The author, Greg DeLisi, a professor at John Carroll University, is always looking for ways to bring current events into his introductory physics classroom or laboratory. He is especially interested in finding examples where basic principles of physics can be used to cast skepticism on assertions made by celebrities, politicians, or professional…

Newton's laws of mechanics are a cornerstone in the development of modern science and its learning can be the very first opportunity for students to defy their common sense perceptions and replace them with a more robust world view. However, despite their fundamental importance, many studies demonstrate how difficult is the true comprehension of…

Here we present an inexpensive proposal to experimentally study Faraday's law of induction. The experiment uses low-cost materials, a computer with a sound card and a smartphone, both running free software. A value proportional to the induced electromotive force is measured with the computer's sound card and the data related to the magnetic field…

British scientist John Dalton (1766-1844), French scientist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850), and Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro (1776-1856) are familiar to many chemistry students. Such students may understand the importance of Dalton's atomic theory, model how Gay-Lussac's law relates the pressure and the temperature of a gas, and use…

Laboratory work in physics has traditionally focused on the verification of facts, theories and laws. In contrast, this article describes how laboratory tasks can be used to promote students understanding about the nature of science and scientific inquiry. In the project reported here, students learn about measurement uncertainties and a…

Historically, physical education has a stereotypical image as being neither very physical nor educational. NASPE [National Standards for Physical Education] Standard 2 indicates that students in physical education classes should be able to demonstrate understanding and movement concepts, principles, and tactics as they apply to physical activity.…

Traditional methods for teaching the Lewis dot structure model emphasize rule-based learning and often neglect the purpose and function of the model. Thus, many students are unable to extend their understanding of molecular structures in new contexts. The assignment described here addresses this issue by asking students to read and write about the…

A rich science learning experience not only captures students' attention but also motivates them to investigate and solve problems and investigate how scientists carry out their work. This article describes how secondary science coordinator Patrick Brown's found success teaching students the nature of science by engaging them in…

Traditionally, alchemy has involved the power of transmuting base metals such as lead into gold or producing the "elixir of life" for those wealthy people who wanted to live forever. But what of today's developments? One hundred years ago, even breaking the four-minute mile would have been deemed "magic," which is what the alchemists of the past…

This work is an attempt to see how physics undergraduates view the basic ideas of general relativity when they are exposed to the topic in a standard introductory course. Since the subject is conceptually and technically difficult, we adopted a "case studies" approach, focusing in depth on about six students who had just finished a one semester…

Motion is a topic that is taught from elementary grades through to university at various levels of sophistication. It is an area that can be challenging for learning in a conceptually meaningful way, and formal kinematics instruction can sometimes seem dry and boring. Thus, the nature of students' initial introduction to motion is important in…

Many students fail to develop a conceptual understanding of organic chemistry. Evidence suggests this failure goes hand-in-hand with a failure to grasp the techniques, meaning, and usefulness of curved arrow notation. Use of curved arrow notation to illustrate electrophilic addition appears to be a critical juncture in student understanding.…

The study investigated the impact on student motivation and understanding of magnetism of teaching sequences based on an inductive approach. The study was conducted in large lecture classes. A pre- and post-Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism was conducted with just fewer than 700 Thai undergraduate science students, before and after…

The nature of science is a complex theme, and continues to be the subject of advanced and ongoing scholarship, drawing upon a range of disciplines. Therefore, whatever is presented in school science as being "the" nature of science must at best be a simplification, and so there is a need to form judgements about which simplifications are…

With this paper, our main aim is to contribute to the realisation of the chemical reactivity concept, tracing the historical evolution of the concept of chemical affinity that eventually supported the concept of chemical equilibrium. We will concentrate on searching for the theoretical grounds of three key chemical equilibrium ideas: "incomplete…