This report represents an effort to stimulate regional discussion and delineate issues of relevance for educators concerned with science education in the Pacific Northwest. It suggests topics of inquiry germane to the context of national initiatives and regional, state, and local challenges. Information is needed to understand "where we…

This paper outlines a three semester hour undergraduate, core course in Scientific Inquiry that increases student knowledge and advances student skills in understanding science as knowledge, process, and human enterprise. This course was developed as a bridge between science and the humanities and a bridge for entry-level students in the…

This paper presents the results of a comparison of the effects of gender on fourth-grade students' learning in hands-on science. This study is part of a 3-year classroom based project of hands-on science in 6 urban and 2 suburban classrooms (n=171). Half of the teachers used a supported-inquiry approach, and half used activity-based science to…

The Space Exposed Experiment Developed for Students (SEEDS) Project offered science classes at the 5-12 and college levels the opportunity to conduct experiments involving tomato seeds that had been space-exposed over long periods of time. SEEDS kits were complete packages obtained from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for…

In the past decade, research on students' ideas has drawn attention to underestimated problems of learning physics. This also particularly applies to Science/Technology/Society teaching. Proposed solutions are mainly inspired by a constructivist cognitive science perspective and are formulated as general teaching strategies that aim at a process…

The thoughts that teachers have about the content and students they are to teach influences the way in which they will teach. This article briefly discusses the literature on teacher thinking with particular reference to recent work in science education to provide a framework in which to situate the research. The article describes the interview…

Five teams of teacher-researchers, 15 teachers in all, representing three Wyoming school districts and Casper College conducted classroom-based investigations and wrote about their inquiries. These teachers of prekindergarten through college collaborated to examine performance based assessment questions with an overall theme of improving science…

Using hands-on activities and the "Plan, Do, Review" approach, this physics curriculum for 3-year-old children is designed to develop an early interest in and enthusiasm for science and to excite children about learning in general. The curriculum is designed to be implemented biweekly in preschool or child care programs but may also be…

This brief paper describes a project, the Curriculum Development in Teaching Science to Students with Disabilities Project, which provides training to teachers and teacher educators. Participants receive information on teacher education, methods, materials/programs, organizations, media resources, evaluation/assessment alternatives, World Wide Web…

Followup sessions were conducted for Alabama teachers who completed training in the "Exploring Space: The Classroom Connection" science teaching program in summer 1997. The effectiveness of these sessions was evaluated for 71 teachers. This analysis also allowed for a comparison of several basic concepts about science of the 1996 Alabama…

This book is part of a series of books presenting ready-to-use instructional units on themes typically taught in the primary grades. The topics focus on science, math, social studies or literature, but use language arts skills consistently in each unit. Each book in the series also uses as many frames of mind or intelligences as possible. Within a…

This paper presents and discusses the results of a project in which seven teams of fifth and sixth grade students were involved in designing and implementing interactive multimedia resources in science for younger children, using the Microworlds(TM) Logo programming environment. It was found that students improved significantly in their science…

This breakthrough series of modules is intended to cover a range of topics and illustrate key ideas in mathematics, science, and technology education by actively engaging students in their learning processes. The module presented in this package is on measurement. Activities include posing questions, setting tasks, and encouraging students to…

A study examined the effect of three different prereading vocabulary development strategies on sixth grade science test results. Subjects, 81 sixth-grade students from a suburban, middle-class school in Union County, New Jersey, were divided into four heterogeneous science classes and given a pretest of 40 vocabulary words taken from the science…

After several years of curriculum writing workshops and field-testing of draft materials, involving approximately 150 teachers, the SciencePlus program was implemented in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick between 1986 and 1991. SciencePlus programs provide a shift from an overwhelming emphasis on fact-recall testing to a predominate emphasis on…