The practical work component offers unique challenges for university science courses. This is even more pertinent in an Open and Distance Learning (ODL) environment like the Bindura University of Science Education's Virtual and Open Distance Learning (VODL) programme. Effective ODL education should be flexible enough to accommodate science…

This study focuses on the availability and use of Science Laboratories at the secondary education level in Visakhapatnam District of Andhra Pradesh, India. It is commented that most of the schools do not possess well equipped laboratories and even when equipment is available some science teachers are not utilizing the laboratory facilities.…

"Teaching Lab Science Courses Online" is a practical resource for educators developing and teaching fully online lab science courses. First, it provides guidance for using learning management systems and other web 2.0 technologies such as video presentations, discussion boards, Google apps, Skype, video/web conferencing, and social media…

Place-based science education engages with the laboratories of complex reality where natural processes combine with social practice, going beyond the physical world, to encompass the meanings and sense of attachment local residents feel for places. This brief report describes how a university science methods class in a primary teacher training…

Reform-minded practices are widely encouraged during pre-service science teacher education in concert with national reform documents. This contrasts to the nature of instruction within university science laboratories in which pre-service teachers enrol, which are largely confirmatory in nature. Undergraduate science laboratories are taught…

Face-to-face bioinformatics courses commonly include a weekly, in-person computer lab to facilitate active learning, reinforce conceptual material, and teach practical skills. Similarly, fully-online bioinformatics courses employ hands-on exercises to achieve these outcomes, although students typically perform this work offsite. Combining a…

Poor instruction has been cited as a primary cause of attrition from STEM majors and a major obstacle to learning for those who stay [Seymour and Hewitt [1997]. Talking about leaving: Why undergraduates leave the sciences. Boulder, CO: Westview]. Using a double-blind design, this study tests the hypothesis that the lack of explicit instructions in…

This qualitative interpretative study serves to identify and compare the verbal discourse practices exhibited by students in traditional and inquiry-based undergraduate labs for non-science majors and to identify factors in both lab contexts that would facilitate and / or inhibit student participation in the discourse practices of the labs.…

Theory and practice are an odd couple. There is little doubt that theory deserves a place within today's primary classrooms. Pring (2004) suggests that theory is perceived as having come adrift from common sense. It is easy to see how, swept along in the daily pressures of the job, busy classroom teachers may question the relevance of seemingly…

Personalized medicine refers to medical care that involves genetically screening patients for their likelihood to develop various disorders. Commercial genome screening only involves identifying a consumer's genotype for a few single nucleotide polymorphisms. A phenotype (such as an illness) is greatly influenced by three factors: genes, gene…

Inquiry-based instruction is gaining favor in college classrooms because it improves scientific skills as well as critical thinking. As we seek ways to improve science education, elementary school is increasingly becoming an embattled component because of decreased time spent on science during those years. The approach that elementary educators…

This article discusses the trend facing today's scientific laboratories: that the more specialized the lab, the more expensive it is, and the less accessible it becomes. Or conversely, the more accessible a lab needs to be, the fewer resources can be dedicated per capita, and the less specialized it becomes. From a numerical standpoint, "real"…

When teaching the subject of elasticity, it is often difficult to find a straightforward quantitative laboratory that can give a "hands-on" feel for the subject. This paper presents an experiment that demonstrates the essentials of elasticity by observing the behavior of marshmallows under a compressive load. Like other marshmallow-based…

A number of well-known hydrostatics problems dealing with Archimedes' principle concern a loaded boat floating in a pool. Examples of this sort of problem include: 1. (a) If a stone is thrown overboard from a boat floating in a pool, does the water level in the pool rise, fall, or remain unchanged? (b) If a hole is made in the bottom of the boat…

Film has been used to detect x-rays since the early days of their discovery by Rontgen. Although nowadays superseded by other techniques, film still provides a cheap means of x-ray detection, making it attractive in high-school or undergraduate university courses. If some sort of quantitative result is required, the film's optical absorbance or…