To engage students in a real-world issue (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking 2000) that affects their communities, the author designed an entire unit to investigate air pollution in their home state, Connecticut. The unit's goal is to understand how the use of resources, such as fossil fuels, might affect their quality of life. Through this unit,…

This paper is part of an extensive study of secondary school students' preconceived ideas about climate change. Here, we undertake a survey in the province of Valencia (Spain) to ascertain secondary school students' notions of the causes and consequences of climate change. Results show, among other things, that students clearly relate the misuse…

From media news coverage to fluctuating gas prices, the topic of energy is hard to ignore. However, little connection often exists between energy use in our daily lives and the presentation of energy-related concepts in the science classroom. The concepts of energy production and consumption bring together knowledge from several science…

Deals with how secondary schools in the United Kingdom ought to be concerned not only with teaching the science of nuclear processes but also with: (1) the technologies associated with power generation from the processes, and (2) the possible social effects of such technologies. (SK)