Thermochromic paint can be made in the laboratory and used for temperature sensing by observation of colour changes. This can be illustrated by an improved method of showing comparative conductivity of heat by different materials, and an amusing method of indicating approximate temperatures of liquids in drinking glasses. The fabric Lycra, used to…

Engineering's promise to build a better world has been realized differently across the United States, often with lines of social identity determining who becomes an engineer, who benefits from engineering innovations, and who suffers devastating consequences. Many educational scholars have argued that engineering inequities are in part due to deep…

At the basic education level, content related to disasters is included in the scope of courses such as Life Sciences, Science, and Social Studies. Studies reveal that teachers and pre-service teachers who conduct these courses are not equipped with the necessary technological and pedagogical skills. It is predicted that integrating disasters and…

This project aims to develop primary, intermediate, and high school students' sense of place and science-related possible selves through local curriculum units that focus on plants. We chose plants because, compared with animals, they are often overlooked (hence the phenomenon of "plant blindness") in their part in realising many…

Contemporary education adopts various new visualisation techniques for content to be learned. Recently, research on the application of 3D modelling and printing (3DMP) has been expanding. However, as the latest literature reviews indicate, little research is available on the contribution of 3DMP to learning of students with blindness (SWB) and…

The study presented here is an action research that was conducted in a science and technology teaching course in a pre-service elementary teaching program at a private university in Turkey aiming at improving the pre-service elementary teachers' understanding of science and teaching science. In order to achieve this aim, an innovative approach,…

Discussions about power have only recently begun to appear in the learning sciences literature. Most of this important work takes a critical perspective; the present work complements these efforts by examining power sharing as a catalyst for empowerment in teacher-researcher co-design. Even though teacher-researcher collaborations are discussed in…

Scientific reasoning helps children understand the world around them. Teaching scientific reasoning can be challenging because not all component scientific reasoning skills develop at the same age and not all children learn these skills at the same pace. Adaptive support thus seems called for. We designed two types of adaptive instruction, based…

This study explores boundary-crossing interaction between two grade 5/6 science classrooms that operated as knowledge building communities. The two classrooms studied human body systems with the support of the Knowledge Forum over a ten-week period. The knowledge building practice integrated student-driven inquiry and discourse within each…

In scientific inquiry learning, manipulatives have been widely utilized as learning resources. Studies have explored the advantages of virtual manipulative (VM) for conceptual understanding and knowledge construction in science education. However, research on the mental engagement and perception of students during collaborative learning under…

This article presents a way to integrate storytelling with the teaching of science: by making graphic novels. It describes how gifted 9- and 10-year-old students at the author's school researched the elements found in the human body and then created illustrated poems tracing the entire 'history' of individual atoms. The article explores the ways…

Watson and McMahon's (2005) work identified a need for research to examine the what and how of children's career development learning; this research is a start to answering that call, specifically focusing on STEM career interest as a precursor to development due to the current needs nationally for an increase in the STEM pipeline. This study…

The science achievement of primary students, both in Australia and abroad, has been the subject of intensive research in recent decades. Consequently, much research has been conducted to investigate primary science education. Within this literature, there is a striking juxtaposition between tertiary science teaching preparation programs and the…

Literacy instruction in science and math in elementary education lays a critical foundation for later content literacy development and the learning of content subjects in middle and high school. However, limited research has investigated the theoretical basis of instructional practices for science and math literacy instruction at the elementary…

The purpose of this study is to explore third grade elementary students' Nature of Science (NOS) identities as a result of participating in a unit on electricity. The study took place in the context of a diverse third grade "at risk" (as identified by state regulations) classroom. Videotapes were made of all aspects of the electricity…