This article discusses the preceding articles by Way, Hultgren, and Plihal as a contrast set of inquiry paradigms. It points to strengths and limitations of each inquiry paradigm and raises several questions about paradigms. (Author/JOW)

Summarizes that the stories in this theme issue show teachers and students who successfully meet the challenges of learning science content and processes, who refine and expand their literacy development in the engaging context of understanding their world, and who are becoming more proficient in dealing with the world around them as they acquire…

Introduces the six-week-long, inquiry-oriented Planimal House project. Aims to teach the secrets of nature with in-depth research on living organisms. (YDS)

Discusses the properties and classification of liquid crystals. Presents a simple experiment that illustrates the structure of liquid crystals and the differences between the various phases liquid crystals can assume. (JRH)

Explains the importance of standards for college science education. Introduces the Standards, which are translated into a college context by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). (YDS)

Explores the relevance of anthropology today, stressing that the current relevance of anthropology has to do with current work, building on the previously relevant work of earlier anthropologists. Asking the right questions, good questions, means considering issues that are pursued for decades, rather than focusing on the pursuit of grants. (SLD)

Design research is a valuable tool to help the designer understand the problem that he/she needs to solve. The purpose of design research is to help state or understand the problems better, which will lead to better solutions. Observational research is a design research method for helping the designer understand and define the problem.…

It is possible to create an environment in which students are engaged in learning a topic like photosynthesis but are not doing a laboratory activity? Is there some way for students to get content and the history of a topic without a lecture? The activity described in this article is a result of the author asking these very questions. Several…

Questions such as "Is it art?," "How is it Art?," and "Why is is art?" often arise when individuals investigate art objects. Such questions fall into the realm of aesthetics--the branch of philosophy that concerns itself with the nature of art. Because these types of big questions require meditative contemplation and reasoned responses, aesthetics…

The advantages of inquiry-guided instruction (IGI) are emphasized, along with difficulties faced in the application of this teaching method. Several instruction techniques, and tactics are presented for solving practical problems, and in overcoming common and specific challenges of IGI.

Focusing on specific modes of evolutionally inquiry is important for students to achieve a mature understanding about evolutionary biology. Presenting evolution as rhetoric of conclusions would only confuse the minds of students.

The various strains of flightless fruit flies that were developed at the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and an exercise that helps students in determining the inheritance pattern in the fruit fly mutant trait are described. The study and the resulting exercise helped the students in scientifically determining the two important aspects of…

The process used by scientists as they pursue research as a wheel with questions at the hub and various stages of the inquiry in a circular arrangement around the hub is described. It is noted that the process of scientific inquiry can begin from any stage and that stages may be revisited as often as the particular inquiry requires.

In this article I seek to investigate and to rebut charges that Dewey had either too authoritative a conception or use of philosophical and educational inquiry, or not enough of an authoritative use. I look specifically at two critics, one in the discipline of education and one in the discipline of history. These two are, respectively, Clarence…

Mathematicians have long claimed that the aesthetic plays a fundamental role in the development and appreciation of mathematical knowledge. To date, however, it has been unclear how the aesthetic might contribute to the teaching and learning of school mathematics. This is due in part to the fact that mathematicians' aesthetic claims have been…