Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) incorporate research opportunities into the existing curriculum often by providing alternatives or replacing the traditional cookbook-based laboratory courses. Over the past 50 years, CURE courses have been shown to benefit both students and faculty members alike. Despite the large number of…

Education 4.0 represents a visionary approach to the future of education, aiming to enhance teaching and learning through advanced technologies. The aim of this research is to determine student attitudes toward the use of Education 4.0 tools in the 7th-grade Science course Electrical Circuits unit. To achieve this, an attitude test was developed…

Chemistry curricula in part rely on the use of laboratory demonstrations and experiments. The complex nature of this kind of educational activity has been posing challenges from the very early days of teaching chemistry. As chemistry is an experimental science, one possible approach to make the teaching of this subject more efficient is to use…

The purpose of this article is to discuss the use of explicit instruction in the curriculum area of science where non-explicit approaches (e.g., discovery learning) are often used. While there has been a relative paucity of research on explicit instruction in science classrooms, we argue that explicit instruction, particularly when it is embedded…

The Periodic Table of Elements is a valuable resource for chemists and all kinds of STEM professionals. However, it can be initially overwhelming and intimidating to some students. This hands-on lesson introduces abstract concepts in the periodic table through a tangible experience with simple toys and household objects. Students collaborate and…

Although much of the scientific community concerns itself with ideas of a sustainable future, very little of this interest and motivation has reached the classroom experience of the average chemistry major, and therefore, it is imperative to expose students to these ideas early in their careers. The focus of most undergraduate chemistry curricula…

Children of all ages who have the opportunities, time, and materials to explore science content in a self-directed manner will develop higher level understandings, and demonstrate more sophisticated approaches to science. A vast and growing body of research supports the academic benefits of self-directed or authentic scientific inquiry, which is…

To become robust scientific thinkers, children need meaningful opportunities to engage in science learning across a variety of contexts. Unfortunately, many children, especially those in urban settings and from low-income families, do not get the experiences needed to deepen their understanding of a broad range of scientific ideas, nor do they…

The study examined the effects of two different instructional interventions as support for scientific discovery learning using computer simulations. In two well-known categories of difficulty, data interpretation and self-regulation, instructional interventions for learning with computer simulations on the topic "ecosystem water" were developed…

This study of a County in New York State gathered information about the means for teaching the intermediate science curriculum in middle schools. The study collected 43 surveys and conducted ten follow-up interviews with administrators responsible for curriculum. Data included the division of content among grade level, starting grade level,…

This paper is concerned with the recent history of science curriculum reform in England, though it traces these developments back to the mid-nineteenth century. It first reviews approaches to science in the curriculum until the mid-1960s, identifying the curricular settlement of the postwar years and the beginning of the so-called "swing from…

Throughout the history of education, debate has existed between the relative merits of instructed versus constructed knowledge. In this article, we review our program of research in science education for students with disabilities in order to reveal some insights into this debate. We review research in science curriculum, mnemonic strategies,…

Focuses on a yearlong project designed to strengthen teachers' and students' understanding of plants, equip teachers with inquiry-based teaching techniques, and create a community of learners. (DDR)

Provides an account of the instruction of university-level introductory physics courses using a framework characterized by curiosity-driven inquiry in science and science teaching. Describes the role of the instructor as providing students with the incentive to learn science through their pursuit of personally meaningful questions. Contains 25…