Outlines quality assurance schemes for distance-education technologies that are based on the ISO 9000 family of international quality-assurance standards. Argues that engineering faculties can establish such systems on the basis of and integrated with accreditation schemes. Contains 34 references. (DDR)

Details an 'explanatory Earth story' on plate tectonics to show how such a 'story' can be developed in an earth science context. Presents five other stories in outline form. Explains the use of these stories as vehicles to present the big ideas of science. (DDR)

The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) is a multiple-choice test designed to monitor students' understanding of force and related kinematics. Outlines how the FCI was used to evaluate student learning following a newly developed approach to teaching mechanics in a Finnish upper secondary school. Offers an example of the benefits that can follow from…

Ninety-six teachers were surveyed to assess their perceptions of the instructional role of the history of science and describe instructional practices that they use to integrate the history of science into their science curriculum. Proposes the history of science as an instructional approach to provide students with a broadening and unifying…

Focuses on the construction and use of a schoolyard model of the Morrow Bay watershed in California. Describes the design and use of materials that include styrofoam insulation, crushed granite, cement, and stucco. (DDR)

Discusses the decrease in number of students taking physics at the senior secondary level and presents an outline of the colloquium which met in September, 1998, in Ireland through the cooperation between the Irish Department of Education and Science and other European union education ministries. (Contains 21 references.) (YDS)

Presents a demonstration that is a safe blend of two other vivid and memorable demonstrations. Combines two exothermic reactions involving granulated sugar to devise a reaction that produces a small amount of smoke and a growing column of black carbon. (DDR)

Shares insights on community/environment-based learning gleaned from teachers over 30 years. Delineates what the author has identified as stages that teachers experience as they begin to move outside their classrooms. Genuine support for this approach would hasten its adoption. (DDR)

Assesses the challenges posed by the talk of globalization for French management education. Analyzes the strategies adopted by French business schools for coping with the globalization imperative. (DDR)

Describes the Irish National Stud and its relationship to science education. Includes the history of the stud and a full description of its grounds. (MM)

Reading, as one learning activity in science lessons and units of study, needs to be assessed to notice needs of pupils. The science teacher needs to be thoroughly grounded in science content and methodology and yet also needs to be an instructor of reading. For pupils to do well in reading science subject matter, there needs to be continuous…

This paper is focused on primary trainee teachers' conceptualization of the vision process and image formation in a plane mirror. The study involved 55 non-specialist, undergraduate trainee primary teachers on a 4-year programme of initial teacher training. The process incorporated tracking trainees' ideas during university-taught sessions through…

Everything moves. Even apparently stationary objects such as houses, roads, or mountains are moving because they sit on a spinning planet orbiting the Sun. Not surprisingly, the concepts of motion and the forces that affect moving objects are an integral part of the middle school science curriculum. However, middle school students are often taught…

Within the overall STTIS (Science Teacher Training in an Information Society) framework, this paper focuses on transformations of innovative teaching of optics, following a recommended change of approach to optics in the French curriculum. The empirical investigation of how teachers responded to this change, the main results of which are briefly…

This chapter describes the implementation and assessment of a high school-level bioengineering curriculum unit in urban, suburban, and rural settings. (Contains 8 figures.)