This qualitative study investigated the experience of a cohort of students exposed consecutively to two substantially different environments in their General Chemistry Laboratory programme. To this end, the first semester in a traditional expository programme was followed by a semester in a cooperative, problem-based, multi-week format. The focus…

In the undergraduate biology laboratory, many freshmen are apathetic towards the content of the course. Curriculum based reader's theater (CRBT) is an instructional method that can increase interest the students in the content of the course while improving student communication, collaboration and understanding. This research is an examination of…

There is a growing interest in engaging students and the general public about the meaning and objectives of doing science. When it is possible students can learn by actively engaging in the practices of science, conducting investigations, sharing ideas with their peers, teachers and scientists, learning to work with measuring apparatuses, to…

The purpose of this paper is to develop a "valid and reliable laboratory safety questionnaire" which could be used to identify science teachers' understanding about laboratory safety issues during their science laboratory activities. The questionnaire was developed from a literature review and prior instruments developed on laboratory…

In recent years, commissions and reports have called for laboratory courses that engage undergraduates in authentic research experiences. We present an iterative approach for developing course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) that help students learn scientific inquiry skills and foster expert-like perceptions about biology. This…

Physics laboratory courses have been generally acknowledged as an important component of the undergraduate curriculum, particularly with respect to developing students' interest in, and understanding of, experimental physics. There are a number of possible learning goals for these courses including reinforcing physics concepts, developing…

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of inquiry-based laboratory activities on the students' understanding of the nature of science (NOS) in learning lights and optics topic. The method used in this research is quasi experiment. Sampling technique using random sampling to class and the samples were taken from grade 8 in one of junior…

The aim of this laboratory exercise is to present a high school hands-on laboratory experiment, focused on obtaining and investigating the properties of various polymorphic forms of aluminum oxide. Amphoterism plays a key role when discussing the law of periodicity and periodic changes of acid-base properties of elements and their compounds. In…

The classic technique for sulfate analysis in an undergraduate quantitative analysis lab involves precipitation as the barium salt with barium chloride, collection of the precipitate by gravity filtration using ashless filter paper, and removal of the filter paper by charring over a Bunsen burner. The entire process is time-consuming, hazardous,…

Interdisciplinary experiments are being offered in upper-division chemistry laboratory courses in an attempt to encourage students to make a connection between techniques learned in one discipline to affirm chemical principles that form the basis of chemical reactions in another chemistry discipline. A new interdisciplinary experiment is described…

What follows is a description of the procedure for and results of a simple experiment on the formation of impact craters designed for the laboratory portions of lower mathematical-level general education science courses such as conceptual physics or descriptive astronomy. The experiment provides necessary experience with data collection and…

Arsenic is a toxic element to which humans are primarily exposed through food and water; it occurs as a result of human activities and naturally from the earth's crust. An experiment was developed for a senior level analytical laboratory utilizing an Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS) for the analysis of arsenic in household…

Equivalence-based instruction (EBI) has been used to successfully teach college-level concepts in research laboratories, but few studies have examined the results of such instruction on classroom performance. The current study answered a basic question about the ordering of training stimuli as well as an applied question regarding the effects of…

A laboratory experiment is described in which students measure the amount of cetirizine in allergy-treatment tablets based on molecular recognition. The basis of recognition is competition of cetirizine with phenolphthalein to form an inclusion complex with ß-cyclodextrin. Phenolphthalein is pinkish under basic condition, whereas it's complex form…

An experiment seated in an industrial context can provide an engaging framework and unique learning opportunity for an upper-division physical chemistry laboratory. An experiment that teaches NMR/MRI through a problem-based quality control of citrus products was developed. In this experiment, using a problem-based learning (PBL) approach, students…