Nowadays, it is essential to promote an interdisciplinary approach in classrooms, integrating disciplines such as biology and mathematics. This necessitates familiarity with specific problem-solving practices employed by the expert community, such as mathematical modelling. This perspective piece explores a mathematical modelling practice to…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection in Artificial Intelligence Tools in Physics Teaching and Physics Education Research.] We present a study in which a version of a common conservation of mechanical energy introductory physics problem, an object released on an inclined plane, is given to OpenAI's GPT-4 large language model (LLM). We…

The most obvious feature of expertise in chemistry is content knowledge, which defines the primary objectives of instruction. Research in chemistry education, and STEM education more broadly, has also devoted attention to students' developing scientific practices of reasoning, investigation, and learning. In this study, we set out to investigate…

This study examines the success and role of African women leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In the absence of significant research on women's STEM leadership, the success and roles of others could motivate an aspiring African woman to pursue a career in STEM. A qualitative approach was sought using open online…

This qualitative study examined the perceptions of 42 fifth-grade students (ages 11-12) along with 8 staff members, 9 ornithologists, and 10 high-tech experts who participated in a hackathon event. This was the culmination of a learning process designed to find environmental, technological, and humane solutions to the competition between the…

Back-of-the-envelope (BOTE) calculations require the use of estimations and approximations. They are used by expert physicists to simplify complex problems to obtain quick and approximate solutions. Though BOTE calculations are routine for experts in physics, they are not well defined in academic literature. In this study we interviewed 9…

In this paper, we present the spontaneous and reasoned approaches by a Physicist (B.C.) and a Mathematician (T.B.). Section 1 is by B.C and section 2 is by T.B.

The aim of the present study was to explore how physicists start their research studies, how they identify their research questions and what factors influence their involvement in studying a specific research problem. The grounded theory methodology was adopted in the study by considering the qualitative nature of the research questions. The study…

Citizen science is expected to play an important role in relation to scientific literacy Vision III for students living in the future society. This study aims to identify the characteristics of extreme citizen science (ECS) and extreme citizen scientists (ECSs) and to derive key competencies of ECS?s using literature analysis from Korean and…

Chemical escape rooms (ChEsRms) are educational games in which students use their brain, chemical knowledge, intuition, and a bit of luck to solve a mystery. At the Weizmann Institute, we have developed ChEsRms that are implemented by teachers in their classes. Since the COVID-19 pandemic stopped all the educational activities that took place in…

Understanding how physicists solve problems can guide the development of methods that help students learn and improve at solving complex problems. Leveraging the framework of cognitive task analysis, we conducted semistructured interviews with theoretical physicists (N=11) to gain insight into the cognitive processes and skills that they use in…

Computation is intertwined with essentially all aspects of physics research and is invaluable for physicists' careers. Despite its disciplinary importance, integration of computation into physics education remains a challenge and, moreover, has tended to be constructed narrowly as a route to solving physics problems. Here, we broaden Physics…

Imagination is necessary for scientific practice, yet there are no in vivo sociological studies on the ways that imagination is taught, thought of, or evaluated by scientists. This article begins to remedy this by presenting the results of a qualitative study performed on two systems biology laboratories. I found that the more advanced a…

The research study concentrates on the incorporation of case technology to augment the enhancement of research competencies among future physicists. The study scrutinizes the influence of case technology on students' research capabilities and their aptitude to apply theoretical knowledge to practical situations. The main objective was to identify…

To effectively employ inquiry-based learning to enhance students' inquiry practices and encourage them to think and act like scientists, science teachers must have a deeper understanding of the factors that influence scientific research and attitudes about scientist practice. This research contains the experience of two postdoctoral researchers in…