The chief purpose of this activity is to strengthen students' understanding of concepts of floatation such as surface area and pressure (weight per unit area) via snowshoes. Students brainstorm, make predictions, perform calculations, and practice communication skills through interviewing elders and experts. This activity lets students see the…

"Chronicle of Higher Education" presents an abundant source of news and information for college and university faculty members and administrators. This April 15, 2005 issue of "Chronicle for Higher Education" includes the following articles: (1) "M.A. Students as Pledges" (Hengen, Nicholas); (2) "It's All An Illusion" (Schweber, Simone); (3)…

Generalizing or making claims that extend beyond particular situations is a central mathematical practice and a focus of classroom mathematics instruction. This study examines how aspects of generality are produced through the situated activities of a group of middle school mathematics students working on an 8-week population-modeling project. The…

In this paper, we draw on the concept of "lifescape" (Some and McSweeney, ILEIA Newsletter, ETC Leusden, The Netherlands, 1996; Howorth, Rebuilding the Local Landscape, Ashgate, Aldershot, 1999) to capture the spatial, emotional and ethical dimensions of the relationship between landscape, livestock and farming community and to elucidate…

Previous research has produced mixed findings on the role of child and family factors in the genesis of childhood cruelty. The authors examined the relationships of cruelty to animals to a range of child and family factors. First, the authors test the idea that cruelty is a callous aggression that will be more strongly associated with psychopathic…

Two experiments examined the effects of reductions in cortical cholinergic function on performance of a novel task that allowed for the simultaneous assessment of attention to a visual stimulus and memory for that stimulus over a variable delay within the same test session. In the first experiment, infusions of the muscarinic receptor antagonist…

Herring in the ocean between Iceland and Norway was one of the largest fish stocks in the world until the fishery crashed in the late 1960s. The catch in 1971 was only 20 thousand metric tons in contrast with the record of 2 million tons in 1966 and the spawning stock declined from 10 million tons to 10 thousand tons in 20 years. After 25 years of…

This article presents an example of a versatile multi-solution problem that can be used right across the primary years. The basic problem is: "Noah saw 16 legs go past him into the Ark. How many creatures did he see?" Any even number can be used, although, 2 legs allows only one answer and with 16 legs there are already 14 different…

The author is an associate professor of animal studies at Colorado State University, but experienced learning difficulties in high school due to her place on the autism-Asperger's spectrum. She had uneven skills, and while algebra was impossible, she did well in courses in which she could use her visual-thinking and associative-thinking skills.…

Radio telemetry data available via the internet are used to facilitate long-term inquiry projects. Through these projects, students gain a deeper understanding of scientific inquiry and the nature of science, while developing their own questions and procedures and carrying out those procedures before sharing their findings with peers. (Contains 1…

These Illinois skill standards for the agricultural laboratory and field technician cluster are intended to serve as a guide to workforce preparation program providers as they define content for their programs and to employers as they establish the skills and standards necessary for job acquisition. They could also serve as a mechanism for…

This study explored and documented Taiwanese students' alternative conceptions of animal classification. We examined the understanding of the "animal", "vertebrate" and "invertebrate", "fish", "amphibian", "reptile", "bird", and "mammal" concepts among elementary,…

Both the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2001 (No Child Left Behind) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 show a public policy preference for the use of interventions that are supported by scientific evidence of their efficacy. At the same time, parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)…

Some children hold the belief that insects and spiders are all mere nuisances because they have never had opportunities to observe, study, and learn to appreciate how these animals live and carry out their purposes in life. Studying insects and spiders fosters children's natural curiosity about the world around them and encourages them to use…

This book presents a collection of motivating, independent activities that involve animals and plants for use in developing the research skills of students in grades 2-6. Projects included in the book cover various levels of difficulty and are designed to promote higher-level thinking skills. Research components included in the activities in the…