Although science is a core subject, educators at Uphall Primary School have found in recent times pupils do not display the same enthusiasm for science as they do for other subjects. In order to raise the pupils' science capital and generate an eagerness among the pupils to experiment, learn and develop their curiosity about the world around them,…

Understanding the needs of plants, the function of their structures, and plant reproduction, is part of the National Science Education Content Standard C: Life science (NRC 1996). "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" (NRC 2012) states that by the end of grade 2, students should understand that plants have external parts, used to help…

Carbon is at the heart of many of today's environmental challenges. It is the central element responsible for the structure and function of living systems--taken up by plants through photosynthesis and moving from plants to other organisms, soil, and the ocean and into the atmosphere. The imbalance of these connected biogeochemical…

Across the world, people form folkbiological categories to capture their commonsense organization of the natural world. Structured in accordance with universal principles, folkbiological categories are also shaped by experience. Here we provide new evidence from the Wichi--an understudied indigenous community who live in the Chaco rainforest and…

Education for Global Citizenship is about living as though the future mattered. This evaluates learner reactions to a tree-planting exercise that invites reflection upon hopes for the world, personal responsibilities and acting locally while thinking globally. Participant hopes concerned: environmental sustainability, peace on earth, then the…

Enquiry learning and teaching about the nature of science (NoS) is a key element of science education. We have designed an experimental setting for students aged 12-14 years to exercise enquiry-learning skills and to introduce students to the NoS aspects of creativity and imagination. It also illustrates the impact of carbon dioxide on the growth…

A re-emergence in language documentation has brought with it a recent recognition of the potential contributions which collaboration with other disciplines has to offer linguistics. For example, ten chapters of the recently published Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Fieldwork (Thieberger 2012) were explicitly devoted to cross-discipline…

This ethnobiological study aims to document and discuss original knowledge that local people develop based on the climate, local ecology, culture, and tradition in order to sustain their society. An ethnobiological survey on Raji people was conducted in Uttarganga village of Surkhet in Western Nepal with a view to understanding what medicinal,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how web-based science curriculum materials designed to develop autonomous learners can succeed in Brunei. In this instruction, designed to prepare students to independently explore new topics, students and teachers take new roles. Students collaborate with a peer to engage in inquiry and teachers…

The phenomenon known as "essentialism"--the belief that all species have an essential form with variation being a form of accident of aberration from the essence of the species--is widespread and important because it is at odds with biological reality. The prospect of teaching children about inheritance and evolution would be undermined…

Why save wilderness? Environmental educators usually offer ecosystemic and aesthetic reasons, yet clearly this abstract approach has failed to resonate with the wider public. In this article I adopt a nutritional strategy based on a broad array of sources. Wild plant food, in terms of economics, ubiquity, and other measures, performs very well…

Many preschool classrooms explore plant growth. However, because many plants take a long time to grow, it is often hard to facilitate engagement in some practices (i.e., since change is typically not observable from one day to another, children often forget their prior predictions or cannot recall what plants looked like days or weeks earlier).…

Student interest in botany and enrolment in plant sciences courses tends to be low compared to that in other biological disciplines. One potential way of increasing student interest in botany is to focus on course material designed to raise student enthusiasm and satisfaction. Here, we introduce and evaluate virtual microscopy in botany teaching.…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States 2013) call for all students to be engaged in investigations that require them to use skills and knowledge related to the science and engineering practices. In this article the authors describe how the mnemonic RAD, "Record-Analyze-Develop an explanation," was used by a…

In response to the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education initiative, we infused authentic, plant-based research into majors' courses at a public liberal arts university. Faculty members designed a financially sustainable pedagogical approach, utilizing vertically integrated…