One-hundred-and-twenty secondary science teachers responded to a survey entitled "Teaching Science to Students with Special Needs in Inclusive Settings" to assess their knowledge and preparation in working with students with special needs in the science classroom. The authors focused on the following questions (1) How can a secondary science…

This article describes a novel, hands-on method to qualitatively determine the extent of microbial activity in topsoil using ordinary blank paper. Appropriate and scalable for the high school and college level, these experiments expose students to some of the challenges facing environmental researchers and also contribute to curriculum development…

Research shows that girls tend to lose interest in science and math as they move through the education pipeline--a retreat that often begins during middle school. Summer science camps can be part of reversing that trend, some say. Academic camps are on the rise across the country, including ones to get adolescent girls excited about the…

The chapters in this book reflect the work of science and mathematics educators who have worked for many years at the international level. As members of the International Consortium for Research in Science and Mathematics Education, their work provides readers with issues, models, practices, and research results that have applicability and…

This study examines possible interaction effects of gender and region (urban vs. rural) on student beliefs about women in math and science, their attitudes towards math and science, and their confidence in the use of technology. A secondary purpose of this study is to examine possible differences in confidence of using technology between high…

This article presents outdoor inquiry activities to help English Language Learner (ELL) students learn life science concepts. As a public high school ELL science teacher, the author of this article use these place-based and scaffolded inquiry activities outside to reinforce concepts she teaches in the classroom all year long. Through inductive…

"The Dirty Water Challenge" is a fun activity that teaches children about their environment in an engaging and practical way. Inquiry is embedded within the practical--students have to design, plan, and then build their own design of water filter. Students are exposed to important concepts from a variety of scientific disciplines, including how…

Forty-eight new secondary science teachers participated in a study that required a listing, discussion, and application of criteria to rank three chemistry laboratory procedures. The three similar lab procedures involved synthesis of a compound from its elements. The top criteria noted by teachers focused on procedural issues (i.e., timeliness,…

The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the impact of Internet Virtual Physics Laboratory (IVPL) instruction with traditional laboratory instruction in physics academic achievement, performance of science process skills, and computer attitudes of tenth grade students. One-hundred and fifty students from four classes at one private…

An assessment of the professional needs of science teachers was conducted in order to aid in the development of more effective preservice and inservice teacher training programs in Malaysia. A modified version of the Teacher Need Assessment Questionnaire was administered to 78 science teachers. Data analysis indicated that the top 25 perceived…

Building explanations is fundamentally what science is about. Students require support both for constructing their own explanations about the surrounding world, and for reflecting on those explanations in ways that help them to assess the quality of their explanations and the strategies they use to build them. This paper describes the development…

Biotechnology is the latest in a series of technological innovations that have revolutionized the fields of agriculture and the health sciences; however, there are concerns with this technology. This document is designed to help foster dialogue with emphasis on education and the development of a public understanding of the principals involved in…

Analogies are considered an effective method for providing a bridge between unfamiliar concepts and knowledge that students already have. This paper reports a critical analysis of analogies found in chemistry textbooks used by Australian senior high school students and is presented in three sections. The first section of the paper presents the…

The Exploratorium is a hands-on science museum in San Francisco. Each "Snack" in this sourcebook tells teachers how to build a classroom version of a particular Exploratorium exhibit using readily available materials. The recipes include instructions, advice, and helpful hints, accompanied by photographs and line drawings. The Snacks can be use as…

Knowledge-in-action is a teacher's form of inherently knowing one's actions in the context of daily teaching activities. This article focuses on one physics teacher in a study and describes and analyzes his knowledge-in-action. Observations and interviews were used as data. Among the findings are the teacher's practice can be delineated into two…