One of the most mystifying products on the market for people at any age is the glow stick: a plastic tube that, when snapped, creates a flood of bright, brilliantly colored light without the use of electricity or significant production of heat. In this case, the chemiluminescence reaction also provides an exciting phenomenon through which we can…

Students in a beginning level undergraduate classical mechanics course engaged in collaborative inquiry through the "Windwalker Project". The aim of this project was for students to create a free-standing movable structure as a way of testing and applying their understanding of the conceptual and theoretical elements of the course. This…

The author describes how she has developed learning and teaching through engaging with social media. By following a wealth of individuals and organisations (both local and national) she has tapped into a rich source of information.

This study was aimed to examine the relation between the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) career interests and science process skills of middle school seventh grade students. Method of this study was the relational survey method. The study was conducted on the basis of voluntariness and participants were 133 seventh grade…

There is always debate about when, where, and how to introduce students to vocabulary when teaching science. The authors argue that there is not necessarily a singular correct order or right time to introduce new vocabulary to students. Rather, what is important is that we support students in learning the language they need to engage in the…

Water quality is an important interdisciplinary environmental topic for project-based learning. An undergraduate summer research internship program at a public minority serving institution engaged environmental science majors in community-based research experiences. The research focused on the field monitoring of water quality for surface water…

Centrifugation is a major unit operation in chemical and biotechnology industries. Here we present a simple, hands-on laboratory experiment to teach the basic principles of centrifugation and to explore the shear effects of centrifugation using bacterial cells as model particles. This experiment provides training in the use of a bench-top…

Important science phenomena--such as atomic structure, evolution, and climate change--are often hard to observe directly. That's why an important scientific practice is to use scientific models to represent one's current understanding of a system. Using models has been included as an essential science and engineering practice in the "Next…

According to Harlen (2010) the ultimate goal of science education is for children to have an understanding of relationships, moving beyond science as a series of facts or small ideas towards seeing the bigger picture. Working with a group of 10- and 11-year-olds from a year 6 class, teacher Simon Williams provided a series of challenges using the…

Increasing student achievement is a fundamental concern for many school districts and teachers. Providing students with engaging, blended STEM educational experiences may help them understand how scientists and engineers solve problems. The purpose of this article is to share teaching strategies and student activities that will not only increase…

What is it really like to plunge into the world of science learning and teaching? Find out in this unique book. "Dive In!" grew out of a teacher-scientist project at the University of New Hampshire that promoted active learning and using science practices in the classroom. That experience yielded this book's reason for being: to provide…

The aim of this research is to discover what science teachers' opinions about outdoor education learning environments are. Outdoor education learning environments contribute to problem-solving, critical and creative thinking skills of students. For this reason, outdoor education learning environments are very important for students to learn by…

The aim of this research is to develop a guide material prepared according to Purdue Model for the 'The Let's Solve the Puzzle of Our Body' unit in the 5th grade science class at secondary school and to research the effects of this guide material on students' creative thinking. For this purpose, the research was carried out by using the quasi…

The research aims to find out the effect of project-based science education programme conducted with an active learning on scientific process skills and conceptions of 6-year-old children about nature of science. Quasi-experimental research design including experimental and control groups with pre-test and post-test was implemented. Mixed-method…

Manipulative skills and abilities include skills in the handling and manipulation of materials and apparatus in the context of scientific investigation. Science teachers appeared to be struggling with the mode of assessment in making authentic evaluation of manipulative skills in laboratories. One of the contributing factors is due to the lack of…