Identity is a complex construct, yet extremely important if we wish to understand the practice of teaching as a profession. In this paper, we examine the ways two middle school teachers talk about their identity and teaching practices and coordinate these self-reports with our own observations of how they implement a new environmental science…

In this article, the authors describe why a teacher may want to use decision making as a teaching strategy, outline a structure for teaching decision making, and provide an example of how they have integrated decision making with content in an environmental science curriculum. Here, they discuss an instructional approach based on a decision-making…

Green chemistry is the awareness of the damaging environmental effects due to chemical research and inventions. There is emphasis on a need to include green chemistry in synthesis with atom economy in organic chemistry curriculum to ensure an environmentally conscious future generation of chemists, policy makers, health professionals and business…

Conformational analysis of cyclohexanes is a fundamental, requisite topic covered in undergraduate organic chemistry. A molecular modeling experiment is designed with the view of extending students' boundaries of knowledge about cyclohexane conformational stabilities.

An investigation on whether a course designed strategically so that assessment methods are aligned with course objectives promotes the students' capacity for higher-order cognitive thinking is presented. Students' view of their own learning process in this course is examined.

An exercise developed for use in the sophomore organic course that introduces students to the process of searching "Chemical Abstracts" with SciFinder Scholar using chiral auxiliaries as example compounds is described. The exercise provides a direct introduction to the chemical literature for students at an early stage of their undergraduate…

Some of the most pressing problems currently facing chemical education throughout the world are rehearsed. It is suggested that if the notion of "context" is to be used as the basis for an address to these problems, it must enable a number of challenges to be met. Four generic models of "context" are identified that are currently used or that may…

The United States is undergoing rapid demographic change leading to growing racial, ethnic, religious and economic diversity in our classrooms. Our students can be sensitized to this growing diversity through exposure to the concept of social justice. The purpose of this article is to provide examples of how social justice issues can be included…

An experiment developed for an undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory course that can be used to introduce the catalytic hydrogenation reaction, catalysis electrochemical principles and gas chromatography is presented. The organic compounds hydrogenated by the electrocatalytic hydrogenation (ECH) process were styrene, benzaldehyde and…

Teachers who work with early-years children often ask how young children can be encouraged to think about the events, living things, or objects they are investigating and how they can be encouraged to ask appropriate scientific questions. The authors felt that they needed to examine their own practice and that of other teachers in respect to…

In our research within didactics of science, we have been exploring contributions of the socalled cognitive models from contemporary philosophy of science. We have used these philosophical frameworks on different levels. As an outcome, we have formulated a model of didactics of science according to which this discipline adapts and transforms…

Of the thousands of drugs and medicines available for the prevention, treatment, and control of human disease and discomfort, the most widely used is aspirin. The primary reason for aspirin's popularity is its capabilities as a pain reliever, fever reducer, and anti-inflammatory agent. This article explores the historical development of aspirin…

The battle between creationists and evolutionists has waxed and waned in American culture and education for decades. This conflict is evident in the contemporary debate between the proponents of intelligent design and its opponents. This article illuminates the intelligent design movement by describing major proponents' beliefs, goals, and…

In this essay, the author describes to biologists the advantages of organic-first curriculum, on the assumption that few biologists are regular readers of "Journal of Chemistry Education" and therefore are probably unaware of the method for integrating chemistry and biology curricula. The author begins with the assumption that the majority of…

Recent arguments in science education have proposed that school science should pay more attention to teaching the nature of science and its social practices. However, unlike the content of science, for which there is well-established consensus, there would appear to be much less unanimity within the academic community about which…