University educators have observed the concurrent problems of student attrition, higher than normal or desired failure rates and students struggling to complete assessable and non-assessable work, for instance, set readings. Recent public commentary has pointed to the widening participation agenda with its lowering of university entrance scores…

This article describes the outcomes of a research project conducted at the Ministry of Stories (a London-based writing centre) which sought to develop an online, mentor-assisted, writing platform. Across a 3-month period, at four different sites across the UK, more than a hundred Year 7 pupils took part in the project, using the platform to write…

For nearly four years, NASA's Kepler space telescope searched for planets like Earth around more than 150,000 stars similar to the Sun. In 2008 with in-kind support from several technology companies, our non-profit organization established the Pale Blue Dot Project, an adopt-a-star program that supports scientific research on the stars observed by…

Chilling is a cost-effective and safe method of immobilising flies in "Drosophila" experiments. However, should condensation form on the plate, it would be fatal to the flies. Here we describe a modified cooling method using reusable commercial ice pack(s) (ca. 400 ml, 2-3 cm tall) rather than crushed ice. The ice pack is covered with a…

SDS-PAGE and western blotting are two commonly taught protein detection techniques in biochemistry and molecular biology laboratory classrooms. A pitfall associated with incorporating these techniques into the laboratory is the significant wait times that do not allow students to obtain timely results. The waiting associated with SDS-PAGE comes…

The "TAS2R38" alleles that code for the PAV/AVI T2R38 proteins have long been viewed as benign taste receptor variants. However, recent studies have demonstrated an expanding and medically relevant role for "TAS2R38." The AVI variant of T2R38 is associated with an increased risk of both colorectal cancer and "Pseudomonas…

Every introductory astronomy class encounters Galileo during the course as the first man to systematically study the sky with a telescope. Every Astronomy 101 student meets Galileo as one of the major catalysts behind the shift from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican system and as one of the great minds behind the scientific method. But most of the…

The hearts of sports fans were stirred recently by the fastest-ever try scored in international rugby. Welsh winger Dafydd Howells crossed the Fijian try line to score a mere six seconds after Angus O'Brien had started the game with a kickoff, in one of the fixtures in rugby's Junior World Cup played on June 2, 2014, in New Zealand. This…

New experiments for undergraduate students are needed to stimulate experiential learning in the laboratory while providing valuable training for future career development. Iodine deficiency remains a major public health concern that is monitored by measuring the median urinary iodide concentration of a population. In this context, we have…

A common method that scientists use to validate a theory is to utilize known principles and laws to produce results on specific settings, which can be assessed using the appropriate experimental methods and apparatuses. Smartphones have various sensors built-in and could be used for measuring and logging data in physics experiments. In this work,…

Along-standing energy lab involves dropping bouncy balls and measuring their rebound heights on successive bounces. The lab demonstrates a situation in which the mechanical energy of a system is not conserved. Although students enjoyed the lab, the author wanted to deepen their thinking about energy, including the connections to motion, with a new…

While the equivalence between online and traditional classrooms has been well researched, very little effort has been expended to do such comparisons for college level introductory chemistry. The existing literature has only one study that investigated chemistry lectures at an entire course level as opposed to particular course components such as…

A new method for teaching advanced laboratories at the undergraduate level is presented. The intent of this approach is to get students more engaged in the lab experience and apply critical thinking skills to solve problems. The structure of the lab is problem-based and provides students with a research-like experience. Students read the current…

Students find it hard to understand acid-base homeostasis and the mechanisms involved in compensating for acid-base imbalances, including the role of the lungs and kidneys in this process. We have developed a laboratory activity based on collaborative problem-based learning and human patient simulators (HPSs) to teach this topic. Students (n=50)…

This study is inspired by laboratory studies demonstrating that distributing study sessions over time better supports learning and retention than clustering sessions. We compare two implementations of a multi-day inquiry science unit: in the clustered instruction condition, students completed an inquiry unit in five consecutive class periods. In…