In the activities presented in this article, students mimic real scientists while constructing predictions and scientific explanations about surface currents. The activities are inspired by and couched within true scientific inquiries regarding the ocean and the North American Great Lakes. Students engage in a classroom inquiry and use map-reading…

This paper presents situated learning as a theoretical framework for conceptualising new ways to approach science education. Key constructs associated with this framework, including communities of practice, Discourse and identity, are introduced. I advance an argument to develop classroom communities of practice based on engaged citizenship…

There exists a general consensus in the science education literature around the goal of enhancing learners' views of nature of science (NOS). An extensive body of research in the field has highlighted the effectiveness of explicit NOS instructional approaches in improving learners' NOS views. Emerging research has suggested that engaging learners…

In a recent article, Iain MacInnes analyzed the static equilibrium of a system consisting of a wine bottle and a wine butler. After discussing that composite system, students can be asked to consider only the bottle (and its contents) as the system. An interesting challenge for them is to describe the forces on the bottle in static equilibrium.

The underlying assumption to this paper is that learners' ability to appreciate the relevance of school science and its importance to socio-economic development of their communities to a large extent depends on the quality of instruction they receive from their teachers. A popular conundrum is that no country is greater than the calibre of its…

There has been much attention about improving the skills and abilities of students in Science. One critical factor is the quality of teacher education programs for preparing science teachers. There has been little research and much debate about what constitutes an effective science teacher education program. Teacher beliefs are thought to be…

An original study about beliefs, conceptions and discourse analyses of organic chemistry teachers is presented. We used Likert questionnaires and discourse analysis to examine conceptions of the nature of science, learning and teaching at university level. A case study of four female teachers with varying experience and teacher training was…

Field experiments offer the opportunity for hands on experience with the scientific process. While this is true of a wide variety of activities, many have pitfalls both experimental and logistical that reduce the overall rate of success, in turn, influencing student learning outcomes. Relying on small, territorial, diurnal lizards and an array of…

Two commercial self-heating food products have been used to apply chemical concepts such as stoichiometry, enthalpies of reactions and solutions, and heat transfer in a classroom activity. These products are the self-heating beverages sold in Europe and the Meals, Ready to Eat or MREs used primarily by the military in the United States. The main…

In this paper we discuss the foundations and process of design of a research-informed instructional unit aimed for pre-service science teacher education. The unit covers some key ideas on the nature of science (around methodology, theory change, scientific inference and explanation, values, gender issues) anchoring them in a well-known episode…

It has long been known that when a cable of specified length is hung between two poles, it takes the shape of a catenary--a hyperbolic cosine function. In this paper, we study a variation of this problem. First, we consider a cable hanging between two poles in which one end of the cable is fixed to one pole; the other end of the cable runs over a…

Energy is a critical concept in physics problem-solving, but is often a major source of confusion for students if the presentation is not carefully crafted by the instructor or the textbook. Confusion can be caused by the careless use of language in energy discussions. Students consciously or unconsciously imitate a teacher in their use of…

The NASPE standards for physical education programs stress that students should not only achieve competence in physical skills but also acquire and integrate the underlying concepts that can lead to effective movement. Physical educators can successfully embed these underlying concepts into the daily skill instruction and guided practice in their…

A classroom demonstration detailing the procedure for the separation of a ternary mixture consisting of intensely colored compounds using silica gel column chromatography is described. The audience can follow the compounds during their passage through the column as individual, colored bands while learning about different tools and techniques used…

The relationship between pH and the aqueous solubility of heavy metals is explored by considering the environmental impact of acidic mine drainage. Acid mine drainage is an important environmental concern in many areas of the United States. Associated with coal mining in the East and hard rock mining in the West, the acidity originates primarily…