The study of flower structure is essential in plant identification and in understanding sexual reproduction in plants, pollination syndromes, plant breeding, and fruit structure. Thus, study of flower structure and construction of floral formulae are standard parts of first-year university botany and biology courses. These activities involve…

The Air Toxics under the Big Sky program developed at the University of Montana is a regional outreach and education initiative that offers a yearlong exploration of air quality and its relation to respiratory health. The program was designed to connect university staff and resources with rural schools enabling students to learn and apply science…

In response to a concern about the persistent underachievement in exams of Chemistry students in one school, a pilot study was carried out to see if mentoring-style intervention could improve exam performance. Individual personalised interviews were offered to a class, during which support for the development of the skills and subject knowledge…

The purpose of this study was to explore prospective biology teachers' understandings of fundamental genetics concepts and the association between misconceptions and genetics problem solving abilities. Specifically, the study describes conceptual and procedural difficulties which influence prospective biology teachers' genetics problem solving…

Contemporary instructional approaches expect students to be active producers of knowledge. This leads to the need for creation of instructional tools and tasks that can offer students opportunities for active learning. This study examines the effect of a computational experiment as an instructional tool-for Grade 12 students, using a computer…

"Why would a deer print be in the city?" wondered a student. She had noticed the track near a grocery store that morning with her mother. She was familiar with deer and had noticed their prints on a trip to a local museum; however, she had never seen a deer in the city before this experience. As she retold the story to her classmates, her question…

In the activity described in this article, students learn about observation, interpretation, and argumentation. Students are led through several stages of observation and inference about an unknown object, during which they learn the value of representations and collaboration. They are then asked to construct an argument about the identity of the…

A key focus of current science education reforms involves developing inquiry-based learning materials. However, without an understanding of how working scientists actually "do" science, such learning materials cannot be properly developed. Until now, research on scientific reasoning has focused on cognitive studies of individual scientific fields.…

This article compares peer review in professional versus education settings, summarizing key aspects of scientific peer review and reflecting on how these relate to the process as experienced by students. Consideration of professional peer review benefits educators in two ways. First, systems used for student peer review can employ some of the…

This study was conducted to determine the effect of the use of the animation on the academic achievements of the students, retention of this achievement, and the development of scientific process skills in the unit of force and motion of the science and technology course of the 6th grade basic education and to find out the student's views. The…

The Developmental Student Outcomes (DEVSO) Survey is one of four annual surveys that make up the British Columbia (BC) Student Outcomes project. This report presents a summary of the findings from the 2013 Developmental Student Outcomes Survey. The results included in the report were analysed by demographic characteristics and other factors. The…

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the process of construction of meaning about the shape of the Earth and the alternation of day and night, which is inherent to the practice of experimental science teaching. This teaching practice was gradually done by the researcher in a 1st grade class of a Portuguese primary school. The class…

One thing is certain, accountability is here to stay; accountability exposes the good, the bad, and the ugly. The academic achievement gap between non-White and White students continues to exist in the disaggregated data in individual campuses, within school districts, and within comparison studies across the nation. Thus, school leadership is…

Early childhood is a ripe time for students to begin learning science, but due to certain constraints, this instruction is not happening as frequently as it should. This mixed-methods, multiple case study examined how two teachers implemented an early childhood science curriculum, the "Young Scientist Series." The teacher participants…

This article describes a 13-week laboratory course called Human Toxicology taught at the University of Otago, New Zealand. This course used a guided inquiry based laboratory coupled with formative assessment and collaborative learning to develop in undergraduate students the skills of problem solving/critical thinking, data interpretation and…