Explaining phenomena associated with a system involves describing a system's structure and articulating the process through which the system's structure changes over time. This paper defines geo-sequential reasoning in the context of plate tectonics and uses it to analyse how students explain the geological processes that occur along convergent…

Helping students understand that the scientific community's claims change through time, sometimes radically, allows them to develop a well-grounded sense of the "nature of science." Learning to reason about how scientific claims come to be accepted, and later refuted, is important for understanding the tentative nature of scientific…

Earth's easily seen surface features (mountains, volcanoes, and islands)--and the movement of the tectonic plates that lie below--offer hints about the processes that produced them. Inquiries in seismology, the study of earthquakes and other ground movements, can help students learn about Earth's geologic processes. This article describes an…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the use of 3-D printed models as an instructional tool in a middle school science classroom for students with visual impairments and compare their use to traditional tactile graphics for aiding conceptual understanding of geoscience concepts. Specifically, this study examined if the students'…