Questions the goals of high school to college science education and compares what is achieved with traditional teaching strategies. Describes how science majors and non-science majors alike are based on an authentic field-based research. Explains the principles of best practices in undergraduate science education. (YDS)

Argues that teacher development should begin in pre-service education, should be humanistic and constructivist, and should encourage teacher's voices. One means for such development is teacher narrative research (inquiry built on teacher stories). Examples from students demonstrate how such research and narrative meet pre-service teachers' human…

Presents findings of the images of science drawn upon in laboratory work by upper secondary and university students in academic streams with a science focus. Questions required students to comment on laboratory investigations carried out by research scientists or science students. Shows that students' reasoning has an epistemological and an…

Examines how the Interrogative Model of Inquiry (I-Model), developed for the purposes of epistemology and philosophy of science, could be applied to analyze elementary school students' process of inquiry in computer-supported learning. Suggests that the interrogative approach to inquiry can be productively applied for conceptualizing inquiry in…

Reports on a teacher's changing perceptions during a collaborative, two-year interpretive research project involving two researchers, herself, and her students. Uses the collaborative approach between teacher and researchers to promote students' theory-evidence coordination and use of word explanations with an emphasis on developing and critiquing…

Presents an activity in which the amount of solar ultraviolet radiation in tree shade is measured at different times of the day and compared with changes in illumination levels and temperature. (Author/WRM)

Introduces an elective science course on one of the silent invaders across the nation--noxious weeds. Targets public education as the main goal of the project. (YDS)

Reviews a teacher training project that brought together 20 teachers from Hungary and the United States to develop and implement an environmental education curriculum. Initially, the teachers differed in their definitions of environmental education, teaching, and curriculum reform. By the end, teacher definitions of environmental education…

This article offers a multidimensional framework that broadens current approaches to "best practices" inquiry to include (1) the perspectives of both the consumers of services and professional practitioners and (2) a value-based critique. The predominant empirical approach to best practices inquiry is a necessary, but not sufficient, component of…

In this paper we focus on interactive visualizations that support mathematical investigation. In the context of analyzing and redesigning an interactive visualization from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics's (NCTM's) Illuminations Web site, we consider two interrelated issues: (1) how the pedagogy of mathematical investigation may be…

The question of facilitating inquiry in the context of whole-class interactions versus individual work in the laboratory is not a new issue in science education. Science teachers have always been confronted with the question of the value added by the time and expense required for individual work in the science laboratory versus inquiry…

Providing time and guidance to students as they "sift and sort" background information on a potential inquiry topic is important at any level of investigation, from grade school to graduate school. As the inquiring student moves through new information, discusses ideas with teachers and peers and, most of all, has time to reflect on the initial…

The Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) project includes training elementary and secondary teachers. This training component, Ecology Explorers (EE), prepares teachers in grades 4 through 12 to teach about ecological principles and processes. The EE pedagogy employs scientific inquiry and data collection protocols.…

In science education contexts there appears to be some consensus regarding the "doing" of science but less on the "what for". In this paper we compare and contrast scientists' view of "doing science" with the practice of "doing science" in New Zealand classrooms. After examining and critiquing these…

In describing the professional development journey of science teachers, the National Science Standards (NRC 1996) provides a useful cartography. Inquiry, those standards suggest, is the central strategy for the teaching of science. By illustrating the parallels between inquiry as a form of scientific investigation and inquiry as a classroom…