The effective use of formative assessment (FA) has been demonstrated to confer positive impacts on student learning. To understand why and how FA works, it is necessary to characterize teachers' FA practices, but because both teaching practice and learning depend on the nature of the discipline, there are disciplinary aspects to examining this.…

The basic concepts inherent to statics, including unbalanced and balanced forces and instability and stability of physical systems, have traditionally been covered in middle and high school physical science courses (Physical Science as indicated in "Next Generation Science Standards"). Yet, these concepts are covered using a physical…

With the developing technology educating students free from misconceptions, making sense of their learnings and using them in daily life are primarily aimed. This research is designed not only for teaching "work, energy and power" concepts and the relationships among them but also for investigating the effects of the teaching on…

Geodesy is a very active and essential research discipline in geophysics but it is not a commonly studied subject at the secondary school or junior post-secondary levels. Far more frequently, gravity and gravitational acceleration are discussed, to some extent, in elementary kinematics or classical mechanics courses. This often takes the form of…

We present a critical discussion of how chemistry textbooks treat the electrolysis of water and aqueous salt solutions, based on a survey of general chemistry textbooks in English and Korean at secondary and tertiary levels, also informed by the historical background of 19th-century debates. English-language textbooks present various and…

Science Hunters is a UK outreach project that uses "Minecraft" (a computer game that allows children to build with a wide range of blocks) to engage children with science. Sessions are based on a range of science topics and include practical activities. A new topic, on bioluminescence, was designed in collaboration with staff and…

Graphs are often used to represent mathematical functions, to illustrate data from social and natural sciences, or to specify scientific theories. With increasing emphasis on the development of scientific research skills, the work with graphs and data interpretation are gaining in importance. The research involved an eye-tracking experiment…

First-year undergraduate curricula and their delivery should assist students in the transition from previous learning experiences to learning in higher education. However, the so-called articulation gap or discontinuity between secondary and higher education has been identified as a key structural curriculum problem for first-year success in South…

Besides improving students' understanding of scientific concepts, chemistry teaching should also improve students' ability of applying concepts to solve problems. The research aims to explore the effects of modeling teaching on students' proficiency in solving galvanic cell problems. This research used a quasi-experimental design, and the…

Whether the activity of creating digital art influences high school students' attitudes toward science is unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine if the creation of artistic digital chemoscans by high school students influences attitudes toward science. In this study, ninth- grade high school students' attitudes toward science were…

This article introduces the use of "VPython" (the "Python" programming language plus a 3D graphics module called "Visual") as a potentially valuable tool in teaching aspects of secondary school chemistry, which also provides an opportunity for students to gain some experience with manipulating and/or writing computer…

Epistemological and philosophical issues have always been relevant for the foundations of physics, but usually do not find their way into secondary physics classrooms. As an exception to this, the strangeness of quantum physics (QP) naturally evokes philosophical questions, and learners might have to change their ideas about the nature of science…

Student cognition in response to intuitive and counterintuitive stimuli in the school science curriculum is not well understood. To address this issue, this study examines high school students' cognitive responses to three counterintuitive physics problems. Our analysis reveals that student success in arriving at counter-intuitive physical…

High school chemistry teachers struggle to use assessment results to inform instruction. In the absence of expert assistance, teachers often look to their peers for guidance and support; however, little is known about the assessment beliefs and practices of high school chemistry teachers or the discourse mechanisms used as teachers support one…

Clean energy is a topic of increasing political and cultural significance in the age of climate change, and as such can be an interesting topic with which to engage students. One avenue to produce large quantities of power is through harnessing nuclear reactions; however, the social stigma and fear of expanding nuclear power have placed several…