Research finds that student teachers often fail to make observable instructional goals, without which a secure bridge between instruction and assessment is precluded. This is one reason that recent reports state that teacher education needs to become better at helping student teachers to develop their thinking about and skills in assessing pupils'…

This study aims to design a mechanism with which the density of any solid or liquid can be determined without measuring its mass and volume in order to help students comprehend the concept of density more easily. The "solidensimeter" comprises of two scaled and nested glass containers (graduated cylinder or beaker) and sufficient water.…

The development and evaluation of a 6-hours laboratory class, based on capillary electrophoresis (CE) and the detection of microbial contaminants, is described. It can be easily scaled up or down, to suit class sizes up to 188 and completed in a shorter time scale. CE uses narrow-bore fused-silica capillaries to separate a complex array of large…

Minerals are commonly taught in ways that emphasize mineral identification for its own sake or maybe to help identify rocks. But how do minerals fit in with other science content taught? The author uses mineral formulas to help Earth science students wonder about the connection between elements, compounds, mixtures, minerals, and mineral formulas.…

Le Châtelier's principle is used as a basis to derive an expression to calculate solution pH during titrations that involve only strong acids and strong bases. Central to this model are the reaction quotient and a re-equilibration term that represents the extent of neutralization during a titration. Unlike the method traditionally taught to…

The separation of chamazulene from hydrophilic contaminants present in blue tansy oil provides a visually engaging example of two common techniques: extraction and thin-layer chromatography (TLC). This application uses liquid CO[subscript 2] as a lipophilic solvent to pull a brilliant blue hydrocarbon molecule, chamazulene, out of or through a…

We present a method to analyse how pre-service science teachers relate events, ideas, characters and deeds in history of science and in cultural and general history. A group of 25 students presented their views they deemed to be of importance in history of science, culture, society and politics in era between 1550 and 1850. The sample is based on…

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics faculty are increasingly incorporating both formal and informal group work in their courses. Implementing group work can be improved by an understanding of the extensive body of educational research studies on this topic. This essay describes an online, evidence-based teaching guide published by…

The aim of this study was to determine opinions of a group of prospective Turkish primary school teachers about what teaching methods and techniques are more suitable to teach science. In addition, their perceived competence in selection of teaching methods and techniques was explored. In Turkey, primary school teachers offer various courses in…

A low-cost alternative to the typical scientific laboratory water bath or a hot plate stirrer water bath is proposed. Readily available immersion circulators have been developed for sous vide cooking. These precision cookers are designed to maintain water at an exact temperature and thus are well-suited for the similar laboratory requirements of a…

The miniaturization of flow injection analysis devices presents several improvements related to analytical procedures. However, a cost reduction and simplification are required to allow extensive use in undergraduate teaching laboratories. Here we present a low cost microfluidic electroanalytical device composed only of interlocking toy blocks,…

Expensive, highly reflective barium sulfate plates are typically used to obtain solid-state UV-vis electronic spectra. Through normal laboratory use these plates become dirty, chip, and break, thus requiring replacement. An alternative to purchasing new plates is to make your own by combining a mechanical stabilizer, such as gum arabic, with…

Fostering the development of students' critical thinking (CT) is regarded as an essential outcome of higher education. However, despite the large body of research on this topic, there has been little consensus on how educators best support the development of CT. In view of some of the controversies surrounding the teaching of CT skills in higher…

Project-based learning has been shown to be an effective pedagogical strategy that motivates students and thus promotes learning. In this article we describe a project-based unit centered on the physics of solar cookers (Fig. 1 and 3). Our goal was to elevate the solar cooker from a summer camp activity to a college-level project that could be…

Research has shown that visual literacy is an important element to use within a classroom (Tillmann 2012). One way to incorporate visual literacy into the science classroom is with the use of advertisements. In this article, Tiffany Pace describes how she and her students began their visual literacy quest while studying mixtures and solutions,…