We analyse why it is erroneous to think that a tidal bulge is formed by pulling the water surface directly up by a local vertical tidal force. In fact, ocean tides are caused by the global effect of the horizontal components of the tidal forces.

This article advances the prerequisite network as a means to visualize the hidden structure in an academic curriculum. Networks have been used to represent a variety of complex systems ranging from social systems to biochemical pathways and protein interactions. Here, I treat the academic curriculum as a complex system with nodes representing…

A significant redesign of the introductory organic chemistry curriculum at the authors' institution is described. There are two aspects that differ greatly from a typical functional group approach. First, organic reaction mechanisms and the electron-pushing formalism are taught before students have learned a single reaction. The conservation of…

There is a significant clustering of African-American physics faculty members at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Almost half (47%) of African-American physics faculty members are employed by physics departments at HBCUs. Physics departments at 30 HBCUs award degrees in physics; this accounts for about 4% (30 out of 746) of…

This study aimed to investigate the statuses on the publishing and usage of college biochemistry textbooks in China. A textbook database was constructed and the statistical analysis was adopted to evaluate the textbooks. The results showed that there were 945 (~57%) books for theory teaching, 379 (~23%) books for experiment teaching and 331 (~20%)…

The Force Concept Inventory is one of the most popular and most analyzed multiple-choice concept tests used to investigate students' understanding of Newtonian mechanics. The correct answers poll a set of underlying Newtonian concepts and the coherence of these underlying concepts has been found in the data. However, this inventory was constructed…

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…

In the present article, the context-dependency of student reasoning is studied in a context of optics. We investigated introductory students' explanations about the behavior of light when different light sources, namely a small light bulb and a laser, were used in otherwise identical task assignments. The data was gathered with the aid of pretest…

Model-Based learning is a methodology that facilitates students' construction of scientific knowledge, which, sometimes, includes restructuring their mental models. Taking into consideration students' learning process, its aim is to promote a deeper understanding of phenomena's dynamics through the manipulation of models. Our aim was to ascertain…

The blue bottle experiment is a popular chemical demonstration because of its simplicity and visual appeal. Most papers on the topic focus on a new formulation or a new presentation, but only a few discuss pedagogical application for a full lab session. This article describes the use of this experiment in the first session of undergraduate…

Early photography processes were predestined to combine chemistry and art. William Henry Fox Talbot is one of the early photography pioneers. In 2-3 day workshops, design students without a major background in chemistry are able to define a reproducible protocol for Talbot's gallic acid containing calotype process. With the experimental concept…

The electrophilic addition of a hydrohalic acid (HX) to an alkene is often one of the first reactions learned in second-year undergraduate organic chemistry classes. During the ensuing discussion of the mechanism, it is shown that this reaction follows Markovnikov's rule, which states that the hydrogen atom will attach to the carbon with fewer…

As one approach to moving beyond transmitting "inert" ideas to chemistry students, we use the term "teaching from rich contexts" to describe implementations of case studies or context-based learning based on systems thinking that provide deep and rich opportunities for learning crosscutting concepts through contexts. This…

Institutions have developed diverse approaches that vary in effectiveness and cost to improve student performance in introductory science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses. We developed a low-cost, graduate student-led, metacognition-based study skills course taught in conjunction with the introductory biology series at Miami…

To promote graduate students' active learning, deep reading of high quality papers was done by graduate students enrolled in biochemistry and microbiology pharmacy curriculum offered by college of life science, Jiangxi Normal University from 2013 to 2015. The number of graduate students, who participated in the course in 2013, 2014, and 2015 were…