Museum professionals suppose that interacting with authentic objects promotes curiosity and engagement, but this has not been tested. In this research, children and adults visiting the Oxford University Museum of Natural History were shown a taxidermied rabbit or rabbit skeleton. They were asked "Is it real?," "Why?" and were…

Humane education has existed since at least the 18th century (Unti & DeRosa, 2003). This brief chapter begins with a brief definition of humane education and examples of how it can be incorporated in linguistics, cross cultural studies and foreign language education. Next, the chapter discusses why humane education constitutes an important…

Math anxiety impairs mathematical performance even in people who are capable of completing the mathematical operations. Pets have been shown to both reduce stress and improve performance during mathematical tasks, and thus may be used to alleviate math anxiety. We tested the effects of visual pet stimuli on stress and performance during timed sets…

San Juan Quiahije Chatino Sign Language (CSL) is a group of six family-based signed language varieties in rural Mexico. This study analyzes the variation of iconic patterns of CSL signs with respect to three semantic categories, tools, food, and animals, using an Embodied Cognitive Phonology framework. Signs are organized around iconic prototypes,…

Introduction: Systematic review methods are now being used for reviews of food production, food safety and security, plant health, and animal health and welfare. Information retrieval methods in this context have been informed by human health-care approaches and ideally should be based on relevant research and experience. Objective: This narrative…

We developed an assignment that required introductory psychology students to read and evaluate the quality of several sources of information about the causal link between vaccines and autism. To evaluate the effects of this assignment, students in several different introductory courses completed a pretest and posttest in which they evaluated the…

This article seeks to provide educators with strategies and activities that can be integrated within the 5E model (Bybee 1997) and demonstrate how argumentation can be assimilated into elementary classrooms to teach science concepts. In this lesson exemplar, 25 students in a first-grade English Language Development classroom (all of whom were…

This article enacts Deleuze and Guattari's (1987) concept "assemblage" to craft a riverScape pedagogy that is informed by, and responsive to, the Murray Cod, the river, and its circumstances. The Murray Cod, the largest fish species in Australia's Murray-Darling Basin, has diverse cultural meanings. Cod are at once a creation being of…

This case study examined a team of instructors' use of social presence, teaching presence, and attitudinal dissonance in a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) on Animal Behaviour and Welfare (ABW), designed to facilitate attitudinal learning. The study reviewed a team of six instructors' use of social presence and teaching presence by applying the…

Strain comparison studies have been critical to the identification of novel genetic and molecular mechanisms in learning and memory. However, even within a single learning paradigm, the behavioral data for the same strain can vary greatly, making it difficult to form meaningful conclusions at both the behavioral and cellular level. In fear…

Rats were trained in a triangular-shaped pool to find a hidden platform, whose location was defined in terms of two sources of information, a landmark outside the pool and a particular corner of the pool. Subsequent test trials without the platform pitted these two sources of information against one another. In Experiment 1 this test revealed a…

We present results from the first year of a three-year extramurally funded project involving a partnership between an ethnically diverse urban high school and professional research botanists. The goals are to provide students exposure to real-world science, broaden interest in scientific fields of study, and increase floristic data and herbarium…

This article examines the ambiguous perception of rural space as a natural space in the debates on rural school reform in Austria from the 1920s up to the 1960s. Throughout the period investigated, the quality of rural space always was an important topic in these debates. In the pedagogic discourse, rural space was perceived as more natural or…

The challenge and conundrum are to integrate within ourselves the dark/light cycles of the natural world, yet flourish in times of grief and pain. But how does one lose and be grateful? How does one create harmony between body and soul? Here we explore the lessons of a snail wedded to the earth, astute in its slowness, in its minute shadow; we…

Despite the importance of interactions with natural environments for personal and social well-being, there is only limited evidence of the relationship between the environment and health as an idea or area of study in school education in Australia. Logically, the place for such a study, at least in Australia, would be within the Health &…