School-wide curriculum initiatives are complex fields of activity, held together by a cast of heterogeneous actors who put diverse discourses to work in their everyday efforts to shape their work. This paper draws upon qualitative data collected across an 18-month period in a regional Australian primary school that, since the beginning of 2012,…

Scientific research is undergoing a "big data" revolution, as probes deployed in oceans, the atmosphere, and outer space provide near real-time data streams. As more and more data sets such as Ocean Tracks become available online, opportunities to engage students in the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States…

The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public Carnegie Foundation Research institution with 14 schools and colleges that enrolls more than 18,000 undergraduate students at the main campus in Storrs, CT. Beginning in 1999, First-Year Experience (FYE) seminars were offered to entering freshman students. Since that time, the size of the program…

This paper presents a new mobile software tool, PhotoMAT (Photo Management and Analysis Tool), and students' experiences with this tool within a scaffolded curricular unit--Neighborhood Safari. PhotoMAT was designed to support learners' investigations of backyard animal behavior and works with image sets obtained using fixed-position field cameras…

Recent research indicates that Therapeutic Horseback Riding (THR), as a part of animal-assisted therapy, yields several positive results. THR is an intervention utilizing horses to improve behaviors of individuals with disabilities. The current study attempted to add to the research regarding THR effectiveness on children with Autism Spectrum…

The introduction to the "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS") calls for students to learn science within the context of practice because "practices alone are activities and content alone is memorization. It is through integration that science begins to make sense and allows students to apply the material" (NGSS…

The neural mechanisms underlying the attainment of fear memory accuracy for appropriate discriminative responses to aversive and nonaversive stimuli are unclear. Considerable evidence indicates that coactivator of transcription and histone acetyltransferase cAMP response element binding protein (CREB) binding protein (CBP) is critically required…

Memories relating to a painful, negative event are adaptive and can be stored for a lifetime to support preemptive avoidance, escape, or attack behavior. However, under unfavorable circumstances such memories can become overwhelmingly powerful. They may trigger excessively negative psychological states and uncontrollable avoidance of locations,…

The retrosplenial cortex supports navigation, with one role thought to be the integration of different spatial cue types. This hypothesis was extended by examining the integration of nonspatial cues. Rats with lesions in either the dysgranular subregion of retrosplenial cortex (area 30) or lesions in both the granular and dysgranular subregions…

This article highlights a core lesson that has been used in a number of Lincoln Park Zoo educational programs. The lesson teaches students to conduct an ethological, or animal behavior, study on a bird. This study can be implemented in a variety of outdoor settings, including a park, schoolyard, or zoo. Using an ethogram, students will practice…

This article reviews the literature on learning and memory in the soil-dwelling nematode "Caenorhabditis elegans." Paradigms include nonassociative learning, associative learning, and imprinting, as worms have been shown to habituate to mechanical and chemical stimuli, as well as learn the smells, tastes, temperatures, and oxygen levels that…

Choice may be defined as the allocation of behavior among activities. Since all activities take up time, choice is conveniently thought of as the allocation of time among activities, even if activities like pecking are most easily measured by counting. Since dynamics refers to change through time, the dynamics of choice refers to change of…

Cannabinoid CB1 receptor is abundantly expressed throughout the CNS and is implicated in numerous physiological and behavioral functions, including appetite and feeding. In the present study, wild-type and CB1 heterozygous and homozygous knockout mice were tested on an instrumental outcome-selective devaluation task to assess changes in acquired…

Birds are among the most fascinating creatures on Earth, found on every continent and prevalent even in human-dominated landscapes. Some are beautiful, others are accomplished singers, and all play important roles in the ecosystems in which they live. Even amateur birders have made important discoveries about birds, and there is still a lot to…

Beyond its trophic function, the neurotrophin BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) is well known to crucially mediate synaptic plasticity and memory formation. Whereas recent studies suggested that acute BDNF/TrkB signaling regulates amygdala-dependent fear learning, no impairments of cued fear learning were reported in heterozygous BDNF…