Selected 4-H youth participated in the Texas 4-H Livestock Ambassador program. Forty-five youth participated in the 3-day program delivered by university professors and staff, Texas AgriLife Extension faculty and industry representatives. An instrument was developed and administered to the Texas 4-H Livestock Ambassadors at the end of their first…

Conservation efforts such as the restoration of European bison or the support of wolf immigration into Germany are often socio-scientifically controversial. In many cases, disputes are based on individuals' threat perception and attitudes towards the animal involved. The herewith reported study provides qualitative insights into German…

"Nativeness" has been recognised for two decades now as a problematic concept within applied linguistics, yet other areas of language analysis have been slow to question it, with some continuing to treat it as a primordial fact of nature. This paper briefly examines the history of the "native speaker" and the shifts in thinking…

The perception of science as boring is a major issue for teachers at all instructional levels. Tertiary classes especially suffer from a reputation for being dry, instructor-centered, and irrelevant to the lives of students. However, previous research has shown that science can be interesting to students if it is presented in such a manner as to…

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of the lecture and discussion teaching methods and digital game-based learning on student achievement in agriculture and mathematics regarding a unit on swine diseases in animal science courses offered through secondary agricultural education programs in Oklahoma. Three research questions…

The purpose of the present quasi-experimental study was to examine the impact of a horseshoe crab citizen science program on student achievement and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career motivation with 86 (n = 86) eighth-grade students. The treatment group conducted fieldwork with naturalists and collected data for a…

The use of informal science education in rural areas, especially at rural middle schools has not been well documented. Although rural areas have accessible outdoor learning environments compared to urban areas, teachers are less likely to incorporate informal science activities. The purpose of this study was to evaluate two seventh grade life…

Federal natural resource agencies are facing a human resource crisis. Many natural resource professionals are reaching retirement and attracting young adults to fill vacancies may prove difficult. Although currently on the rise from a recent fall, enrollment in natural resource degree programs has not increased overall in the past three decades,…

The increasing incidence of autism and the lack of specific answers regarding causation have given rise to unproven educational interventions and medical treatments. Parents of a newly diagnosed child can easily fall prey to interventions that promise cures. These interventions may be harmful and, thus, pose one of the critical issues in special…

A physical model was used in a laboratory exercise to teach students about countercurrent exchange mechanisms. Countercurrent exchange is the transport of heat or chemicals between fluids moving in opposite directions separated by a permeable barrier (such as blood within adjacent blood vessels flowing in opposite directions). Greater exchange of…

Purpose: The central aim of this study was to determine the perception of aquaculture educational provisions in the state of Victoria, and whether they are sufficient to ultimately support further growth of the industry. Design/methodology/approach: Questionnaires were formulated and distributed to participants in a variety of ways, including via…

At a 5-day summer camp designed for middle-school girls (N = 50), fifth through ninth-grade students were able to identify with individual scientists and learn more about the science field. Data from the girls' journals, pictorial representations, and field notes demonstrated that these young women related to scientists who actively engaged them…

Although competition is regarded as a powerful motivator in game-based learning, it might have a negative influence, such as damage to confidence, on students who lose the competition. In this paper, we propose an indirect approach, substitutive competition, to alleviate such negative influences. The approach is used to develop a My-Pet v3 system,…

At the James Weldon Johnson Leadership Academy in East Harlem, New York, administrators, teachers, students, families, and community-based artists worked together to create a visually explosive environment that reflected enriched learning experiences based on their multidisciplinary study of New York's history. The Mano a Mano ("Hand to…

Intrinsic persistent spiking mechanisms in medial entorhinal cortex (mEC) neurons may play a role in active maintenance of working memory. However, electrophysiological studies of rat mEC units have primarily focused on spatial modulation. We sought evidence of differential spike rates in the mEC in rats trained on a T-maze, cued spatial delayed…