While babysitting or preparing home meals, young people (and adults too) sometimes overlook cleanliness procedures. One of the first employment opportunities for teenagers is often in a fast-food restaurant where the safe handling and proper cooking of foods is essential. To teach students about food safety practices, the U.S. Food and Drug…

This paper describes the international co-operation experience in teaching control engineering with laboratories being conducted remotely by students via the Internet. This paper describes how the students ran the experiments and their personal experiences with the laboratory. A tool for process identification and controller tuning based on…

Involving students in inquiry-based exercises is much more difficult than simply providing activities for them to do in the classroom. While active learning suggests students are physically participating in the lesson, inquiry learning requires that they are also mentally participating in it. Academic theorists agree it is more the mental…

The Engineering Department's vision for undergraduate education for the next century is to develop a set of laboratory experiences that are thoughtfully sequenced and integrated to promote the full development of students in all courses. Optoelectronics is one of the most important and most demanding courses in Electrical and Computer Engineering.…

Describes the Tardigrada as a group of animals suitable for close study in project work. Gives reasons for their suitability and an illustrated identification key. Discusses possible investigations into the ecology and physiology of tardigrades. (Author/CW)

Describes the concept of a unified laboratory program in which integrated experiments are brought together from several areas of chemistry. Discusses the design and implementation of the unified laboratory at Willamette University, including lists of laboratory experiments and projects. (TW)

Provides three descriptions of demonstrations used in various chemistry courses. Includes the use of a simple demonstration model to illustrate principles of chromatography, techniques for using balloons to teach about the behavior of gases, and the use of small concentrations of synthetic polyelectrolytes to induce the flocculation hydrophobic…

Describes an experiment in which stretching a rubber band can be used to compare the statistical theory of rubber elasticity with its continuum mechanics counterpart. Employs the use of the equation of the state of rubber elasticity and the Mooney-Rivlin equation. (TW)

Laboratory experiences as a part of most U.S. high school science curricula have been taken for granted for decades, but they have rarely been carefully examined. What do they contribute to science learning? What can they contribute to science learning? What is the current status of labs in our nation s high schools as a context for learning…

Describes three methods for offering practical work for external science courses: residential sessions on campus, local centers, and use of home laboratory kits. The advantages and disadvantages of each are discussed and examples of each in operation are given. A 21-item bibliography is provided. (EAO)

Discusses procedures, theoretical considerations, and results of an experiment involving the preparation of a tetrahedral nickel(II) complex and its transformation into an octahedral species. Suggests that fundamental aspects of coordination chemistry can be demonstrated by simple experiments performed in introductory level courses. (Author/JN)

Describes a student kinetic experiment involving second order kinetics as well as displaying photochromism using a wide variety of techniques from both physical and organic chemistry. Describes measurement of (1) the rate of the recombination reaction; (2) the extinction coefficient; and (3) the ESR spectrometer signal. (Author/JN)

Described are experiments used in the "Physical Science and Man" course at Hartley CAE which enable determinations of efficiencies of two energy conversion processes, namely, electricity into heat and burning gas to produce heat. Activities for comparing the processes are suggested. (DS)

Several potential safety problems are identified relative to science teaching: the use of bottled gas or alcohol lamps as heat sources, the hazards of Millon's Reagent for testing for proteins, and the use of silicon tetrachloride to demonstrate properties of chlorides. Science teachers are also warned about potentially dangerous procedures…

Provides a first experiment for college chemistry that provides insights into scientific procedures without presupposing any detailed knowledge of chemistry on the part of the student. Requires the student to measure successive masses and volumes and use these values to determine the density from the slope of the graph. (MVL)