A new science curriculum, with a significant emphasis on modelling, was recently adopted in Danish lower secondary education. The theoretical intentions behind the new curriculum include substantial changes to how teachers should address models and modelling in their practice. The purpose of this study is to analyse the alignment between the…

Creative educational methodologies capable of engaging students in interactive, enjoyable learning help to lessen students' anxieties and motivate them. In this context and with the objective of making easier the learning of the chemical symbols and periodic table as well as introducing the concept of chemical formula, we have designed the…

Digital video has become a dominant form of student learning in and beyond the classroom, and thus its pervasive nature in contemporary learning environments commands scholarly inquiry. In this paper we explore a participatory design-based research approach to the integration of video hook technology in the post-primary science classroom (students…

Rapidly occurring advancements in molecular genetics, such as recent developments in epigenetics, are challenging traditional genetics as it is taught at schools. For example, the adoption of epigenetics--which provides molecular mechanisms for the environment to directly alter phenotypic variation--would mean that pivotal tenets in genetics…

Thanks to the development and deployment of federally funded satellite-, buoy-, and aircraft-based remote sensing instruments, continuous streams of Earth and space data are publicly available via online databases. This accessibility provides flexibility to explore geoscience data that are interesting and relevant to students--keystone components…

Practical work as observation and experimentation are vital parts of science education. One way to accomplish this is by applying inquiry-based learning in laboratory activities. Inquiry enhances the development of scientific skills as well as the learning of the scientific concepts. In the present article, a laboratory activity was developed to…

A dual-function student-crafted instrument is described as part of a laboratory activity aimed to teach both the principles and practical aspects of absorption spectroscopy to secondary and introductory undergraduate students. Using minimal changes in an arrangement that is based on interlocking bricks and low-cost components, both a fluorometer…

In this paper, we present a simulation of artificial selection of maize that can be used as a bridging case for the subsequent introduction of natural selection in school. The proposed simulation takes up essential biological elements but also has a cultural meaning for the inhabitants of some regions of Latin America. After implementing a test of…

Genetics is an area that is increasingly important in people's daily lives. Despite this, its teaching/learning is among the most challenging topics in biology. Several instruments were created over a number of years to ascertain the quality of teaching and learning genetics. In our study, we created a specific instrument to investigate Mendelian…

Many physics projects recently designed for high school teachers use Arduino as the main tool for managing sensors and data acquisition. This is a low-cost integrated development environment programmed with a simplified version of the C++ language. In comparison, the Raspberry Pi 3 platform, which also allows for the design of physics projects,…

This work aims to evaluate the evolution of chemical bonding concepts of high school students at public schools in southern Brazil. For this, we built the epistemological profile of each student who took part in a teaching-learning sequence (TLS) about this topic, based on the foundations of Bachelard's theory. Following the principles of the…

Students' scientific thinking skills can be empowered by implementing certain learning models in which they are given opportunities to perform some scientific activities. This study aims at investigating: (1) effect of guided inquiry learning model on scientific thinking skills; (2) effect of different types of scientific activities on scientific…

The aim of this study is to examine how the nature of science dimensions are represented in the secondary school 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade science textbooks of the last twenty years. It is also within the scope of the research to investigate how these dimensions in the textbooks changed during the twenty years. The document analysis method was…

Student underperformance in the sciences is a problem experienced throughout the Isles of the Sea, a pseudonym for the country where this study took place. As schools are sometimes said to be a microcosm of communities, the issue of underperformance in science was evident in the school system studied, particularly in biology. This system…

There are many reasons students fail to achieve in STEM related fields post high school. For example, students may spend too much time receiving teacher centered lessons that focus primarily on vocabulary building and concept recognition. These lessons may not necessarily promote understanding or encourage students to learn other skills than…