Personalized medicine refers to medical care that involves genetically screening patients for their likelihood to develop various disorders. Commercial genome screening only involves identifying a consumer's genotype for a few single nucleotide polymorphisms. A phenotype (such as an illness) is greatly influenced by three factors: genes, gene…

A new Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) approach was designed for youth who participated in the Minnesota State Fair Livestock interview process. The project and evaluation were designed to determine if the new SET approach increased content knowledge and science process skills in participants. Results revealed that youth participants not…

This manual provides guidance and documentation for users of the longitudinal kindergarten-fourth grade (K-4) public-use data file of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011), which includes the first release of the public version of the third-grade data. This manual mainly provides information specific…

An open-ended laboratory practical has been developed that challenges students to evaluate when different purification techniques are appropriate. In contrast to most lab practicals, the overall grade includes an evaluation of spectral analysis as well as writing skills. However, a significant portion of the grade lies in successful execution of a…

Elementary teachers often struggle with how to design and implement inquiry instruction with their students. For many, just understanding what inquiry is can be difficult--let alone designing activities that support high levels of inquiry. In this article, the authors present a continuum by which to evaluate an activity's level of inquiry. Then,…

Science requires imagination nourished by knowledge, experience and sustained critical thinking. Science teaching has the same requirements, but metacognition is even more important to a teacher than it is to a practitoner of science. Critical thinking is essential to both science and science teaching: in either domain, imagination relies on…

Biodiversity has economic value to humans and many suggest that of all groups who should be most interested in the preservation of biodiversity, it should be industries leading the way, as biodiversity has provided, and will continue to provide, many raw materials used by industries around the world. This is especially the case for the…

As described in "How People Learn," "Developing Biological Literacy," and by the Commission on Undergraduate Education in the Biological Sciences during the 1960s and early 1970s, laboratories should promote guided-inquiries or investigations, and not simply consist of cookbook or verification activities. However, the only word that could describe…

How can you connect, supplement, and extend students' firsthand investigations? Look toward your bookshelves for a clue. Books and other textual materials can serve the following roles in support of scientific inquiry: providing context, modeling, supporting firsthand inquiry, supporting secondhand inquiry, and delivering content. Each of these…

The key to engaging children in doing real science is to understand the difference between a "science demonstration" and a "hands-on science experiment." Demonstrations performed by the teacher typically illustrate a science concept. But science experiments give children the opportunity to pose their own "What if . . . ?" questions, which…

Early childhood teachers realize the importance of inquiry-based instruction for children's science learning and their development of inquiry skills. The term "inquiry skills" refers to the science process skills scientists use to investigate the natural world--observing, inferring, posing questions, recording data, looking for patterns,…

Learning how the periodic table has developed over time can provide an important foundation for students' future science learning, as they begin to explore the explanatory power of other models in science. In this activity, students are given the opportunity to investigate the generation of the modern periodic table, through a process of creating…

In this paper, we suggest strategies for instructors to use to prepare students for inquiry-based activities. Instructors should ensure that appropriate content material has been covered in lecture prior to implementing inquiry-based activities in the laboratory, and that support is provided to students as they transition from traditional to…

An interdisciplinary, two-credit, one-semester laboratory course required of second-year chemistry and biochemistry majors at a small, rural, undergraduate liberal arts institution is described. During the first half of the course students are provided instruction in chemical information resources, scientific communication, advanced techniques,…

We describe a new approach to teaching introductory biology. Our introductory experience for undergraduates is a laboratory course that is entirely inquiry and discovery based. We introduce our students to fundamental concepts in biology in the framework of three multi-week laboratory modules, each of which is an open-ended investigation of a…