Students love learning outdoors, but how do you ensure they are absorbing the science and gaining skills as they do so? The authors found a way--a fourth-grade classroom teacher, a gifted/science resource teacher, and a group of fourth graders--embarked on a yearlong study of birds and the plants they depend on. They used their school yard as the…

A group of high school students and chaperones boarded a bus for historic Oakland Cemetery located in downtown Atlanta. Students explored the site and made observations of the gravestones, many of which were old and run-down. Upon leaving the cemetery, students--based on their interests--developed various chemistry investigations aimed at…

The use of toys in physics teaching is common. This brief review of the physics of toys intends to show that they are not only very useful in lectures and demonstrations in order to motivate students but also very interesting from a scientific point of view. However, since their physics is sometimes too cumbersome, the effect can be the opposite.…

Running a successful technology education lab and delivering curriculum in today's educational environment can be busy, misunderstood, and downright exhausting. Keeping up with growing and emerging technologies, educating the school and community on what a program is really all about, and running after-school technology and engineering clubs…

New methodologies for determining the pressure inside an unopened carbonated beverage are presented. Such investigations also help the students to think deeply about a subject, giving them better understanding.

This paper describes the longitudinal impacts of a partnership between the University of Colorado Boulder's K-12 Engineering Education initiative and the St. Vrain Valley School District. Together, university and high school educators created a replicable pre-college engineering model in a nine-school feeder system, which serves many Colorado…

Many people look forward to planting their own garden and enjoying its fruitage throughout the summer months. Gardening can be an excellent learning experience in many ways because it offers opportunities to learn about plants and to observe changes over time. This column focuses on a long-term project of understanding plant growth and planting…

A novel one-week intersession lecture-lab hybrid course on nanomaterials is presented. The course provided a combination of background theory and hands-on laboratory experiments to educate students about nanomaterials and nanotechnology. The design of the course, subject matter, and laboratory experiments are discussed. Topics and level were…

In this experiment, the extract from annatto seeds was encapsulated in poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) particles by the emulsion-solvent evaporation method. The particles were washed and centrifuged to remove excess stabilizer and then freeze-dried. The main compound of annatto seeds, bixin, has antioxidant properties as well…

Sampling experiments utilizing field portable instruments are instructional since students collect data following regulatory protocols, evaluate it, and begin to recognize their civic responsibilities upon collecting useful data. A lead-in-soil experiment educated students on a prevalent exposure pathway. The experimental site was a pre-1950…

In this experiment, linear polyynes are synthesized and then the predictions of a one-dimensional, particle in a box are used to calculate the quantum mechanical box length for the polyynes. A solution of graphite in ethanol is irradiated with a Nd:YAG laser (532 nm) and the resulting solution is filtered and analyzed. Data from gas…

The authors have developed and field-tested high school-level curricular materials that guide students to use biology, mathematics, and physics to understand plankton and how these tiny organisms move in a world where their intuition does not apply. The authors chose plankton as the focus of their materials primarily because the challenges faced…

Research indicates that people more easily understand abstractions when they are preceded by concrete representations (Lawson 2002). This article describes how educators can use science representations to help students form lasting understandings of abstract concepts. A spectrum illustrating some commonly used representation types and their level…

This article describes the principles and investigation of a small-group laboratory activity based on refutational modeling to teach the concept of seasons to preservice elementary teachers. The results show that these teachers improved significantly when they had to refute their initial misconceptions practically. (Contains 8 figures and 1 table.)

A globe, in a school or university yard, which simulates the Earth's orientation in space, could be a very useful and helpful device for teaching physics, geometry, astronomy and the history of science. It would be very useful for science education to utilize the forthcoming International Year of the Planet Earth 2008 and the International Year of…