This article showcases STEM as an interdisciplinary field in which the disciplines strengthen and support each other (not as separate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines). The authors focus on an open-ended, complex problem--water quality--as the primary teaching and learning task. The participants, middle school female…

Pupils' conceptual change processes that have led to long-term changes in learning processes can be very challenging and interwoven with several issues. Meanwhile, school learning is often determined as fragmented, without providing connections to pupils' different life and societal contexts. In this study, Science, Technology, and Society (STS)…

The literature on happiness or subjective well-being has explored the determinants of happiness without taking into consideration the role that water plays. In this paper we attempt to draw attention to water in subjective well-being studies. Approximately one hundred million people do not have access to water. A lack of clean water causes…

A simple setup is designed to investigate a "time-of-flight" measurement of the speed of sound in water. This experiment only requires low cost components and is also very simple to understand by students. It could be easily used as a demonstration experiment.

Flotation as a method of separation is widely researched and is applied in many industries. It has been used to address a wide range of environmental issues including treatment of wastewater, recovery of heavy metals for recycling, extraction of minerals in mining, and so forth. This laboratory attempts to show how such a simple method can be used…

The purpose of this article is to provide an example of using real world issues as tools for science teaching and learning. Using real world issues provides students with experiences in learning in problem-based environments and encourages them to apply their content knowledge to solving current and local problems.

As students increasingly use online chemistry animations and simulations, it is becoming more important to understand how students independently engage with such materials and to develop a set of best practices for students' use of these resources outside of the classroom. Most of the literature examining students' use of animations and…

Studies have shown that there is a need for pedagogical content knowledge among science teachers. This study investigates two primary teachers and their objectives in choosing inquiry- and context-based instructional strategies as well as the relation between the choice of instructional strategies and the teachers' knowledge about of students'…

Purpose: This paper aims to analyze strategies that promote sustainability in higher education institutions (HEIs), focusing on the case study of a federal institute of higher education in Brazil. Design/methodology/approach: The research was based on a scientific literature review on sustainability in HEIs, to identify the recurrent actions for…

The world population is expected to reach 9.2 billion by the year 2050. Farmers are faced with the daily challenge of how to feed these people while availability of land and water is dwindling. The growth rates of global agricultural production and crop yields have slowed in the last couple of years, raising fears that the world may not be able to…

Severe flooding was prevalent within the authors' region at the beginning of the school year. Many homes and fields were affected by the amount of rain that fell within a short period of time over multiple days. Their students were concerned about the impact this natural phenomena was having on their local community. Natural phenomena can provide…

In this article I analyze postcolonial theory as a critical framework to improve understanding of global service-learning (GSL) partnerships. Although research on student learning outcomes from participation in GSL has grown dramatically over the past decade, scholarship on community outcomes and perspectives in GSL continues to lag. Just as…

To better prepare physiology students for 21st century careers, we incorporated classroom-based undergraduate research experiences and service learning/community-engaged learning (SLCE) into a college-level physiology laboratory course. The interventions were incorporated over 4 yr and assessed using validated surveys of student-reported learning…

Background: American Indian communities in the United States experience considerable health inequities, including increased exposure to environmental contaminants. Consequently, community members of the Apsáalooke (Crow) Nation identified the lack of water-related environmental knowledge among children as an area of concern. Aim: The purpose of…

In response to a request from a campus student organization, faculty from three fields came together to develop and teach an integrated interdisciplinary course on water issues and social activism. This course, "Water as Life, Death, and Power," brought together topics from the fields of anthropology, biology and chemistry to explore…