The aim of the present study was to understand the nature of teaching efficacy beliefs related to a socioscientific issue (SSI). We investigated Turkish preservice science teachers' teaching efficacy beliefs about genetically modified (GM) foods using a belief system approach. We assumed that preservice teachers' beliefs about GM foods (content…

The School of Education and the Department of Physics at Boston University offer a sequence of 10 two-credit professional development courses through the Improving the Teaching of Physics (ITOP) project. The ITOP courses combine physics content, readings from the physics education research (PER) literature, and the conceptual history of physics…

Undergraduate students acquire a deeper understanding of scientific principles through first-hand experience. To enhance the learning environment for atmospheric science majors, the University of North Carolina at Asheville has developed the severe weather field experience. Participants travel to Tornado Alley in the Great Plains to forecast and…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the current science and technology curriculum for the balance of scientific literacy (SL) aspects and its potential to educate scientifically literate citizens. Human body system unit of current science curriculum was investigated to see whether scientific literacy aspects were reflected sufficiently to…

The C.R.E.A.T.E. (Consider, Read, Elucidate hypotheses, Analyze and interpret data, Think of the next Experiment) method uses intensive analysis of primary literature in the undergraduate classroom to demystify and humanize science. We have reported previously that the method improves students' critical thinking and content integration abilities,…

Science education research can be categorised into three broad dimensions: knowing science, doing of science and learning about the nature of science. The concerns, doubts and relative importance of each of these aspects in relation to students' learning are debated in the literature. The findings of the empirical research carried out in New…

Understanding students' thinking about scientific theories is fundamental to the development of effective instructional strategies designed to foster scientific literacy. We conducted a study to determine student acceptance of important biological theories and to explore the relationships between their acceptance of scientific theories and their…

For students to develop an understanding of science content and processes, teachers must create classroom environments in which students use inquiry to understand the natural world. However, teachers frequently find it difficult, if not impossible, to demonstrate complex scientific concepts, which textbooks often fail to properly explain. During…

A simple spectrophotometer was designed using cardboard, a DVD, a pocket digital camera, a tripod and a computer. The DVD was used as a diffraction grating and the camera as a light sensor. The spectrophotometer was calibrated using a reference light prior to use. The spectrophotometer was capable of measuring optical wavelengths with a…

We report a laboratory activity, carried out along with high- and secondary-school students, that can be done to increase the interest of the young in scientific studies. Groups of selected students "adopted" experiments at physics research laboratories, under the guidance of university researchers. Subsequently, the students…

After the success of a course on cryptography for a general audience, based on Simon Singh's "The Code Book" [49], I decided to try again and create a mathematics course for a general audience based on "The Physics of Star Trek" by Lawrence Krauss [32]. This article looks at the challenges of designing a physics-based mathematics course "from…

Microfluidics, the manipulation of fluids in channels with micron dimensions, has emerged as an exciting new field that impacts the broad area of nano/microtechnology. This is an important area to train the next generation of chemical engineers. This paper describes an experiment where students are given a problem to design a microfluidic mixer…

This article describes the use of an enquiry-based approach to the study of human evolution in a practical context, integrating role-playing, jigsaw cooperative learning and scientific argumentation. The activity seeks to unravel the evolutionary relationships of five hominids and one ape from rather "messy" evidence. This approach enhanced the…

Scientists hold a wide range of beliefs on matters of religion, although popular media coverage in the UK commonly suggests that atheism is a core commitment for scientists. Considering the relationship between religion and science is a recommended topic in the English National Curriculum for lower secondary pupils (11-14 year-olds), and it is…

In this study, we examine introductory physics students' ability to perform analogical reasoning between two isomorphic problems which employ the same underlying physics principles but have different surface features. Three hundred sixty-two students from a calculus-based and an algebra-based introductory physics course were given a quiz in the…