Provides a hands-on unit of activities in which students learn to observe, measure, classify, predict, infer, communicate, and investigate using pickles. (CCM)

At the beginning of the school year, the authors, a first-grade teacher and a teacher educator, worked together to "spice up" the first-grade science curriculum. The teacher had taught the unit Rocks, Sand, and Soil several times, conducting hands-on explorations and using books to help students learn about properties of rocks, but she felt the…

Colors are powerful tools for engaging children, from the youngest years onward. We hang brightly patterned mobiles above their cribs and help them learn the names of colors as they begin to record their own ideas in pictures and words. Colors can also open the door to an invisible world of electromagnetism, even when children can barely imagine…

Hands-on science is fun, but it can be challenging for teachers to "switch minds on" and still retain children's natural enthusiasm for investigating. The authors describe how two researchers and a classroom teacher worked together to try out two simple strategies to help young children develop their reasoning skills. The context used is fair…

Many undergraduates seeking elementary teaching certification are uncomfortable with or uninterested in science; however, these future teachers are charged with the responsibility of teaching science to young students. Hammer and Polnick surveyed science methods students at Sam Houston State University and found that only about half of them rated…

A pinhole camera is a camera without a lens. A tiny hole replaces the lens, and light is allowed to come in for short amount of time by means of a hand-operated shutter. The pinhole allows only a very narrow beam of light to enter, which reduces confusion due to scattered light on the film. This results in an image that is focused, reversed, and…

The three step synthesis is presented to allow the functionalization of an aromatic amine by forming new C-C and C-N bonds via an intramolecular C-H activation under mild conditions. The reactions are stoichiometric and allow the students to isolate the different organometallic intermediates.

Note is presented on the standard lab from a second year chemistry course. The lab "Determining which of the Seven FD&C Food-Approved Dyes are Used in Making Green Skittles", familiarizes students with the operation of the CHEM2000 UV-Vis spectrophorometer.

A circuit board analysis of the atomic absorption spectroscopy, which is used to measure lead content in a course for nonscience majors, is being presented. The experiment can also be used to explain the potential environmental hazards of unsafe disposal of various used electronic equipments.

A laboratory experiment that provides students a hands-on introduction to the specific techniques of liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and electrospray ionization is presented. The students can thus practice the analytical principles of sample extraction, detection, quantification, and quality control using a fresh fish…

Hands on activities with artisan materials used in order to realize different practical devices helpful in learning process are one of the most frequently used activity in science classes. Usually, the main strength of these activities are: a deeper learning, an increased motivation of pupils for actively learning and development of practical…

The community can be a powerful context and mini-laboratory for cultivating students' common understandings of science and mathematics. On the island of Panay in the Philippines, the community was the starting place for a group of fifth- and sixth-grade students to explore simple machines in their daily lives. What students learned in the process…

In this project, introductory college physics students (noneducation majors) were asked to teach simple machines to a class of second graders. This nontraditional activity proved to be a successful way to encourage college students to think critically about physics and how it applied to their everyday lives. The noneducation majors benefited by…

The goals of this program include enabling students to learn about the anatomy of an avian egg, egg formation, bird embryo development, and the process of egg incubation. This guide is designed to accompany the hands-on experience of incubation and hatching chicken eggs and is organized in three sections. The teaching materials section includes…

This is an extensive integrated unit of study focused on that common and familiar insect-the cricket. In this edition, students are provided with more than 30 activities on crickets, which will help them learn science content and skills including: (1) Taxonomy; (2) Anatomy; (3) Ecology; (4) Mark and recapture techniques for estimating population…