Science learning for undergraduate students requires grasping a great number of theoretical concepts in a rather short time. In our experience, this is especially difficult when students are required to simultaneously use abstract concepts, mathematical reasoning, and graphical analysis, such as occurs when learning about RC circuits. We present a…

Our motivation for this article is for students to realize that opportunities for discovery are all around them. Discoveries that can still puzzle present day researchers. Here we explore an observation by a middle school student concerning the production of what appears to be water-like "ripples" produced in aluminum foil when placed…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Astronomy Education Research.] The NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program (NITARP) partners small groups of educators with a research astronomer for a year-long authentic research project. This program aligns well with the characteristics of high-quality professional development (PD) programs…

A central goal of physics education is to teach problem-solving competency, but the description of the nature of this competency is somewhat fragmentary and implicit in the literature. The present article uses recent historical scholarship on Arnold Sommerfeld and Enrico Fermi to identify and characterize two positions on the nature of physics…

Physics is often seen as an excellent introduction to science because it allows students to learn not only the laws governing the world around them, but also, through the problems students solve, a way of thinking which is conducive to solving problems outside of physics and even outside of science. In this article, we contest this latter idea and…

Building a better public education system for our children begins with providing students with real-world learning experiences from the very beginning. To this end, the authors explored how two kindergarten teachers scaffolded scientific literacy learning using an authentic multimodal text before, during, and after a zoo field trip in ways that…

In this article a new authorial EduPython application is presented. It is an online tool that supports the teaching of physics using a problem-solving method. It gives the teacher an opportunity to collect data that students send using their smartphones. The application uses the data to produce a collective answer of all the students which gives…

The sensors in modern smartphones are a promising and cost-effective tool for experimentation in physics education, but many experiments face practical problems. Often the phone is inaccessible during the experiment and the data usually needs to be analyzed subsequently on a computer. We address both problems by introducing a new app, called…

Like scientists who keep lab notebooks detailing their experiments, inventors keep invention notebooks that chronologically detail the inception, development, and refinement of their inventions. These notebooks are legal documents that can help prove one inventor's precedent over another. Scenarios like these are very real, as the author has had…

Supporting efforts to grow the scientific workforce means articulating and comparing the content of science field stereotypes. To do this, data were collected from the general public [undergraduates (n= 121) and Amazon Mechanical Turk workers (n=223)] as well as from people within science [attendees of an undergraduate conference for women in…

Small-scale science activities provide an opportunity for engagement of diverse, large audiences at settings such as 4-H fairs. We present practical information for implementation of small-scale food science experiences in the Extension education context. Our focus is description of a tool for adaptation of activities for inquiry-based learning…

Nowadays, in almost any country in the world, it is difficult to find a young person who has never played with, seen, or heard of the most famous toy in 2017: the fidget spinner. According to Wikipedia: "The fidget spinner is a toy that consists of a ball-bearing in the center of a multi-lobed flat structure made from metal or plastic…

The recent use of Arduino Uno microcontroller boards for automated data acquisition has revolutionized physics education. The Arduino-based physics labs have dramatically lowered the cost of the experimental equipment, while at the same time replacing the commercial apparatus with open hardware and software. Students benefit greatly from rigorous…

There are already several articles describing ways to teach physics using smartphone apps, but what are some experiments you can perform immediately without downloading any additional software? In the spirit of increasing the amount of hands-on activities each of us is doing, and to give us backup activities when you have a few extra minutes of…

This methodological paper examines current conceptions of reliability in chemistry education research (CER) and provides recommendations for moving beyond the current reliance on reporting coefficient alpha (a) as reliability evidence without regard to its appropriateness for the research context. To help foster a better understanding of…