There is now broad agreement that learners in primary and secondary school science need to know how to interpret and construct subject-specific ways of representing science activity and knowledge. There is also growing recognition that students are more motivated and learn more when they have opportunities to refine understandings through revising…

This paper reports results of a qualitative study of sixteen students enrolled in a second year organic chemistry course for chemistry and chemical engineering majors. The focus of the study was student use of the arrow-pushing formalism that plays a central role in both the teaching and practice of organic chemistry. The goal of the study was to…

This study aims to determine prospective science student teachers' alternative conceptions of the chemical equilibrium concept. A 13-item pencil and paper, two-tier multiple choice diagnostic instrument, the Test to Identify Students' Alternative Conceptions (TISAC), was developed and administered to 90 second-semester science student teachers…

This research study aims to examine the effectiveness of a problem-based learning (PBL) on 9th grade students' understanding of intermolecular forces (dipole-dipole forces, London dispersion forces and hydrogen bonding). The student's alternate conceptions about intermolecular bonding and their beliefs about PBL were also measured. Seventy-eight…

These science activities for elementary students focus on the external structures and functions of the human eye with hands-on object box activities based on the Montessori theory (1966) of concrete learning through manipulation of objects and focus of attention through touch. Object boxes are sets of items and corresponding cards housed in a box.…

We begin by drawing upon the available literature to identify four characteristics of teacher talk likely to support student learning about the epistemology of science: making appropriate statements about the epistemology of science in the classroom, linking the epistemology of science with specific science concepts, stating and justifying…

Planning effective, engaging lessons and units are challenging tasks for a teacher, but the process can also be meaningful and rewarding. Using a "big understanding"--a guiding statement describing essential content you want students to learn throughout the unit--teachers can successfully plan and create lessons around substantive science content…

We describe an extended third-year undergraduate chemistry laboratory exercise in which a number of techniques and concepts are applied to the same set of chemical reactions. The reactions are the photochemical and thermal cycloadditions of [beta]-nitrostyrene and 2,3-dimethylbutadiene. This can be viewed as a single long lab or a series of…

A-DNA and B-DNA are two secondary molecular conformations (among other allomorphs) that double-stranded DNA drawn into a fiber can assume, depending on the relative water content and other chemical parameters of the fiber. They were the first two forms to be observed by X-ray fiber diffraction in the early 1950s, respectively by Wilkins and…

The dire need of some schools to boost the academic performance of their students inevitably rests with their ability to attract highly qualified teachers. As such, the UK has put in place the Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) scheme, while the US has set the ball rolling in laying down standards for the certification of the master science teacher, to…

This study was undertaken to gain insights into undergraduate students' understanding of early embryonic development, specifically, how well they comprehend the concepts of volume constancy, cell lineages, body plan axes, and temporal and spatial dimensionality in development. To study student learning, a curriculum was developed incorporating…

Traditional courses for graduate students in the biological sciences typically span a semester, are organized around the fundamental concepts of a single discipline, and are aimed at the needs of incoming students. Such courses demand significant time commitment from both faculty and course participants; thus, they are avoided by a subset of the…

This article allows students to apply their knowledge and experience of area and volume to find the volume of Norris Lake, a large reservoir lake in Tennessee. Students have the opportunity to demonstrate their skills in using maps and scales as well as to incorporate the use of technology in developing the solution. This project satisfied the…

This study is an analysis of the effectiveness of a faculty-designed laboratory experience about a difficult topic, cellular respiration. The activity involves a hands-on model of the cellular-respiration process, making use of wooden ball-and-stick chemistry models and small toy trucks on a table top model of the mitochondrion. Students…

Teleo-functional explanations account for objects in terms of purpose, helping us understand objects such as pencils (for writing) and body parts such as ears (for hearing). Western-educated adults restrict teleo-functional attributions to artifact, biological, and behavioral phenomena, considering such explanations less appropriate for nonliving…