Chemical kinetics is a highly quantitative content area that involves the use of multiple mathematical representations to model processes and is a context that is under-investigated in the literature. This qualitative study explored undergraduate student integration of chemistry and mathematics during problem solving in the context of chemical…

Newton's cradle, a device consisting of a chain of steel balls suspended in alignment, has been used extensively in physics teaching to demonstrate the principles of conservation of momentum and kinetic energy in elastic collisions. The apparent simplicity of the device allows one to test commonly hold views regarding the intuitive understanding…

Reports on an investigation of young children's (n=15) spontaneously constructed or naive understanding of the particulate nature of matter to any formal instruction in the domain. Speculates that children first develop local frameworks particular to different classes of substances, then slowly expand those frameworks to include a wide range of…