Last year, when students at Ridgecrest Intermediate School in Palos Verdes, California, were asked to name scientists, their answers--Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Bill Nye the Science Guy--reflected a common perception. Most of the leading scientists they came up with were white, male, or dead. Although women and people of…

There has been much interest in magnetite (Fe[subscript 3]O[subscript 4]) due to its utility in adsorbing high concentrations of arsenic in contaminated water. The magnetic properties of the material allow for simple dispersion and removal from an aqueous system. An inquiry-based laboratory has been developed that illustrates these unique…

During the last decades students' science-related interests, attitudes, and images of science and scientists, and their differentiations according to gender, culture, and socio-economic status have been investigated by a multitude of research studies. These aspects of students' voices seem to be interrelated and to also affect students'…

Integrating the worlds of art and science can be a perfect tool for engaging students who wouldn't be initially interested in a science class. Even those students who love science may delve deeper into the subject when it's associated with art. One way to make this connection is to explore the life and work of great nature artists of the past and…

Trash is having a global impact not only on land, but at sea--making its way into the ocean and creating large islands of floating debris. One such island is The Great Pacific Trash Patch, which is located in the North Pacific and is made up of floating trash and debris that is spread out in an area as much as one and a half times the size of the…

Interest in game-based learning for K-12 is growing. Thus, helping teachers understand how to use these new pedagogies is important. This paper presents a cross-case study of the development of teacher professional development for the River City project, a games-based multi-user virtual environment science curriculum project for middle school…

These proceedings contain papers of the 3rd International Baltic Symposium on Science and Technology Education (BalticSTE2019) held in Šiauliai, Lithuania, June 17-19, 2019. This symposium was organized by the Scientific Methodical Center "Scientia Educologica" in cooperation with the Institute of Education, Šiauliai University. The…

Literacy remains an area of concern in early secondary education in Scotland (ages 12-14), with recent research suggesting a continued decline in attainment levels. As literacy underpins learning, interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches to teaching literacy are now being emphasized through the new Curriculum for Excellence that aims to…

Throughout this country the student population is becoming increasingly diverse, yet the teacher population does not reflect this diversity. This lack of diversity in the teacher population deprives students of color from having role models of the same race/ethnicity who look like them and who might have experiences which are similar to theirs…

Models and modeling are considered integral parts of scientific literacy, reflecting educators' efforts to introduce and engage students in authentic scientific inquiry through Modeling-based Learning (MbL) approaches in science. Over the years research has developed a considerable amount of knowledge concerning MbL. Our purpose in this paper was…

This article presents a framework for considering teaching intentions relating to literacy within the context of the school science curriculum. It focuses on the provision of learning experiences involving discussion,reading and/or writing and specifically on student-authored podcasting as a "writing-to-learn" activity that can assist young people…

The use of assessment methods is a widely discussed topic in education. Exams that are commonly used, however, may not necessarily assess student understanding at a high cognitive level. By implementing alternative assessment methods, instructors can influence student learning. Portfolio-based assessment (PBA) is a purposeful collection of student…

Science Without Borders is a unique interdisciplinary science course that uses group and active-learning strategies and is in high demand among nonscience majors at a masters-level university. Registrar data showed that nonscience majors were far more likely to choose this course compared with other, discipline-based science courses. In an…

Federal legislation supports instruction of content areas for all individuals, yet professionals in the field of special education are left trying to find the relevant functional outcomes for science and other content instruction for students with disabilities enrolled in a functional curriculum. Research on effective instruction for students with…

Recognizing the relevance that fieldwork and field trips have in the teaching of geosciences and related learning processes, this study presents two geological fieldwork studies that were established with Portuguese secondary school students. Both studies were focused on geoscience content knowledge, and attempted to increase environmental…