Discussed is the need for examining the reasons for teaching optics to help to determine how optics should be taught. (SL)

This guide is intended for teachers and other educators confronting the challenge of using technology to enhance the way they teach science. Accompanying the recent boom in education Web sites has been the production of guides and guidelines, models, and methodologies for planning technology reforms in school districts, school buildings, and…

The importance of teaching environmental issues within science curriculum is getting more important, because environmental education offers an opportunity to learn not only science subject matter but also introduce social and cognitive skills. The purpose of this paper is to look at the relationship between science education and environmental…

This study identifies a core set of exemplary standards and benchmarks that are accepted by a significant number of educators in the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) region. Specifically, the study provides a list of the knowledge and skills expected of students in most or all states in the Central Region (comprised of…

This booklet contains information and activities on the life cycle of stars. Materials can be adapted for kindergarten through grade 8 classrooms. Background information on massive stars and medium stars and activities with subjects such as star life, constellation shapes, nebula terminology, astronomical distances, and pulsars is included. The 12…

The purpose of this study is to compare the academic performance of male and female students in high school elective science courses. The data for this study were drawn from the grade books of six teachers of elective science courses and consists of the grades earned by the males and females during one academic year. The number of students…

This document presents standards, benchmarks, and examples that are designed to assist Kansas educators in selecting and developing local curricula, carrying out instruction, and assessing students' progress in science education. They also serve as the foundation for the development of state assessments in science. These standards represent high…

This paper addresses contemporary concerns with the disintegration of meaning and fragmentation of knowledge. It appeals to interdisciplinary curricula, where an effort is made to reveal the interactive relationships among different fields of knowledge. The paper proposes Photography as an interdisciplinary theme, which involves Chemistry,…

The study reported in this paper emerged from a concern that, despite twenty years of theorizing about the practice of environmental education in Australian schools, it continues to be marginalized in the school curriculum. The educational problem to be solved was how to improve the teaching and learning of environmental education in schools and…

This teacher's guide was developed to accompany the giant-screen film, "Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure". The activities featured use a multidisciplinary approach and target students ages 7 through 14. Teacher pages include background information and student pages include instructions and additional information for understanding the…

This document outlines the content standards for science in the state of Colorado. The document is organized into six standards, each of which is subdivided into a set of guiding questions exemplifying the standard and a series of lists defining what is expected of students at each grade level within the standard. The standards are that students…

Is the way being lost in teaching science? Many primary schools do not have a well developed culture of science teaching and learning, there is a declining interest in science over the years 7 to 10, and there are proportionally fewer students continuing onto science in the senior years. In response to these concerns, the Victorian Department of…

Recent education reform documents emphasize the need for students to develop a rich understanding of evolution's power to integrate knowledge of the natural world. This paper describes a nine-week high school course designed to help students understand evolutionary biology by engaging them in developing, elaborating, and using Charles Darwin's…

This paper focuses on the process of knowledge formation and scientific inquiry. Science laboratory settings may provide opportunities for students to participate in scientific inquiry. With scientific inquiry, students develop their beliefs according to experiences in which they use their prior knowledge, experimentation, and problem solving…

This document was developed in response to the expressed need of physical science teachers for materials designed to facilitate and enhance the teaching of the 1999 North Carolina Standard Course of Study for Physical Science. The materials provide a guide to translating the goals and objectives of the Physical Science curriculum into good…