Describes a program-specific assessment rubric that can be used as a tool to help facilitate and implement the National Science Education Standards with regard to science as inquiry. Presents an overview of the inquiry-based inservice program and discusses the development and use of the rubric with program participants. Contains 36 references.…

Describes the development and validation of an instrument for assessing culturally-sensitive factors of students' learning environments and for examining associations between these factors, students' achievement of inquiry skills, students' attitudes toward science, and teacher/student interactions. Discusses findings related to instrument…

Discusses reasons for involving middle-school students in genuine historical inquiry, including that it will foster perspectives, attributes, and critical-thinking skills required of informed citizens in a democratic society. Notes that requiring students to do so requires careful guidance and thoughtful preparation. Discusses nine considerations…

Examines three assumptions evident in the practice of art criticism models: (1) the connection of first impressions with the viewer's past experience; (2) the connection between sequential procedures and learning; and (3) the use of judgment as a necessary step in understanding. Describes a new criticism model that stresses understanding and…

Explores how three inquiry processes (iconology, iconography, and social art history) can enable art educators to develop interesting and relevant teaching approaches for the study of art. Gives examples of how the inquiry processes could be used in the art classroom. Explains that through inquiry methods, art historical understanding may be…

Describes "Off the Beaten Path", a program that takes at-risk students out of the traditional classroom and puts them into a camping atmosphere in order to increase academic achievement, improve self-esteem, and promote better social skills. (WRM)

Describes an activity to help students understand how feathers help insulate a bird's body. (WRM)

Presents ideas for teaching elementary school children about scientific inquiry methods. Recommends a Planning Board to scaffold students' thinking as they plan and conduct scientific investigations. (WRM)

Describes the Virginian gentlemen within the United States during the eighteenth century and illustrates the features of plantation mansions using the mansion owned by Fielding Lewis known as Kenmore. Presents a lesson that is centered around the estate inventory upon the death of Lewis. Provides the inventory and assignment sheet. (CMK)

Investigates how museum visits can be used to meet the goals of practical work. Introduces a framework to facilitate student learning in museums. Contains 31 references. (DDR)

Presents an exercise in which cutouts or outlines of dinosaur footprints placed independently or in sets on the floor and laboratory benches are used to model dinosaur trackways. The nature, size, speed, and specific behavior of the trackmaker are determined from the trackways and from student-derived data as well as from diagrams and models based…

Details an activity in which students are challenged to consider real-world problems. Students collect and organize data on two fish species, examine the data mathematically, draw conclusions about the organisms with which they work, and extrapolate the results to other environments. (DDR)

The National Science Education Standards "Science as Inquiry" recommendations include developing student abilities to conduct inquiry and enhancing students' understandings about scientific inquiry. Standards also call for inquiry-based teaching aimed at understanding subject matter and ability to conduct scientific inquiry. A…

Introduces a Storm Trackers unit that uses actual hurricane data to track hurricane movements. Uses an inquiry-based teaching approach in a cooperative learning environment. (YDS)

Discusses a research seminar for senior history majors that uses three documents: a written text, a photograph, and a material object. Focuses on how the object, a 19th-century curling iron, is used to elucidate discussion not only of the object, but hypotheses about individuals and society, and about historical research. (DSK)