Explores a way of analyzing laboratory activities that can help middle and high school science teachers to match their instructional goals with one of three appropriate types of activities: confirmation, generalization, or resolution. Examples and guiding principles for each kind of activity are given. (Contains 23 references.) (MDH)

Discusses how laboratory skills or experiences learned in a chemistry course can be used to help students to better understand physics. (ZWH)

Presents a procedure that students can use to determine the center of mass of a thin (two-dimensional), homogenous object experimentally, analytically, and numerically. Requires students to use three distinctly different approaches to a single problem and necessitates a combination of laboratory skills, a knowledge of fundamental calculus, and…

Uses the Science Process Skills Inventory (SPSI) to analyze student efforts at writing experimental designs. Results indicate that explicit, incremental development of the science process skills of formulating hypotheses and identifying variables, together with model examples, may be a means to facilitate student success in designing science…

Discusses concerns regarding the assessment of scientific investigations in the National Curriculum. Presents observations and assessment advice and guidance. (JRH)

Presents experiments that use the Mattel's Hot Wheels Top Speed toy set to show that work is a measure of energy transferred to or from a system. (JRH)

This study developed an experimental analysis procedure based on the results of a descriptive assessment, involving five parents and their children with problem behaviors. The experimental analysis required only four sessions to demonstrate a function for each subject's problem behaviors. Interventions involving functional communication training…

Describes problems that are presented in the form of experiments. The philosophy, method of solution, and several examples of mechanics experiment problems are described. (LZ)

This paper extends discussion of Cushing's contribution to Bohm's deterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics, which raises the question of whether self-understanding is at issue in physical science as it is in social science. Addresses ideas by Bevilacqua and Giannetto about the use of historical texts and the primacy of experiment. (LZ)

Discusses the use of 40 kHz ultrasonic transducers to study wave phenomena. Determines that the resulting wavelength of 9 mm allows acoustic experiments to be performed on a tabletop. Includes transducer characteristics and activities on speed of sound, reflection, double- and single-slit diffraction, standing waves, acoustical zone plate, and…

Describes the use of geiger counters for scientific investigations and experiments. Presents information about background radiation, its sources and detection. Describes how geiger counters work and other methods of radiation detection. Provides purchasing information for geiger counters, related computer software and equipment. (MCO)

Discusses ways to simulate a probability problem of interest to middle school students in which students calculate the average number of packets of trading cards purchased to obtain a complete set of cards. Simulations utilize a spinner, a table of random numbers, and a computer. Includes the BASIC program utilized in the simulation. (MDH)

Authors discuss "the scientific method" and assert that laboratory scientists ask questions but seldom state formal hypotheses to be answered by controlled experiments. Authors suggest that experimental results should not be viewed as fact, and students should not be required to memorize the steps of the scientific method. (PR)

Presents an experiment based on the principles of rectilinear motion of light operating in a pinhole camera that projects the image of an illuminated object through a small hole in a sheet to an image screen. (MDH)