This article examines the process of shifting to a "Physics First" sequence in science course offerings in three school districts in the United States. This curricular sequence reverses the more common U.S. high school sequence of biology/chemistry/physics, and has gained substantial support in the physics education community over the…

Building a robot from scratch in an educational context can be a challenging prospect. While a multitude of projects exist that simplify the electronics and software aspects of a robot, the same cannot be said for construction systems for robotics. In this paper, we present our efforts to create a low-cost do-it-yourself construction system for…

In recent years, specialized schools have become far more visible in the public domain, and with that visibility comes a responsibility to share what such schools provide for their students and to the education community (see National Research Council, 2011). The editors of this issue elicited responses from a set of authors representing five…

One of the important questions for any educator is, "How can I teach difficult and abstract concepts in a way that connects with students' real life?". This is especially true in the senior years, when students are often confronted with ideas that don't appear relevant to their lives, are primarily explainable using mathematics rather…

Textbooks are a prominent part of science teaching and learning. For science teachers and students, textbooks are the major source of information for planning and classroom practice. In addition to the content of textbooks, are end-of-chapter questions that should consolidate students learning and enhance their thinking processes. Therefore, this…

Pupils' questions can play a powerful role in helping them to develop conceptual understanding, but can also provide a stimulus for teacher learning. This article presents a series of stories that illustrate the challenges of capitalising on pupils' questions, given the complexity of decision-making required in the science classroom and the…

One of the most important objectives of the science curricula is to bring in science process skills. The science process skills are skills that lie under scientific thinking and decision-making. Thus it is important for a science curricula to be rationalized in such a way that it brings in science process skills. New science curricula were…

The goals of this study are to map applications of nanotechnology that are recommended to be taught in high-school science and to identify the "need-to-know" essential nanoscale science and technology (NST) concepts for each of the selected nanotechnology applications. A Delphi study using a community of experts was used to address these…

Nowadays, Rasch model analysis is used widely in social research, moreover in educational research. In this research, Rasch model is used to determine the validation and the reliability of systemic multiple choices question in chemistry teaching and learning. There were 30 multiple choices question with systemic approach for high school student…

This study was a narrative inquiry that explored the experience of one science teacher as he utilized a science fiction novel in his secondary physical science classroom. With the recent implementation of the Common Core literacy standards in Alabama, science teachers are now required to address literacy and reading along with teaching science…

We describe a mobile augmented reality (AR) experience called Atom Tracker designed to help middle school students better understand the cycling of matter in ecosystems with a focus on the concept of conservation of matter and the processes of photosynthesis and respiration. Location-based AR allows students to locate virtual "hotspots,"…

The people, events, and issues that were involved in the beginning and the evolution of the "Journal of Chemical Education" and the Division of Chemical Education (DivCHED) are traced and discussed. The constitution of the American Chemical Society incorporates the roots of chemical education as an area of interest to the Society. Both…

New phylogenomic tools have made it possible to construct a robust phylogenetic tree of mollusks. This tree can be used to teach important evolutionary principles.

Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) precipitates in many kinds of aqueous salt solutions. While sodium sulfate, a coagulant for PVA fiber, precipitates PVA to yield a white rigid gel, coagulation of PVA with aluminum sulfate, a coagulant for water treatment, yields a slime-like viscoelastic fluid. One type of homemade slime is prepared under basic…

A small-scale wastewater cleaning plant is described that includes the key physical pretreatment steps followed by the chemical treatment of mud by flocculation. Water, clay particles, and riverside deposits mimicked odorless wastewater. After a demonstration of the optimization step, the flocculation process was carried out with iron(III)…