Explains the mechanisms and describes the processes that underlie gravitropism in roots. Reviews experimental efforts and investigative results that explored the causes of root behavior. (ML)

Reports recent findings related to the particle Higgs boson and examines its possible contribution to the standard mode of elementary processes. Critically explores the strengths and uncertainties of the Higgs boson and proposed Higgs field. (ML)

Provides a general analysis of the problem of relating private, cognitive mechanisms of individuals to their public behavior. A computational model of language acquisition is offered. Conclusions are related to Piaget's notion of mutual verification and to some general philosophical questions about learning. (Author/RH)

Findings obtained from 90 first- through fifth-grade children indicate that children grasp the direct relationships between speed and distance and between duration and distance before they grasp the inverse relationship between speed and duration--a finding which may represent a general principle of cognitive development. (Author/RH)

A scheme has been developed which charts the phases through which the disciplines in the social sciences and humanities progressed before reconceptualization from the new scholarship on women transformed those disciplines. Application of this scheme to biology suggests that biology is only beginning to approach the phase of reconceptualization.…

Discusses Newton's assignment of a complex hierarchical structure to matter, and his postulation of the existence of various forces associated with the particles of matter. (MLH)

The hypotheses formulated by J. Monod in "Le hasard et la necessite" (1970) regarding biological evolution are applied to linguistic evolution. It is concluded that the two processes are similar. (Text is in French.) (CDSH/AM)

This ERIC Digest concerns the constructed knowledge (also called nave knowledge or prior conceptions) held by students and the changes required to alter students' framework to understand and believe the true science concepts involved. This process is called conceptual change. Theoretical framework of conceptual change, what exactly is conceptual…

The National Research Council (NRC) (1996) refers to scientific inquiry as "the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and propose explanations based on the evidence derived from their work." This could be paraphrased, as 'scientific inquiry is what scientists say it is.' Accepting this rephrasing at face value, a study has been…

Researchers spend much time and effort developing measures, including measures of students? conceptual knowledge. In an effort to make such assessments easier to design, the Principled Assessment Designs for Inquiry (PADI) project has developed a framework for designing tasks and to illustrate that its use has ?reverse engineered? several …

This paper provides information on an exploratory study about informal formative assessment practices in three science classrooms implementing a physical science curriculum focusing in buoyancy. We provide a framework for examining these practices based on three components of formative assessment (eliciting, recognizing and using information) and…

This textbook is a course on properties of heat. The first seven lectures of the course deal with "thermometric heat" and its generation and consumption in mechanical processes; the determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat; the conception of heat as molecular motion; the application of this conception to the solid, liquid, and…

Describes three approaches to a study of the earth's past: (1) development of a time line of the ages; (2) a study of rocks and how each was formed; and (3) a study of fossils as found in certain kinds of stone. (Editor)

The problem of observing a collision between two spaceships is utilized to illustrate the misuse of time dilation and length contraction, and the incorrect description of space-time coordinates in special relativity. (Author/DF)