Teaching for social responsibility should be one of the vital aims of our schools. Young adult literature offers an authentic, meaningful, and critical way to teach for social responsibility. This article offers an overview of the different elements of social responsibility and some young adult novels and graphic novels that could be used to teach…

Virstatin, an "N"-butanoic acid substituted naphthalimide, inhibits the ability of "Vibrio cholerae" to cause disease. A three-week experiment involving synthesis, purification, and spectral characterization of this compound is described. This experiment is appropriate for organic chemistry. It has been performed with three lab sections of about…

Many institutions are responding to current research about how students learn science by transforming their general chemistry laboratory curricula to be inquiry-oriented. We present a comparison study of student performance after completing either a traditional or an inquiry stoichiometry experiment. This single laboratory experience was the only…

The papers in this collection provide compelling arguments that the use of Adapted Primary Literature (APL) in science education holds great promise for enriching inquiry science instruction at the secondary level. The integration of this genre of written text into science curricula illustrates the ways in which reasoning in reading and reasoning…

Science educators define a learning environment in which the problem drives the learning as problem based learning (PBL). Problem based learning can be a learning methodology/process or a curriculum based on its application by the teacher. This paper discusses the basic premise of Problem base learning and successful applications of such learning.…

In this interview, Brewer discusses the need to foster scientific literacy, knowing enough about science to be able to judge if an article in a newspaper or magazine, or commentary on a newscast or TV is being told in a fair and accurate way. The professor advocates asking questions and observation exercises as a means of empowering students to:…

State and national leaders have focused on the role of the teacher, and the teacher's impact on student achievement. This qualitative study examined narratively the stories of effective teachers of 5th grade students to determine the methods and strategies that they use to foster improved student achievement. Narrative techniques were utilized to…

This paper is based on a workshop of the same name presented at the 2007 American Sociological Association meetings. The purpose of the workshop and this article is to focus attention on teaching methods that require students to actively investigate sociological phenomena. During the workshop, participants practiced constructing inquiry-guided…

In this article, the author seeks a middle path through which to traverse the "tricky ground" of Indigenous research; a middle path that will hopefully find "in-between spaces" open to new epistemological pathways, through which new voices and ideas can be heard within the social sciences and, in particular, within geography.…

During our careers as teachers, professional development specialists, and teacher educators, we have made perpetual attempts to develop instructional strategies and tools for engaging students in historical inquiry. Emphasis in recent years in the field of social studies education has been on the development and use of digitized historical…

The aim of this article is to describe and analyze how computer supported inquiry learning effects two secondary school students' engagement in a literacy learning project. With comparative analysis of various sources of data we aim to understand what engagement is, how and why it changes over time and how changes in engagement are reflected in…

Making research count in the education sector is often difficult to achieve as people, quite properly, question its relevance, purpose and impact. One of the significant barriers to research supporting practice in the lifelong learning sector is that funded research carried out in higher education institutions is frequently privileged above…

Engaged scholarship represents one way for making our research relevant to organizational practitioners by bridging the gap between theory and practice. Engaged scholarship is viewed as a form of collaborative inquiry between academics and practitioners that leverages their different perspectives to generate useful organizational knowledge. We…

We describe the development and use of a molecular model building activity with a chocolate theme, suitable for a public presentation of chemistry through interaction with visitors to science festivals and museums, and as a special classroom activity during science weeks, and so forth. (Contains 3 figures.)

This article explores the connections between Vygotsky's psychology and Marxism, arguing that his was a "Marxist psychology" in its "historical foundation": a specific conception of history. This conception of history is evident in Vygotsky's analysis and diagnosis of the crisis in psychology. The creation of a Marxist, general psychology was the…