Science teachers can find lesson ideas almost anywhere. For example, during a recent visit to a local dollar store, the author stumbled upon a flower vase filled with water pearls, also known as water beads and jelly beans. She bought several of the bags (search the web to find numerous online sources), and soon began experimenting. Water pearls…

A recipe is a great way to learn about the procedure and the variables (or "ingredients") involved. Cookbooks are comforting and valuable: They're easy to follow, and people know what they'll get. The problem is that cookbook labs end just when things get interesting. The excitement of science is in understanding the discovery and pursuing the…

The late-Victorian era provided aficionados of detective fiction with an abundance of short stories belonging to this literary genre. Many of these works contained some aspect of chemistry, either in the execution of a crime or in the identification of the perpetrator. In the example discussed in this article, the gas-phase reaction of hydrogen…

Evaporation and boiling are both terms applied to the change of a liquid to the vapour/gaseous state. This article argues that it is the formation of bubbles of vapour within the liquid that most clearly differentiates boiling from evaporation although only a minority of chemistry textbooks seems to mention bubble formation in this context. The…

A survey of the Earth science content of science textbooks found a wide range of misconceptions. These are discussed in this article with reference to the published literature on Earth science misconceptions. Most misconceptions occurred in the "sedimentary rocks and processes" and "Earth's structure and plate tectonics"…

Research shows that students face challenges as they learn about genetic inheritance. The challenges could emanate from the fact that genetic inheritance involves unseen processes at different organizational levels. We explored students' understanding of heredity and related concepts such as cells and reproduction using a Web-based Science Inquiry…

The video game SPORE was found to hold characteristics that stimulate higher-order thinking even though it rated poorly for accurate science. Interested in evaluating whether a scientifically inaccurate video game could be used effectively, we exposed students to SPORE during an evolution course. Students that played the game reported that they…

This study aimed to investigate how a poster study focusing on the biographies of today's scientists affected 8th graders' scientist images. The study utilized a mixed model which combined qualitative and quantitative research techniques. 142 8th graders from a secondary school in Ankara Province Keçiören District participated in the study.…

Professional educators--in the classroom, library, counseling center, or anywhere in between--share one overarching goal: ensuring all students receive the rich, well-rounded education they need to be productive, engaged citizens. In this article, a teacher of color in Baltimore discusses his career trajectory, and explains why teacher diversity…

Designing inquiry-based science lessons can be a challenge for secondary school teachers. In this study we evaluated the development of in-service teachers' lesson plans as they took part in a 10-month professional development course in Peru which engaged teachers in the design of inquiry-based lessons. At the beginning, most teachers designed…

Learning paths have the potential to play an important role in the way educators serve their learners. Empirical research about learning paths is scarce, particularly in a secondary education setting. The present quasi-experimental study took place in the context of a biology course involving 360 secondary school students. A 2 × 2 factorial…

Inquiry-based instructional approaches are an effective means to actively engage students with science content and skills. This article examines the effects of an ongoing professional development program on middle and high school teachers' efficacy beliefs, confidence to teach research concepts and skills, and science content knowledge.…

This report provides a first look at selected findings from 1) the 2013 Update and 2) the High School Transcript Study of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09). HSLS:09 is a nationally representative study of a cohort of students who were ninth-graders in fall 2009. The study focuses on understanding students' trajectories from the…

Science teacher educators in the United States are currently preparing future science teachers to effectively implement the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS) and, in thirteen states, to successfully pass a content-specific high stakes teacher performance assessment, the edTPA. Science education and teacher performance assessment…

This study investigates whether adequate yearly progress (AYP) status, locale, and sector--common variables used to judge the quality of schools--accurately signal true differences in instructional practices in high school mathematics and science. Using data from the High School Longitudinal Study (HSLS), we find the school-to-school variation in…