Scientific argumentation is one of the core practices for teachers to implement in science classrooms. We developed a computer-based formative assessment to support students' construction and revision of scientific arguments. The assessment is built upon automated scoring of students' arguments and provides feedback to students and teachers.…

The attainment gap in science may not be as well-documented as the gap in English and maths, but it is just as pervasive. Our research has shown that disadvantaged pupils start to fall behind in science in Key Stage 1; the gap only gets wider throughout primary and secondary school and on to A-level. Helping schools to use evidence and to…

NGSS Early Implementers is a four-year initiative created to help eight California school districts and two charter management organizations, supported by WestEd's K-12 Alliance, implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Designed for professional developers and administrators, this report describes 10 tools and processes that are…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to compare and evaluate two types of vocabulary interventions using grade 9 physics vocabulary terms using two lists of 10 words. A quasi-experimental crossover research design was used to compare the two interventions, presented during two separate sessions, 1) active, multimedia that includes the…

Assessment as classroom activities is a fundamental process required to determine the extent to which intended learning outcomes has been achieved. Whatever form of assessment is employed to measure students' learning, they should include tasks that are authentic, relevant and approximate skills students will need in real-life situations. These…

Gaming is becoming an effective form of learning and assessment and shouldn't be overlooked in an increasingly technological world. The games described in this article ("Impulse," "Quantum Spectre," and "Ravenous"), entertaining enough to be played by the general public, are also appropriate and useful in a classroom…

The ancient Eratosthenes experiment concerning the earth's circumference offers the opportunity of an inquiry-based revival in today's science classrooms: A multinational European science education initiative (acronym: OSR) introduced this experiment as a hands-on basis to extract the required variables and to exchange results with classroom peers…

Teachers' views about environmental education (EE) have been regarded as one of the most important concerns in education for sustainability. In secondary school chemistry curriculum, there are several subjects about EE embedded in the chemistry subjects in Turkey. This study explores three chemistry teachers' views about to what extent the…

Self-generated analogical models have emerged recently as alternatives to teacher-supplied analogies and seem to have good potential to promote deep learning and scientific thinking. However, studies of the ways and contexts in which students generate these models are still too limited to allow a fuller appraisal of these models' effectiveness in…

This paper gives the solution and analysis of projectile motion in a vacuum if the launch and impact heights are not equal. Formulas for the maximum horizontal range and the corresponding angle are derived. An Excel application that simulates the motion is also presented, and the result of an experiment in which 38 secondary school students…

This paper proposes an optional syllabus for the students in the XIIth grade. The proposed theme analyzes the concept of "variable mass" both in terms of classical mechanics and relativistic mechanics. In terms of classical mechanics we refer to the slow motion of a body, whose mass ranges in ascending way (by annealing a mass particle…

In this paper, we propose some of the strategies and methodologies for teaching high-school physics topics through an educational robotics show. This exhibition was part of a set of actions promoted by a Brazilian government program of incentive for teaching activities, whose primary focus is the training of teachers, the improvement of teaching…

Mole to gram conversions, density, and percent composition are fundamental concepts in first year chemistry at the high school or undergraduate level; however, students often find it difficult to engage with these concepts. We present a simple laboratory experiment utilizing portable nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) to determine the…

Graphing is a fundamental part of the scientific process. Scales are key but little-studied components of graphs. Adopting a resources-based framework of cognitive structure, we identify the potential intuitive resources that six undergraduates of diverse majors and years at a public US research university activated when constructing scales, and…

Modeling and argumentation are two important scientific practices students need to develop throughout school years. In this paper, we investigated how middle and high school students (N = 512) construct a scientific argument based on evidence from computational models with which they simulated climate change. We designed scientific argumentation…