The aim of the research was to identify how Slovenian primary and secondary school students of various age groups explain the particulate nature of the states of matter of water and air. The qualitative research included five 12, 14, and 16 year old students. A semi-structured interview including four computer-displayed tasks was used for the data…

This research focuses on the approach adopted by a university of science and technology in Taiwan (hereinafter the university) to develop students' employability indices and to explore the questionnaire analyses. The university developed the "Employability Map; E-Map" by weighting the learning hours, which was used to evaluate students'…

This paper reports on a project aiming to extend the current understanding of how emerging technologies, i.e. tablets, can be used in preschools to support collaborative learning of real-life science phenomena. The potential of tablets to support collaborative inquiry-based science learning and reflective thinking in preschool is investigated…

To familiarize first-year students with the important ingredients of a physics experiment, we offer them a project close to their daily life: measuring the effect of air resistance on a bicycle. Experiments are done with a bicycle freewheeling on a downhill slope. The data are compared with equations of motions corresponding to different models…

Two philosophical ideas motivate this paper. The first is an answer to the question of what is an appropriate activity for a physicist. My answer is that an appropriate activity is anything where the tools of a physicist enable him or her to make a contribution to the solution of a significant problem. This may be obvious in areas that overlap…

This dissertation explored the roles schools can play in the successful outcomes of large carnivore or keystone reintroduction projects. Schools are more than centers for knowledge acquisition--they connect their community and disseminate information quickly to a wide audience. This study took place in California's Eastern Sierra Nevada, a…

Whereas some educational designers believe that students should learn new concepts through explorative problem solving within dedicated environments that constrain key parameters of their search and then support their progressive appropriation of empowering disciplinary forms, others are critical of the ultimate efficacy of this discovery-based…

The essence of molecular biology education lies in understanding of gene expression, with subtopics including the central dogma processes, such as transcription and translation. While these concepts are core to the discipline, they are also notoriously difficult for students to learn, probably because they cannot be directly observed. While nearly…

This qualitative study investigated non-guided applications of school science by high school youth in Ontario in non-school contexts. Although science education (in Ontario and elsewhere) mostly focuses on the meaningful learning of science, learning that can lead to knowledge application, non-guided application of acquired knowledge is rarely…

The purpose of this paper is to explore and explain students' achievements in solving context-based gas exercises comprising the macroscopic and submicroscopic levels of chemical concepts. The influence of specific variables, such as interest in learning, formal-reasoning abilities, and visualisation abilities, is a significant factor that should…

Background: In science education today, there is an emerging focus on what is happening in situ, making use of an array of analytical traditions. Common practice is to use one specific analytical framing within a research project, but there are projects that make use of multiple analytical framings to further the understanding of the same data,…

"Problem-Based Learning in the Life Science Classroom, K-12" offers a great new way to ignite your creativity. Authors Tom McConnell, Joyce Parker, and Janet Eberhardt show you how to engage students with scenarios that represent real-world science in all its messy, thought-provoking glory. The scenarios prompt K-12 learners to immerse…

The paper reports on an empirical study adopting a mixed research method, aiming at improving primary students' collaborative problem solving competency in project-based learning with productive failure (PF) instructional design in a seamless learning environment. Two Grade Six classes participated in a project-based learning of "Plant…

The Association of American Colleges and Universities ranks multiple process of science (POS) skills among the top-10 skills employers seek in college graduates. As part of an effort to explore and align the emphasis on POS skills in our science departments, we sought three things: (a) to determine if faculty and students felt enough time was…

Robotics is a powerful tool in education and it has gained a notable impact in the field of teaching computer science, engineering, math, physics and similar. As educational robotics laboratories stimulate many different abilities in students, such as problem solving and group working, it is possible to use robotics to promote soft skills as well.…