Orally and later in written form, stories have been used to identify and reinforce the values of a culture. The parables of the Bible and the vocalization of articulate animals in Aesop fables continue to be used to teach morals to children. While the majority of existing research investigates the effective use of animals as a tool in character…

Explains a way to determine the age of a turtle, how to care for them and what to feed them while in temporary captivity. (GA)

Reviews a research study that examined zoo visitors' understanding of wildlife before and after zoo visits. Low posttest scores suggested that a zoo experience is regarded as a recreational outing rather than an educational event. Implications for educational improvement are presented. (ML)

Stresses that observation and information processing skills in young children may be enhanced by first hand contact with animals, freedom of time, and careful preparation by teachers for the experience. (CS)

In this experiment, rats in regular exercise programs had larger coronary arteries than sedentary rats. (JS)

Presented are descriptions of and information about various endangered species in Wisconsin. They include: the timber wolf (Canis lupus lycaon); Forester's tern (Sterna forsteri); the Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis); Higgins' eye pearly mussel (Lampsilis higginsii); the piping plover (Charadrius melodus); the osprey (Pandion haliaetus); the…

Working memory, the ability to temporarily retain task-relevant information across a delay, is frequently investigated using delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS) or delayed Go/No-Go tasks (DGNG). In DMTS tasks, sample cues instruct the animal which type of response has to be executed at the end of a delay. Typically, performance decreases with…

Previous research has shown that rats increase their rate of responding for 1% sucrose reinforcement in the first half of the session if food-pellet, rather than 1% sucrose, reinforcement will be available in the second half (i.e., positive induction). Four experiments investigated whether this induction effect would be changed by altering the…

This research investigates the development of symbolic or representational play in two species of the genus "Pan", bonobos ("Pan paniscus") and chimpanzees ("Pan troglodytes"). The participants varied not only by species, but also as to whether they had become proficient in communicating with humans via a set of arbitrary visual symbols, called…

In two experiments in a Morris pool, rats were trained to find a hidden platform which was located in a specific position in relation to two objects, B and F, which were presented together, one in front of the other. One object, B, was just above the platform (a beacon for the platform, the critical object) while the second object, F, was above…

McSweeney and Weatherly (1998) argued that differential habituation to the reinforcer contributes to the behavioral interactions observed during multiple schedules. The present experiment confirmed that introducing dishabituators into one component of a multiple schedule increases response rate in the other, constant, component. During baseline,…

The "Green Classroom" in Ulm is an experiential learning forum outside school. Its educational concept is based on experimental learning and is geared towards expanding biological knowledge and developing environmental attitudes regarding preservation and utilisation of nature. We assessed the environmental attitude of 92 students before…

Math and science and the related technology and engineering are natural pairings. These four disciplines form the acronym STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and can be readily combined into an integrated curriculum for early childhood classrooms. Many educators believe that children learn best when disciplines are interconnected. An…

The setting: the science classroom. The characters: you and your students. The scene: Your students acting out scientific discoveries, modeling a frog's life cycle, mimicking the transition from liquid to solid. This is "dramatic science", a teaching approach that uses acting techniques to explore and develop young children's ideas about…

The purpose of the present study was to examine and compare the effectiveness of virtual frog dissection using V-Frog[C] and physical frog dissection on learning, retention, and affect. Subjects were secondary students enrolled in year-long life science classes in a suburban high school (N=102). Virtual dissections were done with V-Frog[C], a…