The Idea Bank column provides tips and techniques for creative teaching, in about 1,000 words. As students use increasingly diverse internet sources, it becomes hard to tell whether their answers are truly original. A general solution to this dilemma is to ask students to present information in a format that they are unlikely to encounter in books…

For over 50 years, science educators have been calling for increased opportunities for students to engage with science in creative manners, but teachers are still reliant on packaged materials that promote single and 'correct' responses with cookbook approaches. This article suggests five strategies that teachers can use to enhance constructed…

This article discusses, at a simple level, the dynamics of the wheel-rail interface, which is fundamental to the stability of rail vehicles. The physics underlying this topic deserves to be better known by physicists and physics students, as it underpins such an important part of our technological infrastructure

A novel educational chart that represents the acid--base behavior of 100 s-, p-, d-, and f-element oxides depending on the element's electronegativity and oxidation state was designed. An updated periodic table of said oxides was developed. A mathematical criterion based on the chart was derived which allows prediction of the behavior of…

This study investigates the modelling conceptualisation of secondary school students in two situations related to particle dynamics: pendulum's motion and horizontal motion. We performed in-depth clinical interviews with secondary school students (N = 10). Participants' ideas about properties which are not 'given' in empirical observations were…

Approximately 1 billion metric tons of food are lost each year due to mycotoxins (FAO 2013), secondary metabolites produced by fungi (Marin et al. 2013) that contaminate crops (Placinta, D'Mello, and MacDonald 1999) and threaten the health of domestic animals and humans (Sobrova et al. 2010). The fungus "Fusarium graminearum" produces…

The purpose of this quantitative quasi-experimental study, which was informed by the social constructivist theory, was to examine how the use of active-learning in high school science classrooms affects classroom content test grades and failure rates. The research questions this study addressed were: (1) what affect does varying percentages of…

The purpose of this research is to determine the sources of cognitive and metacognitive strategies that 7th-grade students use when studying the "Cell and Divisions" unit that belongs to the field of Biology. In the study, the case study which is one of the qualitative research methods was used. A total of 6 students from 3 different…

Science curriculum is delivered to students through a controlled process at different levels and in various contexts. Although it has been said that science teachers' viewpoints and attitudes influence the interpretation of curricula, this study is interested in factors affecting their pedagogical perspectives, such as their beliefs and teaching…

The human brain is limited by its capacity and incapable of memorizing all information. The memory system evolved to give preference to memory information related to maintaining and increasing individual fitness. We have chosen fungi, a heavily neglected area in science education research, to investigate which kind of information about mushrooms…

We present the development and validation of a construct map addressing introductory quantum mechanics topics at the high school level, as a subset of a larger learning progression on quantum mechanics. Topics include energy quantization, photon absorption and emission, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, atom stability, orbitals, wave function,…

Systems thinking is the ability to reason about biological systems in terms of their characteristics and can assist students in developing a coherent understanding of biology. Literature reports about several recommendations regarding teaching systems thinking, while it seems that systems thinking has not reached classroom practice. The main aim…

This study aims to investigate textbook tasks in the Norwegian school subject Natural sciences and the views of science that the tasks mediate to the pupils. Natural science is an interdisciplinary subject taught in Years 1-11 that includes chemistry, physics, biology and parts of the geosciences. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of…

Educational research supports incorporating active engagement into K-12 education using authentic STEM experiences. While there are discipline-specific resources to provide students with such experiences, there are limited transdisciplinary opportunities that integrate engineering education and technological skill-building to contextualize core…

This study reports the effectiveness of nanoscience activities in enhancing secondary school students' understanding of two chemistry concepts: structure of atom and acid and bases. For the purpose of this study, quasi experiment was employed to 163 Grade 10 students from the Northern Region of Malaysia. Sample from the experimental group was…