In this article, the authors present a laboratory exercise in data collection and statistical analysis in biological space using clustered stomates on leaves of "Begonia" plants. The exercise can be done in middle school classes by students making their own slides and seeing imprints of cells, or at the high school level through collecting data of…

Cross-sectional and longitudinal data from students as they advance through the middle school years (grades 6-8) reveal insights into the development of students' pattern generalization abilities. As expected, students show a preference for lower-level tasks such as "reading the data," over more distant predictions and generation of abstractions.…

A study of the effect of science teaching with a multimedia simulation on water quality, the "River of Life," on the science conceptual understanding of students (N = 83) in an undergraduate science education (K-9) course is reported. Teaching reality-based meaningful science is strongly recommended by the National Science Education Standards…

Learner centred design methods highlight the importance of involving the stakeholders of the learning process (learners, teachers, educational researchers) at all stages of the design of educational applications and of refining the design through an iterative prototyping process. These methods have been used successfully when designing systems…

Doubling the Number of college graduates in Kentucky by 2020 will be challenging, but it is a worthy and achievable goal, and will make a real difference in the lives and livelihoods of Kentuckians. This report, a biennial publication of the Council on Postsecondary Education, shows how every county in the state can contribute toward this goal and…

Children's mathematical misconceptions very often arise as a result of poor communication. This practical and innovative book presents a range of creative strategies to help teachers communicate effectively in the mathematics classroom, offering some new ways of presenting the fundamental concepts and principles of mathematics, and clearly…

This article describes a lesson unit in which students constructed tables and graphs to represent the growth of different trees. Students then compared the graphs to develop an understanding of slope.

Many teachers bring caterpillars into their class for their students to see the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly. This is exciting and educational, but more can be done using Monarchs across the curriculum. This article describes an integrated butterfly unit for students in grades four to six that starts with identifying the Monarch…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) looked at elementary school math curricula designed to promote math knowledge and skills among elementary school students (average ages 5 to 10 years). Curricula included in this review are replicable, materials-based instructional programs that cover one or more of the following content areas: numbers,…

The case-based computerized laboratory (CCL) is a chemistry learning environment that integrates computerized experiments with emphasis on scientific inquiry and comprehension of case studies. The research objective was to investigate chemical understanding and graphing skills of high school honors students via bidirectional visual and textual…

One skill that elementary students need to acquire is the ability to analyze spatially distributed data. In this activity students are asked to complete the following tasks: (1) plot a set of data (related to "mud-sharks"--an imaginary fish) on a map of the state of Alabama, (2) identify trends in the data, (3) make graphs using the data…

This computer software program helps to make classroom worksheets, take home assignments, and school mathematics tests easy to design and manufacture. The accompanying printed teaching guide provides technical information for setting up and using the program, along with sample worksheets and instructions on how to create them using the software.…

This investigation into the effects of configural properties (properties determined by the interrelationships existing between component parts) used a selective attention task to determine whether intersection is a primary encoding feature or is constructed after slopes and heights are perceived. The method for encoding feature identification,…

The way that graphs can be used to make calculations that are commonly used by institutional researchers is described using specific examples, and the technique of constructing computational graphs (and nomographs) is outlined. It is shown that once a calculation involving several variables has been represented by a computation diagram or a…

The value of including a unit on graph theory in the elementary school mathematics curriculum is discussed. A module for use in teaching graph theory to elementary school teachers is presented. (SD)