Water is an essential resource for all living things. How we live on our watershed can impact water quantity and quality. It is important to recognize how humans alter watershed dynamics, but students often find it challenging to visualize watershed processes and understand how decisions that they make as individuals and together as a community…

Teaching Science can only be successful if we are able to answer the challenges of the 21st century. Teaching Physics, Chemistry and Biology with the traditional methods is unintelligible and considered unnecessary for most students. This situation needs to be changed. Students can only develop their abilities and skills to the full extent and can…

Research has shown that certain ways of teaching can make a difference in whether students learn standards-based content. Many strategies have proven to be effective in teaching literacy, mathematics, science and social studies. These strategies have facilitated blending academic and career/technical subjects to make learning more meaningful for…

To help teachers enrich their students' understanding of inquiry in Earth science, this article describes six modes of inquiry used by practicing geoscientists (Earth scientists). Each mode of inquiry is illustrated by using examples of seminal or pioneering research and provides pointers to investigations that enable students to experience these…

Recently, a high school Science Club generated a large number of questions involving temperature. Therefore, they decided to construct a thermal gradient apparatus in order to conduct a wide range of experiments beyond the standard "cookbook" labs. They felt that this apparatus could be especially useful in future ninth-grade biology classes, in…

This article provides basic information on how a common species of earthworm, "Eisenia fetida," can be used in the biology classroom as well as a discussion of how to establish and care for a vermicompost bin. We discuss ideas for inquiry activities with the organism and provide a sample-guided inquiry that demonstrates how a long-term,…

The mix of guided-inquiry and design based experiments is feasible to do in introductory organic chemistry lab courses. It can provide students with experience in two parts of experimental chemistry such as the significance and careful analysis of experimental data and the design of experiments.

When students design and build their own versions of instruments, they appreciate them more--and are more likely to appreciate how experimentation plays a critical role in explaining the world around them (NRC 1999). In this activity, students learn how science is done by becoming active participants. They use free lenses to build simple…

This design research describes the development of a student inquiry project in which upper-secondary school chemistry students learn domain-specific concepts by doing inquiry in a simulated inquiry community. The design of the inquiry project is based on the extended procedural and conceptual knowledge in science (PACKS) model; the student…

Skepticism is one of the cornerstones of scientific learning. Some pseudosciences in domains such as astronomy or pharmacy use a host of issues in everyday life as pretexts for work in the classroom (e.g., astrology) or laboratory (e.g., homeopathy). Chemistry also offers opportunities to promote skeptical thinking in students. Commercial devices…

Recent studies of American science education have highlighted the need for more inquiry-based lessons. For example, when the National Research Counsel evaluated the Advanced Placement (AP) Biology program, it pointed out, "AP laboratory exercises tend to be "cookbook" rather than inquiry based. This criticism is particularly apt for the lab…

The National frameworks for science emphasize inquiry skills (NRC, 1996), however, in typical classroom practice, science learning often focuses on rote learning in part because science process skills are difficult to assess (Fadel, Honey, & Pasnick, 2007) and rote knowledge is prioritized on high-stakes tests. Short answer assessments of…

A one-way ANOVA experiment is performed to determine whether or not the three standardization methods are statistically different in determining the concentration of the three paraffin analytes. The laboratory exercise asks students to combine the three methods in a single analytical procedure of their own design to determine the concentration of…

A three unit module of inquiry, including morphological comparison, cladogram construction, and data mining has been developed to teach students the nature of experimental science. Students generate angiosperm morphological data, form cladistic hypotheses, then mine taxonomic, bioinformatic and historical data from many sources to replicate and…

"Situational interest" is a short-term form of motivation which occurs when a specific situation stimulates the focused attention of students (e.g., a spectacular science demonstration could arouse transient interest amongst nearly all the students in a class, even those who are not normally interested in science). However, there have…