"Engineering Challenge for the 21st Century," a weeklong teacher workshop sponsored by the National Science Foundation, uses project-based learning (PBL) to help students and teachers build science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills. The workshop, hosted by the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, features the Coast…

The concept map tool set forth by Novak and colleagues is underutilized in education. A meta-analysis has encouraged teachers to make extensive use of concept mapping, and researchers have advocated computer-based concept mapping applications that exploit hyperlink technology. Through an NSF sponsored geosciences education grant, middle and…

To develop sustainable solutions to remediate the complex ecological problems of earth's soil, water, and air degradation requires the talents and skills of knowledgeable, motivated people (UNESCO, 1977; UNESCO, 2010). Researchers historically emphasized that time spent in outdoor, nature activities (Wells & Lekies, 2006), particularly with an…

The analysis of drinking water for lead, which has well-known health effects, is presented as an instructive example for undergraduate chemistry students. It allows the students to perform an experiment and evaluate to monitor risk factors and common hazard of everyday life.

You may not think of engineering and squirt guns in the same sentence. However, like many examples of engineering design, the squirt gun pump mechanism is uncomplicated, yet elegant, and very inexpensive to manufacture. The design is widely used because of its simplicity and low cost. With only a few moving parts, it is able to deliver a stream of…

The International Boiling Point Project is an online, collaborative project for students in grades 6-12 in which they investigate the impact of four factors (room temperature, elevation, volume of water and heating device) on the boiling point of water. A detailed procedure is provided for students in order to limit the number of variables…

Water is the ideal green solvent for organic reactions. However, most organic molecules are insoluble in it. Herein, we report a laboratory module that takes advantage of this property. The Passerini reaction, a three-component coupling involving an isocyanide, aldehyde, and carboxylic acid, typically requires [similar to] 24 h reaction times in…

In this article, the author shares some of the observations he gained when he started researching soil degradation, climate change, global warming, and water quality. First, he observed that there were not many websites that focused solely on soil-related issues. Second, not very many of these would be useful to teachers because, while they…

Morris water maze data are most commonly analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance in which daily test sessions are analyzed as an unordered categorical variable. This approach, however, may lack power, relies heavily on post hoc tests of daily performance that can complicate interpretation, and does not target the nonlinear trends…

The "Project WILD Aquatic K-12 Curriculum and Activity Guide" emphasizes aquatic wildlife and aquatic ecosystems. It is organized in topic units and is based on the Project WILD conceptual framework. Because these activities are designed for integration into existing courses of study, instructors may use one or many Project WILD Aquatic activities…

This study examined the mental models of the desert environment held by fourth- and seventh-grade students in the USA and whether those mental models could be affected by: (1) classroom field trips to a desert riparian preserve, and (2) interaction with family members at the same preserve. Results generally indicated that students in this study…

This paper reports on a case study investigating students' participation and learning presence in an educational blog implemented as a cross-thematic inquiry activity exploring and debating on the acid rain problem. Twenty-one secondary education students (14-15 years aged), coming from two separate classes, were involved. The content and…

This study was prompted by the growing amount of research that is in support of science reform and from this researcher's personal experience and concern that science instructions is no longer a top priority in elementary schools nor are young scientists given the opportunities to act as scientists in a real world setting. This study uses…

The number of project failures and those projects completed over cost and over schedule has been a significant issue for software project managers. Among the many reasons for failure, inaccuracy in software estimation--the basis for project bidding, budgeting, planning, and probability estimates--has been identified as a root cause of a high…

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a neuromuscular disorder characterized by degeneration of alpha motor neurons. This case report describes an aquatic therapy program and the outcomes for a 3-year-old girl with type III SMA. Motor skills were examined using the 88-item Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM), the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales…