Professional development courses help teachers integrate new content knowledge into the high-school curriculum. Designing practical online courses for this purpose is challenging, particularly in emerging fields such as nanotechnology. In this study, we evaluated such a course in three complementary dimensions: (1) knowledge, (2) the complexity of…

Traditionally, assessing and grading students in science has been an exercise centered around points and percentages (Feldman, Kropf, and Alibrandi 1989; Prøitz 2013). However, with the introduction of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the need to revisit grading practices stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, an increasing number of…

We describe a simple STEM project for students to learn to measure atmospheric pressure by using a sensor of the type BMP180 together with the Arduino electronic platform. The collected experimental data, together with simple experiments, can be used to study the different pressure units and the relationship between pressure and force. Also, they…

This paper presents the design and reports on the use of a simple and inexpensive cloud chamber kit that is compatible with active learning, experiential learning, and project-based learning strategies. The kit was developed for use in a first-year undergraduate nuclear science seminar class at a university in the US. Diffusion cloud chambers are…

The current study determined the impact of the Argumentation-Flipped Learning (AFL) Model on the scientific process skills and academic achievement of students by performing a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest and retention control group design. The data were collected by scientific process skills test and concept test from a total of 112 5th…

Combining the face-to-face and virtual modality in a hybrid environment is a didactic strategy that currently provides the development of knowledge and skills in educational institutions at all levels, allowing the creation of educational environments without space and time restrictions. The objective was to describe the use by teachers in the…

Research on teaching and learning quantum physics (QP) frequently explores students' conceptual difficulties to identify common patterns in their reasoning. The abstractness of QP is often found to be at the origin of students' conceptual difficulties. Due to this abstract nature students resort to common sense reasoning or classical thinking when…

Community driven science has emerged as a way to engage participants in learning about science while giving them a deeper understanding of what it means to do science and identify as one who does science. This multi-method case study investigated how secondary science preservice teachers experienced a community driven science project within the…

Culturally Relevant Education (CRE) focuses on the design of curricular materials that strengthen students' cultural identities while teaching classroom content and science practices. While examples of CRE in science continue to grow, the identities and cultures of the designers are often different from those of the students and communities in…

Chemical escape rooms (ChEsRms) are educational games in which students use their brain, chemical knowledge, intuition, and a bit of luck to solve a mystery. At the Weizmann Institute, we have developed ChEsRms that are implemented by teachers in their classes. Since the COVID-19 pandemic stopped all the educational activities that took place in…

A simple experiment for students is to measure the coefficient of restitution (COR) for a vertical bounce on a horizontal surface. In this paper, measurements are presented of the COR for a tennis ball bouncing at an oblique angle on a horizontal surface. Changes in the horizontal and rotation speeds were also measured, by filming the bounce with…

For high school students to develop scientific understanding and reasoning, it is essential that they engage in epistemic cognition and scientific argumentation. In the current study, we used the AIR model (i.e., Aims and values, epistemic Ideals, and Reliable processes) to examine high school students' epistemic cognition and argumentation as…

Many students may not be aware that renewable biological materials can be converted into multiple bioproducts and biofuels using a biorefinery process, a more sustainable alternative to conventional crude oil refineries. By using waste from pineapple, a plant material that most students are familiar with, a biorefinery can be modeled to…

Dark matter is one of the most intriguing scientific mysteries of our time and offers exciting instructional opportunities for physics education in high schools. The topic is likely to engage and motivate students in the classroom and allows addressing open questions of the Standard Model of particle physics. Although the empirical evidence of…

Polarization of light is one of the topics in the Croatian high school physics curriculum. It is taught in the final year of high school education. Twenty-seven Croatian high-school students (aged 18-19 years) were interviewed after regular instruction about their understanding of polarization of light and the model of light itself. This paper…