In the context of the distinction between normative and descriptive approaches to the relationship between science and religion, this article discusses the recent work of the sociologist Elaine Ecklund. It reviews four of her published outputs, summarising her data concerning the views of religious people and professional scientists, including…

Interdisciplinary engineering programs have many perceived benefits including developing broader skills and an ability to work with complex real-life problems. However, the development of interdisciplinary programs faces many challenges including how to balance breadth and depth, how to integrate interdisciplinary learning into existing studies…

While interdisciplinary collaboration is desired among researchers, traditional science instruction generally results in science disciplines being taught as separate entities. This study focuses on student understanding of concepts at the intersection of two isolated disciplines--geoscience and bioscience--across two purposeful samples of…

The theory of evolution can be a useful basis for developing students' understanding of ecology. Our study used concept maps to examine the development of sixth-grade students' understanding of the Antarctic ecosystem following several evolution 'Science Days' conducted at 'Nature Campus' -- an informal learning environment comprised of a natural…

Experiential learning provides students the time and space to participate in the process of learning by engaging in real, modern situations. Via hands on activities and reflection, students are able to assimilate new experiences with previous ones, and it has been repeatedly shown to improve student learning. We assessed how ten days of…

New science standards and reform recommendations spanning grades K--16 focus on a limited set of key scientific concepts from each discipline that all students should know. They also emphasize the integration of these concepts with science practices so that students learn not only the "what" of science but also the "how" and…

I have adopted complementary approaches to inferring human demographic history utilizing human and non-human genetic data as well as cultural data. These complementary approaches form an interdisciplinary perspective that allows one to make inferences of human history at varying timescales, from the events that occurred tens of thousands of years…

Science education is under revision. Recent changes in society require changes in education to respond to new demands. Scientific literacy can be considered a new goal of science education and the epistemological gap between natural sciences and literacy disciplines must be overcome. The history of science is a possible bridge to link these…

For the twenty-eighth year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the National AECT Convention in Orlando, Florida. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two…