This article describes how to establish a primary tissue culture, where cells are taken directly from an organ of a living animal. Cardiac cells are taken from chick embryos and transferred to culture dishes. These cells are not transformed and therefore have a limited life span. However, the unique characteristics of cardiac cells are maintained…

In this general chemistry laboratory, flame emission spectrometry is used to determine the potassium ion concentration in saturated solutions of potassium hydrogen phthalate (KHP) in the 0-65 [degree]C temperature range. From these data the solubility products (K[subscript sp]), the Gibbs free energies of solution ([Delta][subscript…

A field-based environmental geochemistry course was developed at Western Michigan University for undergraduate geosciences and environmental studies students to (1) improve student understanding of complex environmental systems, specifically targeting lake systems; (2) facilitate student development of professional-level, field- and…

In July 2008, a new professional development program called Satellites, Weather and Climate (SWAC) began at the University of Vermont. Its goal was to enhance the competency of in-service K-12 science and mathematics Vermont teachers in the atmospheric, climate, and geospatial sciences. The pilot program ran until 2010, during which time 14…

The integration of research and education is an essential component of our university's teaching philosophy. Recently, we made a curricular revision to facilitate such an approach in the General Chemistry Laboratory, to teach students that investigative approaches are at the core of sciences. The curriculum revision included new interdisciplinary…

Language laboratories, developed in the 1970s under the influence of the Audiolingual Method, were superseded several decades later by computer-assisted language learning (CALL) work stations (Gündüz, 2005). The World Wide Web was developed shortly thereafter. From this introduction and the well-documented and staggering growth of the Internet and…

The purpose of this conceptual research framework is to develop and integrate a safety training model using a behaviour-based safety training programme into laboratories for young adults, during their tertiary education, particularly in technical and vocational education. Hence, this research will be investigating the outcome of basic safety…

Teachers in a middle school and a high school with high percentages of English language learners showed evidence of transformative learning during the 2 years in which they collaborated in an ongoing professional development activity called "learning labs," which include focused discussion of observations of colleagues' classrooms.…

Vivisection (live animal experimentation) is a controversial issue for many people. The purpose of this case study is to examine the attitudes of prospective teachers toward vivisection in education and research, to determine if gender has an influence on these attitudes, and to discuss the implications of these attitudes with regard to teaching…

Distance education has emerged out of social compulsion, the dynamics of change and new cultures. It was the failure of traditional systems to be able to meet the demand in countries, where the resources available for tertiary education are limited, which basically gave birth to the new trend of education known as open and distance education. This…

The present article is primarily targeted for the advanced college/university undergraduate students of chemistry/physics education, computational physics/chemistry, and computer science. The most recent software system such as MS Visual Studio .NET version 2010 is employed to perform computer simulations for modeling Bohr's quantum theory of…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how science faculty members' belief systems about inquiry-based teaching changed through their experience in a professional development program. The program was designed to support early career science faculty in learning about inquiry and incorporating an inquiry-based approach to teaching…

Variations in science lab design can differentially impact student learning. Quantification of these differential impacts can be used in modeling--an approach we term "optimal lab design." In this study we estimated relative influences of six characteristics of lab design on students' attitudes toward science labs in three different…

More than 90% of vascular plants in terrestrial ecosystems form symbiotic root-fungal associations known as mycorrhiza; in Mediterranean biomes all known mycorrhizal types co-exist. However, the understanding of mycorrhizal diversity and structure and their ecophysiological impact in soil productivity and conservation has been shown to be very…

Beer's law is an ideal technique that works only in certain situations. A method for dealing with more complex conditions needs to be integrated into the analytical chemistry curriculum. For that reason, the capabilities and limitations of two common chemometric algorithms, classical least squares (CLS) and principal component regression (PCR),…