A key challenge in designing a teaching programme on energy is in deciding how best to deal with the differences in how the word "energy" is used and understood in everyday discourse and in science. Many of the most important decisions and choices about energy matters, both for individuals and society, can be adequately understood from…

Compared to studies on school students' understanding of various topics in the sciences, studies involving university students have received relatively less attention in the science education literature. In this study, we investigated university students' understanding of transition metals chemistry, a topic in inorganic chemistry, which…

Some readers might not fully know what the difference is between crystallography, and the "new age" practice of dangling crystals around the body to capitalise on their healing energy. The latter is often considered to be superstition, while ironically, the former has actually resulted in real rationally-based healing of human diseases…

This paper is concerned with the conceptualization of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching about the nature of science. In contrast to the view that science teachers need to develop a specific "PCK for nature of science," an alternative, more comprehensive notion of PCK for science teaching is suggested. The point of…

Within the increasing body of research that examines students' reasoning on socioscientific issues, we consider in particular student reasoning concerning acute, open-ended questions that bring out the complexities and uncertainties embedded in ill-structured problems. In this paper, we propose a socioscientific sustainability reasoning…

A laboratory experiment that introduces fluorometry of chlorophyll "a" at the general chemistry level is described. The use of thin-layer chromatography to isolate chlorophyll "a" from spirulina and leaf matter enables quantification of small amounts of chlorophyll "a" via fluorometry. Student results were reasonably…

The case study discussed in this work is used at the chemical reaction engineering course, offered in fifth-year of the chemical engineering undergraduate program at National University of Mar del Plata (UNMdP). A serial-parallel reaction system based on the anaerobic degradation of particulate-containing potato processing wastewater is presented.…

This study extends current research on the refutation text effect by investigating it in learners with different levels of working memory capacity. The purpose is to outline the link between online processes (revealed by eye fixation indices) and off-line outcomes in these learners. In science education, unlike a standard text, a refutation text…

I argue that students want to see relevance in their studies. The National Curriculum in England is a list of concepts that we wish them to understand. However, the concepts need to be embedded into a meaningful context, such as climate change, which may become the overarching reason for teaching science. In this article I remember fondly…

Critique and questioning are central to the practice of science; without argument and evaluation, the construction of reliable knowledge would be impossible. The challenge is to incorporate an understanding of the role of critique and, more importantly, the ability to engage in critique, within the teaching of science. The emphasis in both the US…

When students are first introduced to the idea of radioactive decay, a large conceptual hurdle must be overcome. The thought that an object's age has no bearing on the chance it will "die" (decay in this case) on a particular day is completely at odds with biological notions of life and death. Through the use of a simple…

In this paper, I present a low-cost interactive experiment for measuring the strength of Earth's local magnetic field. This activity can be done in most high schools or two-year physics laboratories with limited resources, yet will have a tremendous learning impact. This experiment solidifies the three-dimensional nature of Earth's…

One important purpose of a definition is to explain the meaning of a word. Any problems associated with a definition may impede students' learning. However, research studies on the definitional problems from the perspective of physics education are limited. Physics educators may not be aware of the nature and extent of definitional problems.…

That nature and the universe are ordered, uniform, and comprehensible is a starting point in science. However, such worldview presuppositions are often taken for granted, rather than explicitly mentioned, in science and in science class. This article takes a worldview perspective and reports from interviews (N = 26) with upper secondary students…

The aim of this paper is to discuss the use of short science stories based on the history of science for science teacher education. Such stories are implemented to acquaint prospective and practicing science teachers in all educational levels with a conceptualisation of the nature of science (NOS) drawing from recent and contemporary developments…