Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my! Digital cameras, young inquisitive scientists, give it a try! In this project, students create an open-ended question for investigation, capture and record their observations--data--with digital cameras, and create a digital story to share their findings. The project follows a 5E learning cycle--Engage, Explore,…

Encouraging students to share their ideas, design mechanisms for testing ideas, and make conclusions about the validity of their ideas on the basis of evidence collected can enhance teaching about friction. The authors focus on teaching science content and science processes in a holistic manner so that students develop enduring understandings of…

The Maine Science Corps is a project sponsored by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12 ) program. Through this program, the University of Southern Maine's (USM) virology and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) research group provides high school teachers and students in rural areas with…

For most of our students, video games are a normal part of their lives. We should take advantage of this medium to teach physics in a manner that is engrossing for our students. In particular, modern video games incorporate accurate physics in their game engines, and they allow us to visualize the physics through flashy and captivating graphics. I…

We adopt the Web 2.0 paradigm as a mechanism for preparing, editing, delivering and maintaining educational content, and for fostering ongoing innovation in the online education field. We report here on the migration of legacy course materials from "PowerPoint" slides on CD to a fully online delivery mode for use in the "Swinburne Astronomy…

YouTube Fridays is a teaching tool that devotes the first five minutes of class each Friday to a YouTube video related to the course. Students select the videos, which expand the class's educational content in courses such as thermodynamics and material and energy balances. From assessments of two pilot studies using YouTube Fridays in Chemical…

Why has technology become prevalent in science education without fundamentally improving test scores or student attitudes? We claim that the core of the problem is "how" technology is being used. Technologies such as simulations are currently not used to their full potential. For instance, physiology simulations often follow textbooks by…

This study examined the effect of live simulation on students' science learning and attitude. A total of 311 middle school students participated in the simulation, which allowed them to access and interpret satellite data and images and to design investigations. A pre/post design was employed to compare students' science learning and attitude…

The current article represents a methodological proposal. It seeks to address the question of how one might recognize a discovery as a discovery without knowing in advance what is available to be discovered. We propose a solution and demonstrate it using data from a study previously reported by J. Roschelle (1992). Roschelle investigated 2…

For many students, the conceptual learning of quantum mechanics can be rather painful owing to the counter-intuitive nature of quantum phenomena. In order to enhance students' understanding of the odd behaviour of photons and electrons, we introduce a computational simulation of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer, developed by our research group. An…

Two studies analyzed impacts of writing and receiving web-mediated peer reviews on revision of research reports by undergraduate science students. After conducting toxicology experiments, 77 students posted draft reports and exchanged double-blind reviews. The first study randomly assigned students to four groups representing full, partial, or no…

In an effort to better prepare undergraduate students to read and critically evaluate scientific literature, a journal club experience was introduced into a university's bachelor of science curriculum. As a result of this experience, students have been found to be more thoughtful, poised, and articulate presenters, a fact that they, the students,…

In this study, we investigated whether the understanding of the particulate nature of matter by students was improved by allowing them to design and evaluate molecular animations of chemical phenomena. We developed Chemation, a learner-centered animation tool, to allow seventh-grade students to construct flipbook-like simple animations to show…

This research seeks to (1) establish a feasible development and implementation model for an inquiry-based learning environment with e-mentoring using videoconference, and (2) apply the model to examine its impact on rural students' learning. To achieve these goals, we developed a model of inquiry-based learning with e-mentoring (IBLE) based on…

The purpose of this study is to examine exemplary science teachers' level of computer use, their knowledge/skills in using specific computer applications for science instruction, their use of computer-related applications/tools during their instruction, how often they required their students to use those applications in or for their science class…