A simple setup is designed to investigate a "time-of-flight" measurement of the speed of sound in water. This experiment only requires low cost components and is also very simple to understand by students. It could be easily used as a demonstration experiment.

The Periodic Table of Elements is central to the study of modern Physics and Chemistry. It is however, considered by teachers as difficult to teach. This paper reports on a case study exploring reflections on teaching periodic table concepts in five secondary schools from South Africa. Qualitative methodology of interviews and document analysis…

Student reasoning about cases of natural selection is often plagued by errors that stem from miscategorising selection as a direct, causal process, misunderstanding the role of randomness, and from the intuitive ideas of intentionality, teleology and essentialism. The common thread throughout many of these reasoning errors is a failure to apply…

This article describes the implementation and application of a metal deposition and surface diffusion Monte Carlo simulation in a physical chemistry lab course. Here the self-diffusion of Ag atoms on a Ag(111) surface is modeled and compared to published experimental results. Both the thin-film homoepitaxial growth during adatom deposition onto a…

Reading provides a unique window into the history and nature of science and the norms of scientific communication and supports students in developing critical-reading skills in engaging ways. Effective use of reading promotes a spirit of inquiry and an understanding of science concepts while also addressing expectations of the Common Core State…

The purpose of this study was to determine how elementary teachers used scientific language during a whole-class discussion to describe 3 biological phenomena (interactions, dependent relationships, and interdependent relationships) with and without educative curricula. Findings revealed that the ways in which the 6 teachers enacted the discussion…

The aim of this study is to evaluate a continuing professional development (CPD) program designed to improve teachers' professional competences about the nature of science (NOS) by using a new evaluation perspective. The researchers followed a year long CPD about NOS with the voluntary attendance of 18 middle school science teachers and their…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] Research in physics education has contributed substantively to improvements in the learning and teaching of university physics by informing the development of research-based instructional materials for physics courses. Reports on the design of these…

iSchlenk, a portable instructional cart with equipment for hands-on student experience in safe handling of air-sensitive, moisture-sensitive, toxic, pyrophoric, and/or radioactive chemical materials, is described. The cart, for use by =4 students, has compressed air and vacuum from a diaphragm vacuum pump supplied to 4 three-port Schlenk lines…

The current study compared the effectiveness of two methods in biology teaching that are based on the science-as-inquiry approach: visits to authentic university laboratories (AULs) and analyzing adapted primary literature (APL). The methods' effectiveness was measured in terms of high-school students' increased understanding following a 6-week…

The present study conceptualized, implemented, and evaluated a specific program, the Live Science program. This program integrated 2 distinct but complementary approaches: participants' immersion in real science contexts and the participation of future teachers in seminars intended to share the immersion experience and to reflect on nature of…

Student difficulties in science learning are frequently attributed to misconceptions about scientific concepts. We argue that domain-general perceptual processes may also influence students' ability to learn and demonstrate mastery of difficult science concepts. Using the concept of center of gravity (CoG), we show how student difficulty in…

Calls for undergraduate biology reform share similar goals: to produce people who can organize, use, connect, and communicate about biological knowledge. Achieving these goals requires students to gain disciplinary expertise. Experts organize, access, and apply disciplinary knowledge differently than novices, and expertise is measurable. By asking…

In this paper, we investigate some of the ways in which students, when given the opportunity and an appropriate learning environment, spontaneously engage in collaborative inquiry. We studied small groups of high school students interacting around and with an interactive whiteboard equipped with Algodoo software, as they investigated orbital…

The research aims to find out the effect of project-based science education programme conducted with an active learning on scientific process skills and conceptions of 6-year-old children about nature of science. Quasi-experimental research design including experimental and control groups with pre-test and post-test was implemented. Mixed-method…