This study investigates how the acceleration and speed of a light-emitting object on an inclined plane may be determined using a smartphone's light sensor. A light-emitting object was released from the top of an inclined plane and its illuminance values were detected by a smartphone's light sensor during its subsequent motion down the plane. Using…

A laboratory experiment is described for beginning, nonmajor chemistry students, which allows students to examine the phenomena of fluorescence and chemiluminescence, as well as gain experience in basic organic synthesis. Students synthesize fluorescein and bis(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl) oxalate (TCPO) to explore fluorescence and chemiluminescence by…

In this article Dave Vernier describes how he turned the total eclipse on August 21, 2017 into a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) lesson by taking data. He asked teachers and former teachers to join in collecting data and to share it. The most frequently monitored parameters were illuminance (a measure of light brightness as…

The College of Lake County Regional Photonics Initiative project was motivated in part by the hiring of out-of-state technicians for local Photonics industry positions. Fifteen high paying employment opportunities during the recent recession could not be filled from the locally available workforce. Research on the current demand and future growth…

Contribution: A hybrid approach involving reduced lecture content with project-based learning (PBL) was introduced to a standalone course in optics at an engineering school not specialized in this area, with promising results. Background: At most schools, optics is an elective "niche" area involving a single senior course. This presents…

Although research and new technologies have introduced different ways of observing microorganisms, including scanning and electron microscopy, these methods are expensive and require equipment that is typically not found in a middle school classroom. The transmission-through-dye technique (TTD; Gregg et al., 2010), a new optical microscopy method…

In 1849, Hippolyte Fizeau determined the speed of light in a famous experiment. The idea was to measure the time taken for a pulse of light to travel between an intense light source and a mirror about 8 km away. A rotating cogwheel with 720 notches, that could be rotated at a variable speed, was used to chop the light beam and determine the flight…

As every elementary teacher knows, an elementary classroom is a busy place. While literacy and mathematics command the majority of hours of the school day, many schools are left with an inadequate amount of time to devote to science. In an urban district, students in grades K-5 receive a mere 30 minutes a day for science and social studies. There…

Nanoscience development affects almost every discipline of science, engineering, and technology. Not surprisingly, "the science of small" is also finding its way into science classrooms. In general, "nano" refers to a billionth of a meter--about 1/50,000 the width of a hair follicle. The term "nanoparticle" usually…

A simple demonstration that is occasionally used in the classroom to show that light carries momentum involves making an orchestral cymbal audibly ring using light from a common photoflash. A metal plate or a piece of foil can also be used; however, it appears that many people use a cymbal because the sound is easily heard at a reasonable…

This column provides background science information for elementary teachers. This month's issue helps teachers to understand color mixing so that they can teach this information to students.

Energy belongs to the core ideas of the physics curriculum. But at the same time, energy is one of the most complex topics in science education since it occurs in multiple ways, such as motion, sound, light, and thermal energy. It can neither be destroyed nor created, but only converted. Due to the variety of relevant scales and abstractness of…

The aim of this study is to better understand how teachers use various embodied semiotic modes -- speech, gestures, gaze, and proxemics -- when they present scientific content to the entire class. To analyse the multimodal practices of these teachers, we integrated the social semiotic theory of multimodality and the joint action theory in…

Conceptual knowledge is a crucial tool for students to understand scientific phenomena. Knowledge about the structure and function of mental concepts potentially helps science educators to foster the acquisition of this tool. Specifically, the coherence of students' mental concepts is an intensely discussed issue within the related conceptual…

The changing nature of education has forced educators to rethink the role of classrooms in student learning. Prior research has shown that the environmental and structural design of education centers impact student learning. With a dozen variables to deal with, classroom designers are faced with the daunting task of selecting one plan from the…