular curriculum while looking for…

In this study, an integrated gaming and multistage guiding approach was proposed for conducting in-field mobile learning activities. A mobile learning system was developed based on the proposed approach. To investigate the interaction between the gaming and guiding strategies on students' learning performance and motivation, a 2 × 2 experiment was…

This article has two aims: (a) to offer a new model for a teacher preparation course that features reflection and teaching as integral, inseparable actions and (b) to provide empirical evidence from an exploratory ethnography to demonstrate teacher development possibilities with this model. The model, termed "Transformative Reflection,"…

This study explored two elementary teachers and their students' perceptions of multiliteracies in science. The technological components of multiliteracies, including online communication tools, were of particular interest for this paper. The multiple case study included: two teachers and their students. One teacher taught a fourth grade classroom…

This article presents a lesson plan that uses materials such as rope, drinking water, and straws in a classroom activity to teach elementary students about electrical circuits in a "hands on/minds on" fashion. Students first experiment with bulbs, wires, and switches, then they do an activity with simulating electricity through a circuit…