Describes how some of the Theory of Knowledge (ToK) requirements, which is a central part of the International Baccalaurate (IB) Diploma program, for the natural sciences component can be addressed through case studies from the history of chemistry and related subjects. Provides examples for the 'Ideas and evidence in science' which can be useful…

Discusses the similarities between Kuhn's essay about scientific revolutions and Popper's idea of falsification. Assesses Kuhn's contribution to the theory of naturalism. (Author/CCM)

Introduces a high school science curriculum that embodies inquiry-based genetics, evolution, and astronomy. Presents two astronomy units of scientific modeling. The first activity involves a black box to explain a hidden mechanism's effect on the outflow of water. The second activity involves the development of celestial motion models to explain…

Discusses the extent to which contemporary science curricula include knowledge of the nature of science as a goal of science instruction. Outlines the crucial role played by the pendulum in the achievements of the scientific revolution and documents how little these achievements are acknowledged in standard textbooks. (Contains 31 references.)…

Educating the public about safety issues related to severe weather is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) mission. This month's insert, Severe Weather, has been created by NOAA to help educate the public about hazardous weather conditions. The four types of severe weather highlighted in this poster are hurricanes,…

This research focused on the interactionist conceptual ecologies of inservice teachers and how these ecologies influenced these teachers' conceptual frameworks for the nature of science (NOS). The participants in the study were five teachers enrolled in a graduate course focused on NOS. Data included participants' responses to open-ended and…

Some teachers have difficulty understanding Bernoulli's principle particularly when the principle is applied to the aerodynamic lift. Some teachers favor using Newton's laws instead of Bernoulli's principle to explain the physics behind lift. Some also consider Bernoulli's principle too difficult to explain to students and avoid teaching it…

A professor of biology discovered that the people who are in literature rather than science, saw the same readings very differently and were looking for very different things like how nature writings expressed the author's views on nature, or what they communicated about the human experience of the living world. Further he visits London to see the…

This study explores college students' representations about the nature of theories during their enrollment in a large astronomy course with instruction designed to address a number of nature of science issues. We focus our investigation on how nine students represent their understanding of theory, how they distinguish between scientific theories…

Two or three years ago, there was an exchange of several articles in "Primary Science Review" about the question: "What is the best way of naming the forces acting on a descending parachute?" (Harrison, 2001; Harlen, 2002; Sell, 2002). Stuart Harrison reported that, according to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), a third of…

Newton's Cradle is a series of bifilar pendulums used in physics classrooms to demonstrate the role of the principles of conservation of momentum and kinetic energy in elastic collisions. The paper reviews the way in which textbooks use Newton's Cradle and points out the unsatisfactory nature of these treatments in almost all cases. The literature…

This paper is concerned with the process of religious thinking as a linguistic form of investigating the world of values, which stands in contrast to theology and religious studies. It hinges around Wittgenstein's comment, "I am not a religious man but I cannot help but see every question from a religious point of view." It argues that scientific…

Outlined is a simple design for a working wave-powered electrical generator based on one made on the BBC "Rough Science" TV series. The design has been kept deliberately simple to facilitate rapid pupil/student involvement and most importantly so that there is much scope for their own ingenuity and ideas. The generator works on the principle of…

This paper revisits the concepts "explicit" and "implicit" as pointing to distinct forms of religious consciousness and as conceptual tools for differentiating between diverse forms of Jewish education. The presenting problems are as follows: (a) Is the idea of integration between both of these orientations feasible in terms of psychological and…

Many educational psychologists believe that students' beliefs about the nature of knowledge, called epistemological beliefs, play an essential role in their learning process. Educators also stress the importance of helping students develop a better understanding of the nature of knowledge. The tentative and creative nature of science is often…