Although unrecognized for his scientific achievements during his life, Gregor Mendel pioneered our modern understanding of the gene, work that shaped the field of genetics and advances in biology and medicine. The field that he set in motion 200 years ago lies at the center of current ethical debates about the future of humanity, the limits of…

Sometimes it takes little to keep this physicist happy on an airplane. A window seat, where the plane's shadow is visible or has disappeared into the distance, provides the opportunity to observe a variety of phenomena associated with sunlight that is reflected, refracted or scattered back towards the Sun. The term "backscattering" is…

Chemical reasoning, and in particular structure--property reasoning, is an important goal of chemistry education. Johnstone's triangle (1982, 1991) is often used to explicate this type of reasoning. This triangle describes the multilevel thought chemical reasoning requires and shows why students find chemistry so difficult. However, this model…

In the museum wing of the Greenslade house is a clock with a two-second pendulum about one meter long. This ticks once per second, and every time it passes through dead center it completes an electrical circuit. When I came to Kenyon in 1964, this system was used to send signals to a series of telegraph relays, which ticked once per second.…

Before reading this essay, go to your kitchen and find a bottle of Italian salad dressing. Get one that has been sitting still for a while at a fixed temperature--that is, one in thermal equilibrium. You will find an oil-rich layer at the top of the bottle and a vinegar-rich layer at the bottom (see Fig. 1). But think for a moment before spreading…

This paper introduces quantum materials and the notion of using models to aid the comprehension of complex ideas. It describes a hands-on activity, collaboratively developed by scientists and artists, that promotes an understanding of how experts take advantage of analogical thinking and model building to develop important frameworks. Quantum…

Entrenched compartmentalisation of subjects in secondary school means that students lack opportunities for learning how disciplines relate to each other and how knowledge can be applied in real-world contexts. This article examines what it means to 'think like a scientist in a multidisciplinary arena' and why this is (and should be) an integral…

No matter your opinion on religion, whether you are a staunch believer or an unapologetic atheist, that phrase "God's thoughts" is a delightfully poetic one. It represents in a metaphorical way nothing less than an understanding of the deepest and most fundamental laws of the universe. Specifically, the hope is that we will one day be…

"Science and Children" routinely addresses the challenges teachers face in integrating the "Common Core State Standards" ("CCSS") alongside the "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS") (e.g., Forsythe, Jackson, and Contreras 2018; Sweetman and Sabella 2018). This article aims to extend this…

Oscillating chemical reactions in the homogeneous phase have been studied intensively only since the mid-1960s, but they were known since 1920, having as forerunners the chemist William C. Bray and an "atypical" chemist Alfred J. Lotka. This contribution is the result of a careful reading of their literature and patient research into…

Many teachers like to introduce the Bohr atom toward the end of an introductory physics course. This is an excellent idea, given the historic importance of Bohr's 1913 work, which provided the bridge from Planck's quantized interaction of matter and radiation (1900) to the full theory of quantum mechanics (1925-28). Unfortunately, the version of…

Scientists' writing includes organized data, calculations, sketches and models, inventories and lists, timelines, detailed descriptions, locations, conditions, actions, schedules, information about variables, goals, hypotheses, research, notes, summaries of experiments, and reports to others (Fulton and Campbell 2014). By using scaffolded science…

This paper presents exemplification of the ways in which teachers can garner the interest piqued by the recent detection of gravitational waves. The intention was to develop a teaching module based around this exciting new branch of astronomy and to use this as an opportunity to bring cutting-edge science into the classroom, whilst allowing…

British scientist John Dalton (1766-1844), French scientist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850), and Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro (1776-1856) are familiar to many chemistry students. Such students may understand the importance of Dalton's atomic theory, model how Gay-Lussac's law relates the pressure and the temperature of a gas, and use…

This paper is the second part of a three-paper series. It describes a project based approach to STEM enrichment and presents a detailed description of the practical set-ups, the investigations carried out by the students and their experimental findings. The accompanying first paper outlines an introductory gravitational waves based teaching module…