Two seemingly complementary trends stand out currently in school science education in the United States: one is the increased emphasis on inquiry activities in classrooms, and the other is the high level of attention given to student understanding of the nature of science. This essay looks at the range of activities that fall within the first…

For science teachers, implementing inquiry for the first time can seem intimidating. Inquiry-based curriculum requires teachers to design experiences that engage students in scientific phenomena through direct observation, data gathering, and analysis of evidence. Replacing familiar routines and conventional methods with inquiry may seem outside…

Inquiry has been one of the most prominent reforms in science education. One of the goals of teaching through inquiry methods is to enable students to have experiences that are authentic to scientists' experiences. Too often, inquiry science is taught as either the "scientific method" or as "hands-on," disconnected activities…

"Inquiry" is the enterprise by which scientists generate theory. It is also a broadly-applied label for instructional approaches in which teachers and students emulate the activity of scientists in order to generate personal knowledge of natural phenomena and to come to understand the canons of disciplinary knowledge-building. Despite the ubiquity…

For more than a decade, there has been a call for reform in science education. This effort stresses the creation of a scientifically literate population. Required in this effort to create a more scientifically literate populace is an understanding of the Nature of Science (NOS) on the part of the average citizen. This call for reform recognizes…

Studies the inquiry-based practices of secondary science student teachers (n=12) including their views of inquiry in science; their views of inquiry in science teaching; and their conceptions of facts, laws, and theories in science, or nature of science (NOS). Recommends explicit teaching of science as a discipline, including scientific…

Examines pre-college students' understanding of the nature of science and tracks those beliefs over the course of an academic year. Studies students' conceptions of the nature of science using a model developed for use in this study. (Contains 24 references.) (Author/YDS)

In science education contexts there appears to be some consensus regarding the "doing" of science but less on the "what for". In this paper we compare and contrast scientists' view of "doing science" with the practice of "doing science" in New Zealand classrooms. After examining and critiquing these…

In describing the professional development journey of science teachers, the National Science Standards (NRC 1996) provides a useful cartography. Inquiry, those standards suggest, is the central strategy for the teaching of science. By illustrating the parallels between inquiry as a form of scientific investigation and inquiry as a classroom…

It has long been a goal of science education in the United States that students leave school with a robust understanding of the nature of science. Decades of research show that this does not happen. Inquiry-based instruction is advocated as a means for developing such understanding, although there is scant direct evidence that it does. There is a…

The utilization of biology research resources, coupled with a "learning by inquiry" approach, has great potential to aid students in gaining an understanding of fundamental biological principles. To help realize this potential, we have developed a Web portal for undergraduate biology education, WormClassroom.org, based on current research…

This case study examines the alignment between the Intended Curriculum, Implemented Curriculum and Achieved Curriculum of a fourth grade inquiry based unit, "Food Chains and Webs." Specifically addressed are how the curriculum was modified to meet state standards, how teachers were trained, and how assessment of curricular implementation was…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a summer science camp teaching experience on preservice elementary teachers' science teaching efficacy, science content knowledge, and understanding of the nature of science. Master's degree students enrolled in the elementary Fairfax Partnership Schools (FPS, n = 21) cohort served as the…

A previous study showed that elementary teaching majors enrolled in an inquiry-based physical science course developed chemistry content knowledge comparable to that of students enrolled in traditional lecture-based courses. This current study compares the views of these elementary teaching majors regarding how chemistry is taught and learned to…

The teaching of science in the K­-12 classroom has been less than successful. Students typically do not develop science literacy and do not understand the role and relevance of science in society. Inquiry­-based learning is an approach which promises to improve science teaching by engaging students in authentic investigations, thereby achieving a…