The article uses Jean Piaget's theory of four stages of intellectual growth to describe (1) developmental aspects of the six- to seven-year-old child which are pertinent to the teaching of social studies and (2) a social studies program which teaches rational thinking. (Author/KC)

Reports on the winning tool creations by 1,300 fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students in the 1997 Craftsman/NSTA Young Inventors Awards Program. Students had to use mechanical and science process skills to design and build tools to meet their needs in solving a problem. The winning entry was a calibrated angle and depth scissors. (AIM)

The discovery of penicillin is cited in a discussion of the role of serendipity as it relates to scientific discovery. The importance of sagacity as a personality trait is noted. Successful researchers have questioning minds, are willing to view data from several perspectives, and recognize and appreciate the unexpected. (JW)

Although education for future employment has been a high school function, middle-school educational literature has not endorsed vocational/career/occupational education as a major purpose for early adolescence. An exploratory approach is appropriate to help young adolescents define occupational interests, become aware of changing employability…

Pullout pages provide suggestions for teaching elementary students at all levels about the wonders of human ingenuity. The suggestions help students see that great ideas come from the need to solve real-life problems and that one great idea leads to another, so current inventions help predict future inventions. (SM)

Six articles discuss the work of Michael Faraday, a chemist whose work revolutionized physics and led directly to both classical field and relativity theory. The scientist as a young man, the electromagnetic experiments of Faraday, his search for the gravelectric effect, his work on optical glass, his laboratory notebooks, and his creative use of…

America 2000 presents an educational reform agenda that neglects the arts. Prevailing misconceptions of the arts are based on a massive misunderstanding of their role in human development and education. The arts contribute significantly by celebrating the value of multiple perspectives and nuances in problem solving, relating form to content, and…

Presents an activity that introduces the historical developments in science that led to the discovery of the periodic table and lets students experience scientific discovery firsthand. Enables students to learn about patterns among the elements and experience how scientists analyze data to discover patterns and build models. (JRH)

This article begins with a section entitled, "Involving Parents in Science Discovery" written by Carol Seefeldt. This section discusses staff workshop for exploring discovery science. Here, the author provides the staff workshop instructions. This is followed by a section entitled, "Exploring Science with Young Children" written by Peter Rillero.…

In this article, the author features "Primary ConneXions", an outreach project of Queen's University Belfast that is funded and supported by "Queen's in the Community". The format of "Primary ConneXions" is a primary school version of a real science research conference. Children do "PowerPoint"…

Innovation and enterprise depend for their success on the development of new ideas. But from where do new ideas come? How do they arise? Finding solutions to such questions is at the heart of creativity research and the solving of novel problems. Reflection, not only in cognitive processes but also in the non-cognitive ones used in solving novel…

In this article, a newly minted Ph.D. shares seven lessons learned during the process of preparing a dissertation based on qualitative research methods. While most of the lessons may be applicable to any kind of research, the writer focuses on the special challenges of employing a qualitative methodology. The lessons are: (1) Read, read, read; (2)…

In recent years there has been increasing interest in the notion of process use, that is, in understanding the ways in which individuals learn about the evaluand, evaluation practice, and each other, from their involvement in an evaluation study. As a form of social constructivism, process use is most closely related to participatory and…

This paper argues that research be recognised as a right of a special kind--that it be regarded as a more universal and elementary ability. It suggests that research is a specialised name for a generalised capacity to make disciplined inquires into those things we need to know, but do not know yet. I maintain that knowledge is both more valuable…

Previous research on the relationship between age and creativity has shown that career age, rather than chronological age, correlates best with longitudinal changes in creative productivity. Recently, Dietrich (2004) proposed a new theoretical framework that integrates cognitive neuroscience with the findings of creativity research. By identifying…