Describes the implementation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration SEEDS Project in a sixth-grade class in Turlock, California. Describes student activities and media coverage surrounding the project. (MDH)

Describes a series of environmental education instructional units for grades K-6 developed by the Think Earth Consortium that cover topics such as conservation, pollution control, and waste reduction. Provides testimony from one sixth-grade teacher that field tested the second-grade unit. (MDH)

Describes a unit on magnetism that utilizes hands-on activities in which students make hypotheses for discrepant behavior, discover whether a magnet attracts one object through another, measure the strength of magnets, explore levitating paper clips, and play a game dependent on magnetic attraction. (MDH)

Describes problems with school science fairs including poor judging and a lack of understanding by the students of their own projects. Suggests improvements to the system. One suggestion is for science fair projects to be displayed only in classrooms and not district or regional fairs. (PR)

Describes an acid rain demonstration for helping students understand chemistry concepts. (PR)

Describes a unit of study for elementary school science on bats. Students investigate the different types of bats; examine their behavior; find facts that other students are unlikely to know; write stories about bats; and examine the concept of echolocation, the means by which bats navigate. Suggests integrated activities for mathematics…

Proposes that students learn about their environment by taking field trips into their own schoolyard. Students observe, classify, hypothesize, infer, predict, and measure aspects of the schoolyard. Engages the students in discussion to process their experiences. (MDH)

Describes a course where students design and construct a sundial, once they understand the apparent movement of the sun. Explains general issues of daily astronomy and describes the design and construction of three sundials. (PR)

Reports on a questionnaire completed by 73 universities. Results indicate that laboratory instruction is part of almost all introductory biology classes. The majority (62%) of these institutions offer separate biology courses for majors and nonmajors. There is renewed interest in investigative types of laboratories. Most laboratory instruction…

Integrating environmental education into the science curriculum helps students develop environmental knowledge and attitudes. Describes an exemplary eighth-grade environmental science class, cites other similar programs, and discusses the advantages of environmental science courses over traditional science courses. (MDH)

Presents a model of a generic atom that is used to represent the movement of electrons from lower to higher levels and vice-versa due to excitation and de-excitation of the atom. As the process of de-excitation takes place, photons represented by colored ping-pong balls are emitted, indicating the emission of light. (MDH)

Provides a brief overview of interdisciplinary projects at the California Academy of Mathematics and Science, a public high school on a college campus. Discusses project creation, collaboration, and assessment. (SR)

Argues that by examining which concepts of a particular area of physics are fundamental and which are defined, teachers can choose concepts for investigation that progress logically and should minimize students' misconceptions and confusion. (Author)

Reports on a two-year project in a biology course for nonmajors in which lectures were replaced with guided learning activities and weekly exams designed to help students gain the confidence to be independent learners, especially in science, assume responsibility for their own learning, improve study skills, and make more effective use of class…

Describes a science department's evaluation of the way teachers use questions in the teaching of science. Explains how the evaluation is organized and discusses what is revealed about the art of asking questions and encouraging students to do the same. (DDR)