The papers in this collection provide compelling arguments that the use of Adapted Primary Literature (APL) in science education holds great promise for enriching inquiry science instruction at the secondary level. The integration of this genre of written text into science curricula illustrates the ways in which reasoning in reading and reasoning…

In a survey last year, four-fifths of Americans surveyed could not correctly define "molecule." This is not good news for educators who worry that Americans are ill prepared to compete with other nations and understand political choices involving science. Behind those disturbing numbers lie another, more encouraging, set of poll results intimately…

Some education researchers have claimed that we should not teach the Bohr model of the atom because it inhibits students' ability to learn the true quantum nature of electrons in atoms. Although the evidence for this claim is weak, many have accepted it. This claim has implications for how to present atoms in classes ranging from elementary school…

Teaching thinking skills to students is often associated with a thinking strategy or a specific thinking technique. The strategy or technique may refer to a series of steps that is systematically drawn up to ensure that the teaching of thinking skills takes place effectively. In the case of Malaysia, a conceptual framework of Thinking Skill…

Even though in the early years of the Republic of Turkey Darwin's theory of evolution was treated as a scientific theory and taught fairly in schools, despite all the substantial evidence accumulated supporting the theory of evolution since then, Darwin and his ideas today have been scorned by curriculum and education policy makers. Furthermore,…

One of the most known phenomena in physics is the Hall effect. This is mainly due to its simplicity and to the wide range of its theoretical and practical applications. To complete the pedagogical utility of the Hall effect in physics teaching, I will apply it here to determine the Faraday constant as a fundamental physical number and the number…

The results of Romanian school students in Science PISA and TIMSS testings have been and continue to be systematically slack. In the present paper we intend to do a comparative analysis of Science curriculum TIMSS 2007 and Romanian Science school curricula of 4th and 8th grades. This analysis, based on Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive domain,…

Critical thinking is considered to be an important outcome that all students, regardless of their academic major, need to achieve during their undergraduate study. In addition, critical thinking allows students to respond to less-well defined problems and thus to be better prepared for both personal and professional challenges. Taking into…

Authors of recent science reform documents promote the goal of scientific literacy for all Americans (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989, 1993). Some students, however, feel apprehensive about learning science due to perceptions that science is antagonistic to their world views (Alters, 2005; Esbenshade, 1993). This study…

The objective of this study was to investigate the importance of Agriculture Science course sequencing in high schools, as a preparatory factor for students enrolled in collegiate agriculture classes. With the variety of courses listed in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for Agriculture Science, it has been possible for counselors,…

Educative curriculum materials--materials designed to promote both teacher and student learning--may help novice teachers learn how to engage in productive curricular planning. However, little is known about how educative supports within these materials should be written to best support teachers. This quasi-experimental study examines the…

In her 1993 text "Educating For Intelligent Belief and Unbelief," Nel Noddings advocated an ambitious plan to challenge the students; she wished to engage them in a dialogue on the religious issues that define those questions, which "matter deeply to everyone." This was seen as a dialogue that can take place at all levels of education, but was…

This paper presents the main findings, and lessons learned, from introducing a synchronous peer collaboration activity in a distance learning computer science course. Synergo, a software that supports such an approach, was used in this activity. The organizational, technical, and academic challenges of introducing this activity in the course are…

Using primary literature in undergraduate science classes helps teach students both scientific information and process. However, students' lack of understanding of scientific techniques can hinder their understanding of the papers. This article describes a "technique module" that uses peer teaching and active learning to facilitate…

The prevalence of feature-based 3D modeling in industry has necessitated the accumulation and maintenance of standard feature libraries. Currently, firms who use standard features to design parts are storing and utilizing these libraries through their existing product data management (PDM) systems. Standard features have enabled companies to…