Middle school classrooms are a natural laboratory where the relationships between science, reading, and writing can be developed and strengthened to provide a foundation for students' learning and future career success. Teachers do not need to know "everything" about science and reading to raise student achievement. Rather, they need to know a few…

In this article, the author describes how her high school environmental science students led third graders on a dynamic learning adventure as part of their first annual Outdoor Ecology School. At the water-monitoring site in a nearby national forest, the elementary students conducted field research and scavenger hunts, discovered animal habitats,…

Many have called for reform of the science curriculum to incorporate the process of inquiry: this has been shown to improve student understanding of biological concepts. Laboratory activities provide excellent opportunities to incorporate inquiry in to the curriculum. This study used a modified version of the Laboratory Task Analysis Instrument…

In educational research, investigators in one field are often ignorant of similar research in other fields. Physics education in particular has undergone dramatic reforms in recent years, all based on insights gained from conducting educational research. Often, pedagogical methods resulting from research in one field can be revised and transferred…

This article demonstrates that interdisciplinary alliances on environmental education projects can effectively address the gap between complex environmental problems in the real world and disciplinary curricula in a university. We describe an alliance between an advanced communication course and a general science course wherein we addressed…

This article describes the ScienceStart! Curriculum, an early childhood curriculum that takes coherently organized science content as the hub of an integrated approach. ScienceStart! maps onto the typical preschool day and may be adapted for use in full-day or half-day preschool programs. It is designed to support the important developmental…

This study investigates conditions and factors that affect preservice teachers' decisions to use handheld computers in scientific investigations and explores aspects of student learning and classroom practices that would be affected by handheld-based science activities. A Handheld-Based Laboratory (HBL) was designed to model strategies for…

This case study considered the syllabus of the first and second year studies in computer science. The aim of the study was to reveal which topics covered in the syllabi were really needed during the following years of study or in working life. The program that was assessed in the study was a Masters program in computer science and engineering at a…

A communicating science module was introduced into an advanced undergraduate physical chemistry laboratory course. The module was integrated into the course such that students received formal instruction in communicating science interwoven with the chemistry laboratory curriculum. The content of the communicating science module included three…

This standard lesson on identifying salt and sugar crystals expands into an opportunity for students to develop their observation, questioning, and modeling skills. Although sugar and salt may look similar, students discovered that they looked very different under a magnifying glass and behaved differently when dissolved in water. In addition,…

This article discusses an instructional development system called "holistic" approach, a strategy to improve high school education in Chicago. The initiative includes new curriculum materials, aligned to district standards, as well as assessments and ongoing teacher coaching and training that are designed for the curriculum. The design…

Case study methodology was used in combination with a participatory action research (PAR) approach to examine the process of redesigning one high school science course to incorporate the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and to promote access to the general curriculum. The participants included one general education teacher and two…

An interactive environmental science course was designed to provide a set of learning experiences that connect chemistry, geology, biology, physics, and math with the future careers as teachers. The environment deals with many factors contributing with the quality of life, such as the air, the water and the protective shelter of the atmosphere.

The purpose of this study was to better understand cognitive strategies used by high school technology education students who have participated in technology education instruction with an engineering design focus. Specifically, this study evaluated the cognitive strategies of students participating in "Project Lead the Way" curriculum…

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the feasibility of accounting for student performance in advanced high school coursework through the adjustment of high school grade point average (HSGPA) while separating out variables that are independently considered in the admission process, e.g., SAT/ACT scores, community affluence, type of…