A number of tools and techniques have been developed to assist students with blindness and visual impairment who are studying in secondary and post-secondary science laboratories. Commercial electronic probes and their associated software packages allow real-time viewing and collection of data using a personal computer; however, until now, these…

The purpose of this study is to prepare inquiry based experimental activities on the photosynthesis, thought to be a very difficult subject by pupils, and to determine the pupil's ideas towards this method. This study was made with 24 pupils from Grade 3 at Ataturk Anatolian High school in Turkey. As data gathering material; seven inquiry…

When lecturing, teachers make use of both verbal and nonverbal communication. What is called teaching, therefore, involves not only the words and sentences a teacher utters and writes on the board during a lesson, but also all the hands/arms gestures, body movements, and facial expressions a teacher "performs" in the classroom. All of these…

Written assessment items were developed to probe students' understanding of a variety of direct current (DC) resistive electric circuit concepts. The items were used to explore the mental models that grade 3-8 students use in explaining the direction of electric current and how electric current is affected by different configurations of simple…

Although beloved of some chemists and physicists, science demonstrations have been criticized for stifling inquiry and assisting teachers to maintain a power differential between themselves and students in the classroom. This interpretive study reports the unexpected positive learning outcomes for urban science students in two chemistry classes…

It is widely accepted that inquiry-based curriculum programs have positive effects on cognitive achievement, process skills, and attitudes toward science (NRC 2000). Science teachers seek engaging, effective, and inquiry-based activities that are standards-aligned and convenient to implement in their classrooms. For many years, the web has…

In these activities, middle school and high school students examine the threat of nonnative plant species to Hawaiian ecosystems. Students explore different viewpoints on alien plants and consider how beliefs and attitudes may affect others' decisions concerning nonnative plant species. Students also identify invasive plant characteristics and…

With the widening knowledge base students will need to be more flexible in their learning habits. Traditionally, teaching school science often involves teacher-centred methods like lectures, experimental demonstration or guided inquiry. Plain knowledge dissemination will not adequately prepare students to cope with the changing world. Hence,…

Most experienced high school science teachers are asked at some point to serve as a mentor to a novice teacher. While mentor-training programs have been established in many states, they often only focus on how the mentor can help new science teachers understand and negotiate the school culture, such as how the school runs and where supplies are…

Thermodynamics, specifically energy and heat, is a major concept in the foundations of physics and physical science. To determine a strategy to teach thermodynamics meaningfully, the authors conducted classroom action research using interviews to determine secondary physics students' current conceptions of thermodynamics. On the basis of the…

This study examines Indonesian students' understanding of conservation of matter, balancing of equations and stoichiometry. Eight hundred and sixty-seven Grade 12 students from 22 schools across four different cities in two developed provinces in Indonesia participated in the study. Nineteen teachers also participated in order to validate the…

A national study released in 2005 concluded that most high school students are not exposed to high quality science labs because of these reasons: (a) poor school facilities and organizations; (b) weak teacher preparation; (c) poor design; (d) cluttered state standards; (e) little representation on state tests; and (f) scarce evidence of what…

Physics is a fundamental science course and can be valuable to all students, however, enrollment at the high school level is low. This study tries to identify factors that influence high school student enrollment and achievement. Raw data was obtained from the New York State Education Department on magnetic tapes with over 300,000 records…

Analogies are believed to help students structure new knowledge and are considered to be especially useful for topics of an abstract or submicroscopic nature. Analogies, however, have also been identified as a factor in the students' misunderstanding of chemical concepts. This paper reports on the literature identifying the advantages and…

Presents a rationale for the use of a variety of reading materials in Nuffield Physics and describes how this approach works in practice. Presents a list of books that have been found most useful in the A level course. (GS)