Although the natural sciences are dedicated to understanding the natural world, they are also dynamic and shaped by cultural values. The sciences and attendant technologies could be very responsive to a population that participates in and uses them responsibly. In this essay, Nancy Brickhouse and Julie Kittleson argue for re-visioning the sciences…

Increasingly, there are calls for the school curriculum to reflect the real-world needs of students, such as the need to make difficult choices as citizens. The science curriculum is not exempt from these reappraisals of the relevance of what occurs in schools. Approaches to science involving social contexts are increasingly common, and with them…

Aiming to encourage longitudinal studies in science education, we clarify conceptual and methodological aspects of longitudinal research. We use the studies that other articles in this issue describe to illustrate these aspects. The illustrations range from attempts to promote long-term change through experimental teaching to investigations that…

This paper reviews the remarkably similar experiences of school science reported by high school students in Sweden, England, and Australia. It compares student narratives from interpretive studies by Lindahl, by Osborne and Collins, and by Lyons, identifying core themes relating to critical contemporary issues in science education. These themes…

Teaching science in middle school is both rewarding and demanding. Creating an exciting learning environment with a rich science curriculum that engages all students is challenging enough. Monitoring the progress of as many as 150 individual students and knowing that they understand the science concepts we are teaching can be overwhelming. How can…

With such curriculum gaps, it is hardly surprising that middle school children's understanding of botany is limited and riddled with misconceptions. Knowing that plants supply the oxygen to sustain most life forms and provide the primary energy source of most food webs is a core idea of science. Investigating non-native species is one way to…

This paper argues in favor of Closed Captioned Video technology for incorporating nanotechnology as part of teaching science to English as a Second Language (ESL) students. Nanotechnology deals with particles with diameters 1-50 nm and provides a macro-context for science instruction. Closed Captioned Videos provide an effective tool for…

Turkey has a central educational system in which all of the programs are designed by the Ministry of National Education and distributed to the implementing institutions. As a part of this system, the textbooks written by different writers need to be approved by the commission called Talim Terbiye Kurulu, and these approved books are chosen as…

This article is concerned with the meaning and legitimacy of the view that the secondary science curriculum can be given a vocational emphasis, and with a current attempt to create such a curriculum. Although this perspective on the science curriculum has a long history, in recent decades it has received little attention. This article examines…

The inability to write scientific papers effectively remains a problem for many college students. To identify pedagogical constructs that help undergraduates write well in scientific formats, we evaluated the effect of the number and type of college composition courses previously taken, science writing experience, and tutorial services. In our…

Nonscience majors often come into science courses with misconceptions about the nature of science. As part of an integrative mathematics and science course, we have structured a continued dialogue regarding the nature of science through inquiry-based classroom activities and an extended investigation.

A model for a shared nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) facility between a private university and two local community colleges is presented. The discussion of the components required for the shared facility, modes of data distribution, and overall effect on the curriculum is presented.

Biotechnology is a cutting edge science/technology which impacts the community in many ways. For this and other reasons, it is important we encourage teachers to include biotechnology in the science curriculum. First, however, we need to know what hinders and encourages teachers. We surveyed the views of 88 high school science teachers. The …

The reform of curriculum and assessment in the 14-19 age range in England seeks to address the failure of schools to engage substantial cohorts of pupils, as measured by truancy rates, disruption of lessons and GCSE pass rates. The new statutory orders for Science are motivated in part by similar concerns. Four schools, already in partnership for…

A previous study showed that elementary teaching majors enrolled in an inquiry-based physical science course developed chemistry content knowledge comparable to that of students enrolled in traditional lecture-based courses. This current study compares the views of these elementary teaching majors regarding how chemistry is taught and learned to…