Child development laboratory schools are found on college and university campuses throughout the U.S. Over the last century, they have acquired a long, rich history. Originally seen as settings for the new field of child study in the early 1900s, their functions have evolved over time. These programs often play a central role in supporting…

Launched in June 2016, the Smithsonian Learning Lab (SLL) provides access to the digital resources from across the Smithsonian's 19 museums, 9 major research centers, and the National Zoo, to be used as real-world learning experiences. It is designed to aid students in building lasting knowledge and critical skills that take learners from simply…

Using conversation analysis (CA), this study examines the less explored language teaching genre within an English as a foreign language (EFL) context: the writing center tutorials. Focusing the analysis specifically on tutor talk, this paper investigates the contingent production of third turns of second language (L2) tutors. Following the lead of…

An educational device was created to develop a hands-on activity to illustrate how atherosclerosis can dramatically reduce blood flow in human vessels. The device was conceived, designed, and built at the University of Coimbra, in response to a request from the Exploratorio Infante D. Henrique Science Centre Museum, where it is presently…

The Read CO[subscript]2 rebreathing method (Read DJ. "A clinical method for assessing the ventilatory response to carbon dioxide." "Australas Ann Med" 16: 20-32, 1967) provides a simple and reproducible approach for studying the chemical control of breathing. It has been widely used since the modifications made by Duffin and…

Determining the gas constant "R" by measuring the properties of hydrogen gas collected in a gas buret is well suited for comparing two approaches to uncertainty analysis using a single data set. The brevity of the experiment permits multiple determinations, allowing for statistical evaluation of the standard uncertainty u[subscript…

Students sometimes have difficulty grasping the importance of when and how basic distillation techniques, column chromatography, TLC, and basic spectroscopy (IR and NMR) can be used to identify unknown compounds within a mixture. This two-part experiment uses mixtures of pleasant-smelling, readily available terpenoid compounds as unknowns to…

This article describes two simple classroom demonstrations that illustrate the principles of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) based on a macroscopic analogy. The analogy features the bumps in an egg carton to represent the atoms on a chemical surface and a probe that can be represented by a dwarf statue (illustrating an origin of the prefix…

An experiment was developed to demonstrate a microfluidic device in the analytical chemistry (instrumental analysis) laboratory. Students made the paper-based microfluidic device with a wax pen and a piece of filter paper and used it to determine the total quantity of amino acids in a green tea leaf extract. The device is low cost, easy-to-make,…

This study investigates the ways in which synchronous and asynchronous activities create an online language laboratory that mediates second language (L2) learning for 188 L2 university participants over a 6-week period. Completion of tasks and pre-, post-, and weekly surveys were analyzed. Statistical analyses were run on self-rated questions…

This volume presents a systematic approach to developing advanced English language competence at tertiary level. It includes the reflections of experienced language teachers and teacher-researchers in the English Language Competence programme at the University of Vienna and provides examples of good practice, amalgamating teaching expertise and…

Many studies have stressed students' lack of understanding of experiments in laboratories. Some researchers suggest that if students design all or parts of entire experiment, as part of an inquiry-based approach, it would overcome certain difficulties. It requires that a procedure be written for experimental design. The aim of this paper is to…

Although stereochemistry is an important topic in second-year undergraduate organic chemistry, there are limited options for laboratory activities that allow direct visualization of macroscopic chiral phenomena. A novel, guided-inquiry experiment was developed that allows students to explore chirality in the context of cholesteric liquid crystals.…

Equivalence-based instruction (EBI) has been used to successfully teach college-level concepts in research laboratories, but few studies have examined the results of such instruction on classroom performance. The current study answered a basic question about the ordering of training stimuli as well as an applied question regarding the effects of…

Among computational methods, DFT (density functional theory) and TD-DFT (time-dependent DFT) are widely used in research to describe, "inter alia," the optical properties of transition metal complexes. Inorganic/physical chemistry courses for undergraduate students treat such methods, but quite often only from the theoretical point of…