The 2019 science results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that 8th-grade students, especially economically challenged and emergent bilingual students, made few gains in science and reading achievement. Researchers have found that scientific language may be a significant barrier to student comprehension. Researchers have…

An activity is described that uses simple materials and an easy-to-perform protocol to estimate the Curie temperature of nickel, which is the temperature at which nickel loses its ferromagnetism. To do so, an object made of nickel metal is heated with a lighter until it loses its ferromagnetism. The metal is allowed to drop into a beaker that…

Sanger sequencing, also known as dideoxy sequencing, is a widely used method for DNA sequencing, particularly for cloned plasmids and clinical samples. This technique requires a combination of essential biochemistry skills, such as a chain-termination reaction, gel electrophoresis, and fluorescence detection. Unfortunately, there is a lack of…

Performing HPLC-based experiments in the undergraduate practical classroom is difficult because of the time required to perform an analysis. This limits the type of practical to one that undertakes a simple quantitative analysis. However, with the use of sophisticated simulators, such as the one employed in this exercise, more complex experiments…

In this paper, a problem set activity focused on understanding and applying unsupervised and supervised chemometric methods for the analysis of biodiesel-diesel blended fuels is described. This problem set was utilized in two upper-level analytical elective courses aimed for junior and senior level students. The data set consists of peak areas…

The limited availability of research instruments that reflect the vision of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) restricts the field's understanding of whether and how teachers are making instructional shifts called for by the standards. The need for such instruments is particularly urgent with teachers of multilingual learners (MLs), who…

The research examined the effect of context-based comics on the grounded mental model (GMM) development of sixth-grade students. Fifty-nine students were included in the study, which was conducted with a quasi-experimental design. A context-based comic (CbC) was used to teach the experimental group, whereas the course was taught using existing…

The jigsaw model is a dynamic cooperative learning approach where students become experts on different segments of the material and teach their peers, thereby enhancing engagement accountability, team work, and ultimately improving academic achievement. This study investigated the effectiveness of a cooperative learning strategy on secondary…

We discuss how research on student difficulties was used as a guide to develop, validate, and evaluate a Quantum Interactive Learning Tutorial (QuILT) to help students learn how to determine the completely symmetric bosonic or completely antisymmetric fermionic wave function and be able to compare and contrast them from the case when the particles…

In recent years, there has been an increase in the integration of socioscientific issues (SSI) into educational practices, which are recognized for enhancing higher-order thinking, scientific literacy, ethical considerations, and civic engagement. SSI teaching equips students to tackle global challenges, although they are complex challenges for…

Chemistry is a natural science that explores the composition, structure, and transformations of matter. Technological innovations have transformed both teaching methods and learning processes. To explore the transformative potential of virtual technologies in chemistry education, this study conducted a meta-analysis to assess their impact on…

Atomic-level visualizations serve as pivotal instructional tools in chemistry education, providing insights into the particulate level of matter, a dimension fundamental, yet typically invisible, in the study of chemistry. This research investigates how students' engagement with these visualizations influences their conceptual understanding of…

Virtual Labs (vLabs) have been gaining popularity in high school and undergraduate education, but there are few studies looking at their use in graduate-level courses. In this study, we investigated the use of six Labster vLabs assigned as homework in a graduate-level in-person Genomic Methodologies course at the University of Toronto. This course…

As a result of more recent events connected to the ongoing and lasting legacy of systemic racism in our society and the sparsity of research focused on both disciplinary teacher leadership (TL) and centering social justice and equity in teacher leadership literature reviews, this research investigated the ways in which science teacher leadership…

Taking the "practice turn" in K-12 science classrooms requires students to engage in processes of knowledge building, constructing explanatory accounts of natural phenomena. To support students in these sensemaking opportunities, a significant departure is needed from how science is typically taught in many classrooms. Teachers will need…