Calls for reform in university education have prompted a movement from teacher- to student-centered course design, and included developments such as peer-teaching, problem- and inquiry-based learning. In the sciences, inquiry-based learning has been widely promoted to increase literacy and skill development, but there has been little comparison to…

The defining task for undergraduate departments is the design of a major, including the number and content of courses as well as other requirements. Department members must weigh the desire to produce graduates superbly prepared for further study against the charge that the major requires too large a share of an undergraduate's course options.…

In January 2005, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) was awarded a three-year ITEST grant (Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers) through the National Science Foundation (award #04-23417). This "AMNH-ITEST High School Science Research Program" aimed to target 120 urban high school youth, grades 10-12, from…

Studying pets fosters children's natural curiosity about the world around them and encourages them to use their five senses. This cross-curricular guide provides opportunities for children to build concepts by introducing them to a variety of household pets beginning with cats and dogs, and including mice, gerbils, hamsters, rabbits, guinea pigs,…

In studying young children learning in inclusive environments, we designed ways to enable children to explore scientific knowledge that is usually believed to require later didactic teaching. Aspects of this design under scrutiny here are, first, the capacity of natural learning to lead to effective scientific ideas, and second, further…

This book of life science activities introduces a new experimental animal--the WOWBug, "Melittobia digitata"--that is commonly found in nature but has never before been used in the precollege classroom. It includes 20 activities and experiments for grades 5-12, that cover topics from basic orientation to ecological interactions, from physical…

This book is intended for teachers who currently use (or are planning to use) a hands-on science curriculum. In addition, it would be useful to pre-service teachers, graduate students in education, and other educators interested in alternative forms of assessment. It offers teachers and other educators an opportunity to learn about performance…

This document contains hands-on activities in science that make use of balloons and are fun and stimulating as well as challenging. By actively participating in these activities, students can develop science process and critical thinking skills as well as technical and measuring skills. Topics include Air as Matter, Pressure, Chemical Change,…

The purpose of this investigation was to explore the ideas and beliefs of high school science students (n=37) about the processes of observation in their learning of science, and how these students approached the task of observing during their science experiments. Findings include: many students saw observation as a teacher-directed process;…

This brochure provides information about Project 2061's Benchmarks for Science Literacy. It includes background information on the development of Benchmarks, a rationale for developing scientific literacy in the general public, a list of those individuals and groups who could benefit most from using Benchmarks, a comparison of Benchmarks and the…

Opportunities to learn and discover surround a young child every day. The activities and ideas within this book have been formulated to encourage a child's natural curiosity and sense of wonder and to engage all the child's senses in learning and discovery. The activities focus on the child as a natural explorer and involve children in identifying…

Often elementary and junior high teachers search for effective, inexpensive, and easy-to-understand science activities. This document was designed with those teachers and their students in mind. It provides hands-on science activities that focus around three components: (1) themes--broad, unifying ideas that pervade science, math and technology;…

This paper presents a rubric developed as a continuum for assessing elementary students' science process knowledge. The continuum was designed to capture the growth of an individual student's knowledge of processes that are essential to learning science. The assessment tool is meant to document changes in science processes that are incremental and…

Students and educators in chemical engineering, are you aware of the paper industry and its impact in our society? With retirements and with changing technology there is a continual need for new technical and scientific skills to face the challenging goals of our times. The purpose of this article is to introduce some intriguing aspects of…

The ever-increasing global demand for energy has sparked renewed interest within the engineering community in the study of sustainable alternative energy sources. This paper discusses a power generation system which uses biomass as "fuel" to illustrate the concepts taught to students taking a graduate level chemical engineering process…