Presents examples of chemical education research that illustrate changes in focus, method, and direction over the past 50 years. Contains more than 50 references. (WRM)

Describes the affective factors involved in the academic progress and achievement of newly-arrived bilingual twins in a secondary school in London. Finds that different personality traits and self-perceptions resulted in the development of their divergent personal learning styles, and that task interest, appropriate learning strategies, and…

Presents a series of lessons that use Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives to teach students the various levels of knowledge and how to form questions that address each level. (PR)

Explores the potential of the RAY learning environment in improving learning about optics. Results indicate that this environment, which includes a flexible ray-tracing simulation, had a significant effect on the spontaneous and correct use of the model by students in solving problems and a limited effect on conceptual understanding, but promoted…

Investigated whether preservice elementary teachers in Argentina and Israel held scientific views that enabled them to correctly nstruct their future students to achieve a concept of energy, noting differences between the scientific concepts of students in the two countries. Questionnaire data indicated that students were very similar, but their…

Describes the planning and implementation of a science week intended to raise the awareness of science in an elementary school. Educational requirements included exciting science happenings and concentrated science teaching of a high standard. The week included demonstrations, guest speakers, and schoolwide assemblies. Demonstrations included the…

Explains how students can perform a refutation of the ether theory using information from the Global Positioning System (GPS). Discusses the functioning of the GPS, qualitatively describes how position determination would be affected by an ether wind, and illustrates the pertinent ideas with a simple quantitative model. (WRM)

A lot of good elementary science involves studying solids, liquids, and gases, and some inquiry-based activities that are easy to set up and do. In this article, the author presents activities pertaining to simple phase change. Using water as the example, these activities introduce upper-grade students to the idea of the arrangement of molecules…

DECIDE is a teacher-friendly, integrated approach designed to stimulate learning by allowing students to make decisions about situations they face in their lives while using scientific weather principles. This learning unit integrates weather science, decision theory, mathematics, statistics, geography, and reading in a context of decision…

For several decades, science teachers have used bottles for classroom projects designed to teach students about biology. Bottle projects do not have to just focus on biology, however. These projects can also be used to engage students in Earth science topics. This article describes the Earth System Science Project, which was adapted and developed…

The concept of waves is fundamental due to its occurrence throughout the natural world. Because the concept occurs in so many places, students come to the classroom with prior knowledge, as well as misconceptions, about waves. Students have misconceptions about what is waving in a wave, what properties of the medium determine wave speed, and how…

First-year students in genetics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, attend two general biology modules, one in each semester. Teaching involves four formal lectures per week of 45 min each, one 3-h practical, and one lecture period tutorial. These students, graduating from secondary education, are well schooled in rote learning but…

The purposes of this study are: to apply the ARCS model in designing an acid and bases unit, and to assess a single class of 11th graders for motivation and achievement outcomes before and after ARCS instruction. Four essential strategies for designing motivation instruction in the ARCS model were: Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and…

The effects of a Self Regulated Learning (SRL) environment on pre-service primary teachers of Science and Technology were investigated in this exploratory study. A representative sample of teachers was interviewed about their experience and how it impacted on them pedagogically, affectively, conceptually and metacognitively. The preliminary…

This paper presents the development and evaluation of a web-based lesson--Lesson Rainbow. This lesson features multiple representations (MRs), which purposefully deliver concepts in relation to distinctive disciplinary subject areas through story-based animations that are closely related to learners' life experiences. The researchers selected 58…