Cross-curricular secondary instructional strategies exist in many different forms and can be applied to any two or more curricular disciplines. Most importantly, these strategies have been proven to be effective in improving learning and comprehension of important concepts across all curricular fields involved in the activity. There is no…

Societal benefit depends on the general public's understandings of biotechnology (Betsch in "World J Microbiol Biotechnol" 12:439-443, 1996; Dawson and Cowan in "Int J Sci Educ" 25(1):57-69, 2003; Schiller in "Business Review: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia" (Fourth Quarter), 2002; Smith and Emmeluth in "Am Biol Teach" 64(2):93-99, 2002). A…

Physics teachers often like to discuss physics concepts with their students on the basis of simple demonstration experiments. In this article, we discuss an experiment for which one only needs a few coins of the same denomination and a wooden stick: the coins are laid alongside the stick on a horizontal surface, the stick is rotated about one of…

This article describes the construction of an inexpensive, robust, and simple hydrogen electrode, as well as the use of this electrode to measure "standard" potentials. In the experiment described here the students can measure the reduction potentials of metal-metal ion pairs directly, without using a secondary reference electrode. Measurements…

Earth and space science figure prominently in the National Science Education Standards for levels 5-8 (NRC 1996). The Earth in the Solar System standard focuses on students' ability to understand (1) the composition of the solar system (Earth, Moon, Sun, planets with their moons, and smaller objects like asteroids and comets) and (2) that…

The application of technology in classroom settings has equipped educators with innovative tools and techniques for effective teaching practice. Integrating digital technologies at the elementary and secondary levels helps to enrich the students' learning experience and maximize competency in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and…

This article examines the use of institutional research data on tertiary academic success of students in the first-year Biology program at the University of Canterbury in relation to their secondary school performance in English, Mathematics with Statistics, Biology and Chemistry. This study was commissioned by the School of Biological Sciences to…

By providing a variety of strategies, scenarios, examples of student writing, classroom video clips from across all science content areas, rubrics, and guidelines for designing assessment items, "Supporting Grade 5-8 Students in Constructing Explanations in Science: The Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning Framework for Talk and Writing" provides…

Teachers as well as students often have difficulty formulating good research questions because not all questions lend themselves to scientific investigation. The following is a guide for high-school and college life-science teachers to help students define question types central to biological field studies. The mayfly nymph was selected as the…

Inquiry-based teaching helps students develop a deep, applied understanding of human-environmental connections, but most high school curricula do not use inquiry-based methods. Soil science topics, which are also generally lacking from curricula, can provide hands-on model systems for learning inquiry skills. We report on the implementation of a…

Chemistry has become increasingly multidisciplinary. Starting in middle school and high school, however, the different disciplines are taught as distinct subjects and little effort is made to emphasize overlapping concepts. Development of innovative approaches to teaching science through the integration of technology is needed to provide students…

Around 150 pre-service science teachers (PSTs) participated in a study comparing academic and personal characteristics with their misconceptions about basic chemical ideas taught to 11-16-year-olds, such as particle theory, change of state, conservation of mass, chemical bonding, mole calculations, and combustion reactions. Data, collected by…

Two methods for measuring the Earth's magnetic field are described. In the former, according to Gauss, the Earth's magnetic field is compared with that of a permanent magnet; in the latter, a well-known method, the comparison is made with the magnetic field generated by a current. As all the used instruments are available off the shelf, both…

Students' science achievement has been subject to scrutiny and criticism in the United States. The decline in rankings on standardized international assessments has been the focus of concern for educators, policy makers, parents and society at large. This study, designed as an action research, explored the factors contributing to the decrease in…

To supplement the summer reading of National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) members, the NSTA Committee on Research in Science Education suggested a list of science education research articles that were published in the journals of NSTA's affiliates in 2012. These articles covered a variety of topics that include learning about…