Health professions outreach programs are important avenues to increase interest in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). One aspect of many of these programs is anatomy, which can be challenging to teach due to its scope. Creative teaching methods, such as the incorporation of examples from pop culture, can help…

The speed of development of biotechnology within agriculture, industry, and medicine has changed our lives, and we need a biotechnological literacy to understand it. This implies that teachers in primary schools need to be biotechnologically literate in order to educate future generations. The aim of this study was to investigate Swedish…

In the past decade, emphasis on promoting "climate literacy" in K-16 science classrooms has increased. Teachers play a critical role in cultivating these opportunities, especially in secondary science classrooms. However, most prior climate education research has focused on students and student learning; little is known about how…

The efforts shown in recent years related to the reform movements in science education have focused on the assertion that informed nature of science understandings (NOS, hereafter) should be developed. In line with this idea, NOS has become the central component of numerous science curricula. In the study, therefore, it was aimed to determine…

Recent science reform advocates for the inclusion of engineering design to teach science and represents a shift to so-called three-dimensional (3D) learning. This shift often requires science instructors to adapt their current curriculum to integrate 3D learning. To support this shift, the current study illustrates the collaborative development…

Computational and atmospheric chemistry are two important branches of contemporary chemistry. With the present topical nature of climate change and global warming, it is more crucial than ever that students are aware of and exposed to atmospheric chemistry, with an emphasis on how modeling may aid in understanding how atmospherically relevant…

This article explores teacher discretion in the context of the English 2014 science curriculum and assessment reforms. The study positions primary and secondary school science teachers as "street-level bureaucrats" in which they are not just mere implementers of policy but instead pivotal actors with much agency. Through the analysis of…

A standards-based assessment system provides opportunities to join curriculum intentions to demonstrations of complex learning. In this article we use New Zealand's senior secondary qualifications system--the National Certificates of Educational Achievement (NCEA)--to illustrate how adaptations of existing structures might help to better reflect…

Citizen Science is emerging as an innovative strategy to engage K-12 students in authentic science practices and relevant, real world phenomena. Citizen science is traditionally an informal science experience, with members of the public choosing to participate in the scientific research process through contributing data or other related efforts.…

Education 4.0 represents a visionary approach to the future of education, aiming to enhance teaching and learning through advanced technologies. The aim of this research is to determine student attitudes toward the use of Education 4.0 tools in the 7th-grade Science course Electrical Circuits unit. To achieve this, an attitude test was developed…

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift from traditional in-person teaching to remote and online learning, necessitating a more adaptable educational platform to serve the diverse needs of students. Transforming hands-on "wet lab" activities into virtual "dry lab" exercises can promote a more accessible and flexible…

This article addresses physics teachers' views about physics teaching in upper-secondary school. Their views have been investigated nationwide through a web-based questionnaire. The questionnaire has been developed based on several published instruments and is part of an ongoing project on the role of mathematics in physics teaching at…

This study examines how researchers can better understand the instructional and practical realities of teachers through collective sensemaking. Traditional approaches to curriculum design engage learning models without accounting for the needed flexibility of teachers. This approach has resulted in tension and gatekeeping--inhibiting the…

The first of Ofsted's research reviews focused on science education. It is broad in scope, including content on school systems, the science curriculum, teaching, learning, assessment and materials -- with implications for practice. However, the review's scope does not provide much detail of the research on which it is based. I agree with many of…

Developing students' ability to think about systems, as opposed to isolated facts, is of central importance in much of science teaching. Prior work in this area has focused on students' recognition of the processes occurring within a system. Comparatively, little work has been done on how students organise the objects that are contained within the…