Compares and contrasts the use of animals in English secondary schools and Australian high schools. Changes in animal usage in English schools over the last decade are described as are the influences that the National Curriculum in England has had on such work. Implications are indicated for Australian and English biology teachers. (Author/MKR)

Students often complain that lectures requiring simultaneous writing and listening is a difficult task. An alternative method is provided to teachers to facilitate note taking by students. (ZWH)

An exercise that uses a common bacterium, E. coli, in great numbers, to detect a demonstrable change in the ability of some cells to become resistant to the common antibiotic streptomycin is presented. The procedure for preparing and pouring the gradient antibiotic plates is provided. The advantages of using the Basic Fuchsin in the agar are…

Presents and discusses the following six questions to focus students' inquiry experiences: (1) What do you think will happen? (2) What actually happened? (3) How did it happen? (4) Why did this happen? (5) How can we find out which of these hypotheses is the most reasonable? (6) How can you relate the investigation to your daily life? (PR)

Evaluates the traditional method of intercalating theoretical and seminar classes with laboratory practical work. Proposes a new schedule where students get problem-based learning of theoretical concepts during the first half of the course, and plan and execute a laboratory project during the second half. (Author/CCM)

Describes how to adopt a Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) in an introductory college chemistry laboratory to promote a more positive attitude in students and better conceptual understanding of laboratory reports. (Author/MM)

We conducted an experiment using training in a software package for presentations. Ninety undergraduate students with no previous experience received either training that guided them to commit common errors or alternatively training that sought to prevent errors from occurring. From previous research and relevant theory, a typology for…

The use of competition experiments as a means of evaluating linear free energy relationship in the undergraduate teaching laboratory is reported. The use of competition experiments proved to be a reliable method for the construction of Hammett plots with good correlation providing great flexibility with regard to the compounds and reactions that…

Old bones are often discolored by the grime that infiltrates spaces in the matrix once occupied by blood vessels. This suggested that allowing dry bone to absorb colorants might be a useful way to show the three dimensional complexity of bone vascularization. The authors have developed a simple way to show blood vessels spaces in bone at a glance…

Demonstrations are sometimes perceived as merely entertaining and expendable ancillaries for lectures and laboratory sessions. Nothing can be further from the truth. If done properly, demonstrations have much more value than lectures and labs when used to teach critical thinking in the sciences. There are effective ways to model scientific…

A serendipitous finding involving static magnetic fields can be used to design experiments suitable for both science and nonscience majors. It has been reported that organisms respond differently to high-gauss magnetic fields generated by north poles than they do to those generated by south poles. Experimental tests of this hypothesis are ideal…

In sixth grade, students understand that Earth gets visible light from the Sun, but students may also believe the Earth gets heat from the Sun. This last part is incorrect because the Sun is too far from the Earth to heat it directly. So, how does the Sun heat the Earth? When light strikes an object, it can be reflected or absorbed. Absorbed light…

Though deceptively simple to teach, chromatography presents many nuances and complex interactions that challenge both student and instructor. Time and instrumentation provide major obstacles to a thorough examination of these details in the laboratory. Modern chromatographic method-development software provides an opportunity to overcome this,…

Students' relationships with language are likely to change when they are permitted to play with it, but teachers must construct multiple classroom situations for experimentation, and thus change, to take place. Margo A. Figgins and Jenny Johnson give several ideas for how to foster wordplay among students, describing use of eponyms, word…

This article feeds into debate about the feasibility and usefulness of educational experiments by discussing methodological issues arising out of a study which sought causal links between teaching and learning of one aspect of French as a foreign language. The study involved two small-scale experiments which tested a hypothesis regarding the…