Educators are increasingly looking to neuroscience for guidance to improve classroom instruction and to teach their students about the nervous system. Although materials to assist teachers are available, many educators still have misconceptions about the brain. Twenty-three middle school teachers were trained to use the Sowing the Seeds of…

Previous work covers building a tower from a stack of homogeneous rectangular plates, each with a maximum shift in displacement. We suggest using plates shaped as curvilinear triangles bounded by segments of power-law functions. The masses of the plates and the position of their center of mass are calculated and measured experimentally after…

A one-day laboratory epoxidation experiment, requiring no purification, is described, wherein the students are given an "unknown" stereoisomer of 3-hexen-1-ol, and use [superscript 1]H NMR coupling constants to determine the stereochemistry of their product. From this they work backward to determine the stereochemistry of their starting…

Potentiometric titrations are widely taught in first-year undergraduate courses to connect electrochemistry, stoichiometry, and equilibria and to reinforce acid-base titrations. Students perform a potentiometric titration that is then analyzed to determine analyte concentrations and the solubility product constant of the solid species.

Zeolite Y has an iconic crystal structure, but more importantly, the hydrogen modification zeolite H-Y is the classic example of a solid acid which is used extensively as a catalyst in the oil industry. This metastable compound cannot be synthesized directly, which creates an opportunity to discuss various preparative strategies with the students,…

Tetrakis(4-sulfonatophenyl)porphyrin (TSPP) was immobilized on patterned paper and used as a sensor for heavy metal ions in an advanced organic chemistry course. The resulting sensor could detect Hg[superscript 2+] and Cd[superscript 2+] ions colorimetrically, while Cu[superscript 2+] ion resulted in fluorescence quenching, thus demonstrating a…

This article describes an activity designed to foster an authentic way for students to learn about the biodiversity in their community. The activity is a half year scaffolding sequence to explore the living environment right outside the classroom. In using the outdoors just outside the window as a classroom, an inquiry based activity accomplished…

The goal of this laboratory exercise was for students to understand the concept of chirality and how enantiomeric excess (ee) is experimentally determined using the analysis of ibuprofen as an example. Students determined the enantiomeric excess of the analyte by three different instrumental methods: mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance…

In a kindergarten classroom, exclamations like "Oh no!" may be causes for concern. However, when the students in Mrs. Grabia's classroom shouted "Oh no!" and "Uh oh!" during an engineering-infused 5E lesson, it meant that a persistent little robot had pushed its way out of the fences they had created. It also meant…

Teaching STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) in elementary school could be even more promising than teaching STEM. This is due to its ability to cross multiple subject areas and its appeal to multiple types of learners. Intentional integration of the arts in science and engineering lessons has the potential to more deeply…

Seagrass ecosystems are widespread, valuable, and threatened. We have used this system as a model to teach 3rd-7th grade students about food webs, the interconnectedness of ecosystems, ecosystem services, and the effects of human activity on coastal systems. Our objective was to increase student understanding of seagrass ecosystems and other key…

The laboratory experiment described provides insight into the energetics of hydrogen evolution at an electrode as well as the intrinsic barrier that typically impedes reaction. In the course of the exercise, students find that Sn(s) is thermodynamically capable of combining with protons to form hydrogen, but that the direct reaction occurs at a…

Because students have often been conditioned as passive learners and receivers of knowledge, it can be difficult for them to persevere in solving authentic problems. Nevertheless, teachers must persist in preparing students as problem solvers and critical thinkers. In an urban inner-city neighborhood school in the southeast, students embarked on a…

This study examined laboratory experiments and traditional lecturing as an introductory teaching method in physics. In this participatory action research study, a qualitative and quantitative method were used to examine the level of achievement and the levels of engagement of high school students in introductory physics. The qualitative data was…

The aim of the paper is the presentation of an interdisciplinary topic that allows applying content knowledge in physics, mathematics and biology in real life environment. Students use to play games and view crime scenes but in common they have little knowledge about the science used during crime scene investigation. In this paper the science…