This study examines the implementation of teaching strategies by graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in inquiry-based introductory geology labs at a large research university. We assess the degree of inquiry present in each Physical Geology lab and compare and contrast the instructional practices of new and experienced GTAs teaching these labs. We…

The purpose of this study is to describe the peer-mentoring experience from the perspective of 16 master's students majoring in science or engineering at a research-oriented university in Taiwan. Utilizing a qualitative method of phenomenology, these mentees shared their views about their peer-mentors through in-depth interviews. Participants…

Studies that incorporate technologies into school science laboratories have proliferated in the recent two decades. A total of 42 studies published from 1990 to 2011 that incorporated technologies to support school science laboratories are reviewed here. Simulations, microcomputer-based laboratories (MBLs), and virtual laboratories are commonly…

This dissertation presents the results of an experiment that measured the learning outcomes associated with three different pedagogical approaches to introductory physics labs. These three pedagogical approaches presented students with the same apparatus and covered the same physics content, but used different lab manuals to guide students through…

"Science is a process of discovering and exploring the natural world. Exploration occurs in the classroom, laboratory or in the field. As part of your science class, you will be doing many activities and investigations that will involve the use of various materials, equipment, and chemicals…" (NSTA, 2010). Safety is always of utmost…

Oxygen is one of the component gases of air at room temperature, making up around 20% of the atmosphere. But can oxygen be liquified? This article details a method for making small amounts of liquid oxygen in the classroom if there is no access to a cylinder of compressed oxygen gas, and two methods for identifying the fact that it is liquid…

Curley and Formica's (2008, 2010) studies of high-expectation entrepreneurship focus on the role of "experimental laboratories" in promoting the start-up and successful development of high-expectation firms. Although it is not difficult to understand the potential usefulness of these experimental labs--business simulators in which skilled partners…

Nancy Welch integrates writing center work into the business of composition studies more seamlessly and skillfully than anyone. She takes as a given the writing center as a site for transformative literacy studies. She places writers, purposefully and respectfully, at the center of her work. Yet she doesn't, ironically, make a lot of noise about…

In "Multiliteracies, Social Futures, and Writing Centers," John Trimbur outlines an enduring charge for writing centers that's not often referenced and still not realized in much of the field's scholarship, let alone the programming and staff development. Trimbur invites everyone to interrogate the literacy needs that circulate through and around…

Queer theory challenges what is "normal" and questions the mechanics behind individuals and their institutions' efforts to maintain "normal." Queer theory can help a person get over himself/herself, and, as a result, the words, bodies, spaces, and beliefs that he/she holds dear will be called upon to respond. Harry Denny's article instructs…

Undergraduate laboratories rarely involve lanthanide coordination chemistry. This is unfortunate in light of the ease with which many of these complexes are made and the interesting and instructive photophysical properties they entail. The forbidden nature of the 4f transitions associated with the lanthanides is overcome by incorporation of…

Terms to be familiar with before you start to solve the test: genetic code, translation, synthetic polynucleotide, leucine, serine, filter precipitation, radioactivity measurement, template, mRNA, tRNA, rRNA, aminoacyl-tRNA synthesis, ribosomes, degeneration of the code, wobble, initiation, and elongation of protein synthesis, initiation codon.…

In this inquiry-based activity, students catalog external and internal characteristics of four different classes of animals during dissection exercises. On the basis of their accumulated data, students compare and contrast the animals, devise a phylogenetic tree, and provide reasonable characteristics for extinct transitional organisms. (Contains…

Tea leaves gather in the center of the cup when the tea is stirred. In 1926 Einstein explained the phenomenon in terms of a secondary, rim-to-center circulation caused by the fluid rubbing against the bottom of the cup. This explanation can be connected to air movement in atmospheric pressure systems to explore, for example, why low-pressure…

Every student who studies atmospheric pressure in physics or chemistry learns the principles behind the construction of barometers. Cistern barometers, such as those found in most laboratories, consist of a long glass tube containing an inverted column of liquid having an open end in a cistern of the liquid. Students learn that the column of…