A growing body of literature focusing on undergraduate biology education calls for students to engage in the ways of thinking, feeling, and doing that reflect those in which biologists engage. Such reform efforts suggest that learning is best fostered when students engage in practices, concepts, and scientific reasoning as they endeavor to explain…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Instructional labs: Improving traditions and new directions.] Research on nontraditional laboratory (lab) activities in physics shows that students often expect to verify predetermined results, as takes place in traditional lab activities. This understanding of what is taking place, or…

In Türkiye, Science and Art Centers (SACs) are the institutions where gifted students receive the most education. The aim of this research is to gather opinions and experiences related to various aspects of SAC, including identification, educational programs, problems, advantages and disadvantages, teachers, family approach, and benefits of being…

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of argumentation-based teaching carried out with secondary school 7th grade students on students' scientific process skills. The sample of the study consists of 7th grade students in two different branches studying at a public school in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey in the 2018-2019…

As college biology educators we want students learning how to conduct their own scientific investigations. This means designing laboratory curricula in which students exercise control and responsibility over the knowledge building actions of an investigation--that is, in which they exercise "epistemic agency." Our current understanding…

This paper introduces hands-on curricular modules integrated with research in atmospheric ice nucleation, which is an important phenomenon potentially influencing global climate change. The primary goal of this work is to promote meaningful laboratory exercises to enhance the competence of students in the fields of science, technology,…

Chemometric techniques such as partial least-squares (PLS) regression have been applied with huge success to a wide array of chemical problems including multicomponent analysis of analytes in complex mixtures. Despite this, there are few examples of laboratory pedagogical exercises that involve students in the acquisition of chemical data from…

Triboluminescence is a fascinating phenomenon that can engage students' interest in chemistry. However, safe, cost-effective, and accessible laboratory experiments featuring highly triboluminescent substances are limited. To bridge this gap, we present a simple, rapid, semimicro test tube preparation of the visually engaging manganese complex…

This paper presents empirical evidence from research carried out in New Zealand by a research-practice partnership (RPP) that included school teachers, teacher professional learning providers, and researchers in science education, technology education, and information systems. The RPP worked together from 2018-2023 to investigate the affordances…

In this article, we put forward a new approach to the teaching of scientific reasoning in biology with the "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS"). We argue that a framework based on the idea of six styles of scientific reasoning provides the best guide for biology teachers to the nature of scientific reasoning in biology…

The purpose of this study is to explore the strength of relationships between 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students' scientific process skills and scientific creativity through structural equation modeling (SEM). For this purpose, data were collected from 353 students in grades 7-9 in Turkey. Scientific Process Skills and Scientific Creativity survey…

Properly made solutions are critical to the scientific method. However, in various laboratories and collaborative environments, we have noticed a lack of proper technique for making solutions. Instead of measuring the moles of solute then filling up to the needed volume with solvent, we observed many individuals would measure the moles of solute…

The Chemistry Department at Sonoma State University teaches two upper division capstone laboratory courses as culminating experiences for our BS chemistry and biochemistry majors. The courses share complementary learning experiences and have student learning objectives (SLOs) of literature competency, experimental design, development of…

Organic chemistry is a required course sequence for many STEM students. However, research indicates that organic chemistry reaction mechanisms are especially challenging for students due to a mixture of underlying conceptual difficulties, the process-oriented thinking inherent to the discipline, and the representations commonly used to depict…

In this study, we investigated how students organized their knowledge about organic chemistry reactions in a transformed curriculum, including their choices, abilities, and changes over time. This transformed curriculum focuses on interpreting the underlying mechanistic patterns of chemical reactions and emphasizes the principles of reactivity in…