We describe an experiment for the undergraduate organic laboratory curriculum in which 2-bromoacetophenone is converted to 2-fluoroacetophenone using a solid-phase nucleophilic fluorine source. The experiment introduces students to the utility of solid-phase reagents in organic synthesis, to NMR-active nuclei other than [to the first power]H…

This study investigated the representations of a select group of scientists (n = 10) in a sample of Canadian high school and college textbooks. Drawing on semiotic and cultural-historical activity theoretical frameworks, we conducted two analyses. A coarse-grained, quantitative analysis of the prevalence and structure of these representations…

This dissertation discusses the findings of an ethnographic exploratory study of Turkana nomadic pastoralist children's sociocultural practices of their everyday lifestyles and science curriculum and instruction in Kenyan early childhood curriculum. The study uses the findings from Turkana elders to challenge the dominant society in Kenya that…

California's public schools have struggled since the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, and today face enormous challenges to try to regain lost quality and standing as a national education leader. In light of the current economic crisis, competition for limited resources is fierce and the pressure is on to eliminate all but the basic "Three…

This paper will describe a five year research project of a teaching strategy whereby pre-service credential students at a southern California university were taught to develop and apply science curriculum to parents of elementary-aged English as a Second Language students. The paper will elaborate upon the importance of parental engagement in…

We use a construct-based assessment approach to measure learning progression of energy concepts across physical, life, and earth science contexts in middle school grades. We model the knowledge integration construct in six levels in terms of the numbers of ideas and links used in student-generated explanations. For this study, we selected 10 items…

This paper describes an unusual approach to the incorporation of decision sciences in the core business curriculum as well as a novel undergraduate major in decision sciences.

Local instructional design describes the process of customization that naturally occurs when curriculum innovations interface with local classrooms and schools. Describing the practice of local instructional design can help to explain how curriculum is adapted to local conditions and provides insight on how instructional leaders mediate…

Previous literature has documented how teachers perceive both advantages and disadvantages associated with standards-based reform. These teacher perceptions may be connected to classroom practices in terms of the extent to which standards are utilized by individual teachers. The purpose of this study was to identify how secondary science teachers…

This paper describes an investigation of the interaction between teaching method and school locality in aligning student environmental beliefs, attitudes and intentions. Data for this study were collected from 236 adolescent upper secondary school students and chemistry teachers in Indonesia who were completing environmental topics from the local…

The need for the inclusion of socio-scientific issues (SSI) into science curricula has been generally accepted, but relatively few science teachers have incorporated SSI into their courses. Most science teachers feel that their most important task by far is to teach the principles of science, and any substantive pedagogical changes represent a…

Engineering design graphics courses taught in colleges or universities should provide and equip students preparing for employment with the basic occupational graphics skill competences required by engineering and technology disciplines. Academic institutions should introduce and include topics that cover the newer and more efficient graphics…

In 1989, the progressive introduction of a National Curriculum of subjects to all maintained schools in England and Wales brought compulsory science education into the primary sectors of these two countries for the first time. Such was its considered importance, science was placed alongside English and mathematics in what became known simply as…

Current high school Earth Science curricula and textbooks organize scientific content into isolated "units" of knowledge. Within this structure, content is taught, but in the absence of the context of fundamental understandings or the process of how the science was actually done to reach the conclusions. These are two key facets of scientific…

In the exciting, "out of this world" activity described here, students measure the Earth using meter sticks while measuring their shadows in two distant locations. To obtain the size of the Earth, students discover the connection between the measurements of the shadows and a model of the spherical Earth following the method developed by…