The bicycle is one of the greatest locomotive machines ever invented. It is also a perfect vehicle for you to teach some of the ideas that are taught in forces topics to 11- to 16-year-olds. In this article we look at some of the ways in which you can use the bicycle and cycling to provide an alternative and engaging context for teaching some of…

We investigated physics students' behavior in a second-year laboratory by analyzing transcribed audio recordings of laboratory sessions. One student group was given both a problem and procedure and asked to analyze and explain their results. Another was provided with only the problem and asked to design and execute the experiment, interpret the…

Aldol chemistry is highlighted in many introductory organic chemistry laboratory experiments because it provides synthesis, mechanism, and experimental challenges for students. In the experiment described here, students synthesize dibenzalacetone derivatives by crossed aldol condensation, observe reaction rates using a semiquantitative rubric, and…

The article proves that formation of foreign-language communicative competence is one of the core objectives of teaching Russian as a foreign language. The author proves that foreign-language communicative competence is a complex construct which includes linguistic, substantive, and pragmatic competences. Preparatory departments are to create an…

Education is changing rapidly. Schools are gradually shifting away from the traditional mode of instruction and toward a more active model of learning, in which students are collaborating on projects in small groups and then sharing their work with the class. Africa cannot afford to be left behind in this change. Though collaborative teaching and…

As a science teacher and youth minister from a predominantly white evangelical community in rural Appalachia, I have had many opportunities to teach the science of global warming to climate change deniers. In this manuscript, I share some of the lessons I have learned to make my presentations less contentious and help those I teach be more…

Huygens' principle in which every point on a propagating wave acts like a point source of radiation is a foundation principle of physics. Normally, Huygens' principle is demonstrated by passing a wave, for example a water or light wave through an aperture comparable in size to the wavelength. In this paper, an experiment is described in which a…

When a new topic is introduced in the curriculum, teachers seek various ways to teach students the related concepts. For the novel topic 'materials' in the revised Dutch curriculum, I developed an experiment in which students determine Young's modulus using a guitar string. The experiment not only covers several concepts related to 'materials' it…

This article draws greater attention to the use of language as a pedagogical tool in science teaching and learning. Evidence shows that Alexander's (2020) 'dialogic teaching' approach is significant in promoting learning in science when used interchangeably with authoritative patterns of talk. This article explores dialogic teaching, drawing on…

Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, all teachers' training courses scheduled for summer 2020 had to transition to online formats. For the arts-integrating course "Teaching Chemistry by a Creative Approach", this shift jeopardized the course's essence, since learning by this approach is based on creative, hands-on, and active learning. Here…

The shifting emphases of new national curricula have placed more attention on knowledge generation approaches to learning. Such approaches are centered on the fundamental sense of generative learning where practices and tools for learning become the focus of the learning environment, rather than on the products of learning. This paper, building on…

The use of group drawing to promote student-generated representation is a common instructional strategy as it combines the benefits of using visual representation and collaborative talk. Although the affordances of group drawing have increasingly been emphasized in science education, few studies have investigated how drawing as a visual mode…

Introductory chemistry textbooks often present valence bond (VB) theory as useful, but incorrect and inferior to molecular orbital (MO) theory, citing the electronic structure of O[subscript 2] and electron delocalization as evidence. Even texts that initially present the two theories on equal footing use language that biases students toward the…

Colorful transitions of various acid-base indicators have been used to illustrate the concept of chemical equilibria, especially in spectrophotometric determination of the equilibrium constants or pKa values. To accommodate an online laboratory environment necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, this work employs color analyses from digital images…

We report on a distance learning experimental project for chemistry-major students on the synthesis of ethyl dodecanoate (C[subscript 11]CO[subscript 2]Et), a model for biodiesel, considering green chemistry principles. Thus, we employed a "recyclable acid catalyst" (an ionic liquid) and used chemometrics and microwave heating (MW) to…