The increase in ecological problems and social and moral conflicts has brought character and value education to the agenda in the 21st century. Socioscientific issues (SSI) that concern society and address ethical and moral issues are recommended as appropriate content to develop character and values within science education. In this systematic…

Nitrate is a crucial parameter for assessing water quality, owing to its dual function in ecological systems. These functions can be beneficial or detrimental depending on whether nitrate concentrations are low or high, respectively. The ultraviolet spectrophotometric method (standard as 4500-NO[subscript 3]--B) is a classic method for determining…

Embracing curricular reforms such as the Next Generation Science Standards poses unique challenges for early childhood science teachers who often value play and curiosity, but are challenged by the depth of scientific disciplinary practices expected by these standards. To explore possibilities for teacher growth, this research draws on Noddings'…

A new teaching resource comprised of raw X-ray diffraction data sets from crystallography experiments has been compiled. The aim of this resource is to provide a tool with which to plug the teaching gap between crystals and chemical structures present at various levels of education, as well as providing examples for early stage researchers and…

A novel teaching approach is aimed at elucidating the concept of bond enthalpy for general chemistry students. Through the integration of a hands-on candy pulling activity, students in a large lecture class were provided a tangible experience to explore bond strengths using rope candy and a luggage scale. Feedback from students indicated a clear…

Science should provide students an accurate and contemporary education on genetic influence, particularly how it impacts trait variability and developmental norms. Stories involving familial, racial, and sexual differences routinely appear in the popular media and sales of over-the-counter genetic tests are mounting. Unfortunately, research…

Though job opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) continue to expand in the United States, people on Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) while in school are continually disadvantaged in future STEM-based career possibilities. Studies have shown that students on IEPs are far less likely to major in a STEM degree…

Literature circles are student-led, small-group discussions that promote active learning and engagement with literary texts. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of literature circles on student engagement and learning outcomes in a pedology course. For various reading assignments throughout the semester, students either…

General chemistry II is often a challenging course for first-year STEM students, and many students rely on partial credit to achieve success in the course. However, assigning liberal partial credit to students' work can also disincentivize developing proficiency with the material. Here, we present an alternative specifications-based grading scheme…

This paper analyses the epistemic criteria that pre-service teachers consider when assessing the quality of a scientific investigation about friction force. The participants were 71 pre-service primary teachers working in 18 small groups of three or four participants (N = 18), who were enrolled in a science teaching methods course that addressed…

There has been a growing need as preservice teachers develop competencies regarding convergence. Focused on a discussion of blended learning before the COVID-19 pandemic versus online learning in the epidemic, we aimed to explore whether preservice teachers' attitudes toward convergence can be influenced by the learning environment. Participants…

Transfer of structural math knowledge to physics is difficult for students. While research suggests various improvement techniques, enhancing parallelism of algebraic structures used in physics to those studied in mathematics courses seems underrepresented. This paper proposes an alternative way of introducing wave functions as a set of parametric…

In a General, Organic, and Biological (GOB) Chemistry course designed for allied-health disciplines, new information builds on previous material. It is important for students to retain what they learn throughout the course and be able to integrate the material not only with material from other bioscience courses but also with the metabolism…

Biochemistry students at the introductory level easily comprehend the importance of energy-yielding oxidation and reduction biochemical processes, but nevertheless, they fight with words "oxidation" and "reduction" (and with the corresponding adjectives, "oxidized" and "reduced") applied in biochemistry…

We will present a problem-solving method for the dynamics of a projectile that has two perpendicular acceleration vectors through rotation of the axes. This methodology of reparameterizing the two-dimensional system simplifies the speed optimization calculus.