The purpose of this investigation was to determine if three Western species of the Panax, Lycium, and Astragalus genera had antibacterial and/or antioxidant properties, and how their properties compared to Eastern herbs in the same genera. The group hypothesized that when compared, the corresponding herbs would have identical antibacterial and…

Raising standards through inquiry-based science education (IBSE)--what are the challenges for pre-service teacher education? What do ongoing teachers and active teachers learn from each other when planning, conducting and evaluating minds-on and hands-on IBSE activities in the classroom? What do they learn "beyond" IBSE? The Bremen…

St. Martin's Church of England Primary School in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, enjoys a unique location, being approximately 10 minutes walk from a rocky shore and a similar distance from the University of Hull (Scarborough Campus) and its Centre for Environmental and Marine Sciences. A grant provided by the Royal Society (under their Education…

Plant species utilized by Cherokees have been documented by several authors. However, many of the traditional uses of plants were lost or forgotten in the generations following the Trail of Tears. The pressures of overcoming the physical and psychological impact of the removal, adapting to a new landscape, rebuilding a government, rebuilding…

Five middle school teachers are among the few people wandering around the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, squinting at labels describing the plants that will bloom soon. The author and her colleagues are on a reconnaissance mission, trying to plan an interdisciplinary field trip for the seventh grade. They represent different departments--science, math,…

This study tested a hypothesis that focused on whether or not teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is a necessary body of knowledge for reformed science teaching. This study utilized a quantitative research method to investigate the correlation between a teacher's PCK level as measured by the PCK rubric (Park et al. 2008) and the degree…

Computers have changed the landscape of scientific research in profound ways. Technology has always played an important role in scientific experimentation--through the development of increasingly sophisticated tools, the measurement of elusive quantities, and the processing of large amounts of data. However, the advent of social networking and the…

The term metaconceptual refers to metacognitive knowledge and processes that are acting on and related to one's conceptual system. In this study, metaconceptual teaching activities were implemented to facilitate preservice teachers' engagement in metaconceptual processes. It was the purpose of this research to investigate the changes in…

This is the story of how a typical middle school lab was transformed into an open-ended inquiry experience through a few small, but very powerful, changes. By allowing students to follow their own questions, the classroom filled with enthusiasm and students learned much more about photosynthesis, respiration, and the scientific processes. The…

In this study, the learning of science outside the classroom is believe to be an added value to science learning as well as it offers students to interact with the environment. This study presents data obtained from two days' workshop on Lichen as Biological Indicator for Air Quality. The aim of the workshop is for the students to gain an…

The National Wildlife Federation's Schoolyard Habitat (SYH) program was a partnership with AISD from 2010-2012. A total of 18 outdoor learning habitats were created on AISD elementary and middle school campuses, and a demonstration habitat was created at the AISD Science and Health Resource Center (SHRC). The purpose of the SYHs is to provide…

The process of photosynthesis is central to science curriculum at all levels. This article describes an inquiry-based laboratory investigation developed to explore the impact of light quality on photosynthesis and to connect this process to current research on harvesting solar energy, including bioenergy, artificial photosynthesis, and solar…

A formative intervention was employed to expose children to a variety of words to increase the breadth, or size of their vocabularies, and to repeatedly and supportively expose children to words to increase the depth, or semantic understanding of vocabulary. Science content words were selected since they are less likely to be included in an…

The soybean cyst nematode (SCN), "Heterodera glycines" is an obligate plant parasite that can cause devastating crop losses. To aide in the study of this pathogen, the SCN genome and the transcriptome of second stage juveniles and eggs were shotgun sequenced. A bioinformatic screen of the data revealed nine genes involved in the "de novo"…

In this study we investigated with a priming paradigm whether uni and bimanual actions presented as primes differently affected language processing. Animals' (self-moving entities) and plants' (not self-moving entities) names were used as targets. As prime we used grasping hands, presented both as static images and videos. The results showed an…