The multiple-choice section of the final examination for the first-year Advanced Physics I course at the University of Newcastle, Australia between 2010 and 2018 was investigated for gender bias. A Mantel-Haenszel analysis revealed that approximately 20% of the multiple-choice questions exhibited statistically significant gender bias. A schema for…

Qualitative studies in the domain of physics education research have become more common in the last several decades. Methodologically, this has been marked by an expansion of the types of data collected in physics education research (PER): namely, in the use of individual and group interviews, problem-solving sessions, and classroom…

Purpose: Attending to teachers' instructional contexts is integral for understanding their learning and implementation of education reform. However, there is still much to be understood about the processes that surround teacher decision making and their navigations through change in their work contexts. Research Methods/Approach: This article…

Active learning, a common practice in higher education, has been shown to promote higher order thinking and skills. Class discussions have been chosen to be the medium to incorporate active learning in schools' curriculum. However, the rate of class participation could be low for certain courses. Literature has shown that the fear of negative…

General chemistry is a gateway course that students from several STEM-related majors take at the beginning of their college careers. Faced with high attrition rates of students in STEM fields and even higher rates for groups minoritized due to gender and ethnicity/race, this study explored how a general chemistry course influenced students'…

Global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the need for visionary innovations in chemical education. We recently deigned a new learning environment called "ZuKon 2030", which addresses sustainability from a chemical perspective while simultaneously introducing students to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the…

Calorimetry is a central concept in the first semester general chemistry curriculum, and constant pressure (coffee-cup) calorimetry is a common experiment in the laboratory. However, constant volume (bomb) calorimetry is traditionally reserved for the physical chemistry laboratory. This article describes the advantages of incorporating bomb…

Investigating the optical properties of various chemical compounds using UV-vis spectrophotometers is an essential part of education in chemistry. However, commercial spectrophotometers are usually treated as "magic black boxes", where the dominant majority of optical elements are hidden "under the hood". This often limits…

Undergraduate-level laboratory experiments that integrate multidisciplinary chemistry concepts into a single activity are very appealing and thought-provoking for chemistry students. Here, we use the oscillating chemical reaction to introduce students to the analytical detection concept. The Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction is employed as a simple…

During the COVID-19 pandemic we developed an activity that encourages engagement with scientific reading and helps students to improve their reading skills as a complement to the glycobiology section of an undergraduate course of biological chemistry. Using "Genially," an online platform for gamification and self-taught learning, we…

There are many factors that can negatively impact student learning, including stress which impacts memory and overall well-being. A potential tool for educators to reduce stress and improve well-being is to use contemplative practices in the classroom, such as mindfulness and gratitude. In this Activity, we integrated voluntary daily mindfulness…

Kombucha, a popular probiotic beverage, contains detectable concentrations of ethyl alcohol. To be sold as a nonalcoholic product, alcohol concentrations in kombucha must be shown to be less than 0.5% by volume. This paper describes the use of an inexpensive, commercially available sensor to reliably and accurately measure alcohol concentrations…

Metal-air battery technology is a promising new energy storage solution in the green energy economy but also an excellent tool to educate students on the working principles of batteries. A simple yet powerful construction of a metal-air battery is shown, which consists of a plastic mint box, a cathode, an anode, and an electrolyte. Furthermore,…

There is an overwhelming consensus that sustained opportunities for teachers' professional learning is critical for student success, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the nature, substance, and format of K-12 teachers' opportunities for professional learning necessarily shifted. District administrators, focused on maintaining the safest possible…

"The Framework for K-12 Science Education" and the Next Generation Science Standards require teachers to integrate engineering design into K-12 science teaching. However, many teachers have no formal preparation in engineering design and how to integrate it into science instruction. Furthermore, few models exist for preparing teachers in…