The paper deals with innovative teaching methods at universities. The result of this effort is the interactive P&E method, whose main idea is the interactive work with students while solving problem tasks. The main aim of the given method is to change the students' position, by means of experiment analyses and qualitative tasks, from a passive…

Engaging children's interest, inspiring active exploration of materials, and fostering cooperation between children and adults is the best way to promote the construction of knowledge. Some popular early childhood activities can be expanded to provide experiences and time for children to build on their prior knowledge. This column discusses…

Young students need opportunities to develop their conceptual understanding of properties of matter. By providing students with inquiry activities, we lay the groundwork necessary for students to grasp the challenging concepts associated with learning about the periodic table in middle school. In this 5E activity (Bybee 2009), fifth-grade students…

The lichen is an ideal subject for student study because it is omnipresent in school yards, easily collected and observed year-round, a pioneer of evolution on land, and a bioindicator of air pollution. After doing fieldwork on this unusual composite organism as an apprentice with a team of lichenologists, Sarah Thorne developed Learning Lichens.…

Because honeybees are so crucial to the ecosystems in which they exist, educating younger children on the usefulness and relative harmlessness of honeybees may be key to ensuring their survival among future generations. Described here is a unit that addresses the critical role of the honeybee in pollinating flowers using the 5E learning cycle…

Objectives: Among the 14 indicators identified in Monitoring Progress, this paper focuses on: the adequacy of instructional time (Indicator 2) and opportunities (Indicator 3) for science learning in grades K-5. This paper considers these two indicators together since they form the basis for opportunities to learn science in elementary school.…

Social communication deficits associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder are often exacerbated during adolescence. Group based approaches are effective intervention techniques for facilitating improved social communication skills in people with ASD; however, science, technology, engineering, and math activities, while highly preferred areas of…

This paper examines the differences and challenges encountered when trying to create informal blended (virtual and hands-on) engineering design STEM activities. It contrasts the creation of STEM activities for formal and informal learning environments, stressing that the differences extend far beyond the length of the activity or depth of any…

Metabolism involves numerous reactions and organic compounds that the student must master to understand adequately the processes involved. Part of biochemical learning should include some knowledge of the structure of biomolecules, although the acquisition of such knowledge can be time-consuming and may require significant effort from the student.…

The purpose of the study was to examine and describe the attitudes of Turkish early childhood children in science. This study explored the causal factors that influence children's attitudes toward science such as teachers' years of teaching experiences, frequency of teaching science in a week, and teachers' teaching style. Turkish children (N=44)…

One of the challenges of context-based science education is to construct high quality teaching materials. This paper presents results from a study investigating the heuristic value of an activity-based instructional framework for transformation of authentic scientific practices for use in the science classroom, in line with cultural historic…

This study addresses how to help elementary science teachers explore the uncertainty inherent in scientific activity and support elementary students to engage in more complex and authentic investigations. We describe a district partnership focused on understanding how to support elementary teachers to adapt curricula to promote science practices.…

Educators and researchers often suggest that participation in "real" science may help students "think like" or "see themselves as" scientists because students participate in and contribute to the broader scientific community. However, bringing citizen science (CS) activities into the classroom does not necessarily…

In this study, Activity Theory (AT) is used to analyse general patterns for how cultural and historical factors interact with the shaping of science activities in preschools. Data was produced from field notes, video observations, video stimulated recall group discussions and individual interviews with preschool teachers at fourteen preschool…

Socio-scientific inquiry-based learning (SSIBL) engages learners with local and global issues in which science and technology are interwoven, aiming to empower them to become active agents of change for their local communities. Within the PARRISE project, we worked with pre-service teachers on prioritising an "it matters" approach to…