Probably owing to the prejudice that gold is a metal too noble to be used much in chemistry, the chemistry of this element has developed much later than that of its congeners and neighbors in the periodic table. In fact, before and after the time of alchemists, and up to the 20th century, all chemistry of gold was mainly performed in attempts to…

We propose an in silico experiment to introduce the classical density functional theory (cDFT). Density functional theories, whether quantum or classical, rely on abstract concepts that are nonintuitive; however, they are at the heart of powerful tools and active fields of research in both physics and chemistry. They led to the 1998 Nobel Prize in…

The hydrogen bonding of phenol can be used as an introductory model for biological systems because of its structural similarities to tyrosine, a para-substituted phenol that is an amino acid essential to the synthesis of proteins. Phenol is able to form hydrogen bonds readily in solution, which makes it a suitable model for biological…

This study examines the potential benefits of rhyme on young children's word retention during shared reading. In two experiments, 2- to 4-year-old children heard their parent read either a rhymed or non-rhymed version of the same animal story, and were then tested on how many animal names they subsequently recognized from the story in Experiment 1…

The paper shows how the methodology for a pedagogical experiment can be improved through including the pre-research stage. If the experiment has the form of a test procedure, an improvement of methodology can be achieved using for example the methods of statistical and didactic analysis of tests which are traditionally used in other areas, i.e.…

This article describes an interrupted case study that intersperses information about diffusion and osmosis with content review and knowledge application questions, as well as a simple experiment that can be conducted without the use of a laboratory. The case study was developed for use in an introductory undergraduate biology course. The case…

We sometimes struggle with the question of whether our primary goal is for students to recall or understand answers to questions, or for students to do science and improve their "scientific temper". This article describes how an enquiry-based laboratory experiment was carried out in which the stress was on the latter. The students…

According to theories of embodied cognition, a critical element in language comprehension is the formation of sensorimotor simulations of the actions and events described in a text. Although much of the embodied cognition research has focused on simulations of motor actions, we ask whether readers form simulations of story characters' linguistic…

A promising instructional approach corresponds to" learning by observing others learn" (i.e., by watching tutorial dialogue between a tutor and tutee). However, more work is needed to understand this approach's pedagogical utility. Thus, in 2 experiments we compared student learning from collaborative observation of dialogue with 2 other…

DockoMatic 2.0 is a powerful open source software program (downloadable from sourceforge.net) that allows users to utilize a readily accessible computational tool to explore biomolecules and their interactions. This manuscript describes a practical tutorial for use in the undergraduate curriculum that introduces students to macromolecular…

The "Vision and Change" report recommended genuine research experiences for undergraduate biology students. Authentic research improves science education, increases the number of scientifically literate citizens, and encourages students to pursue research. Synthetic biology is well suited for undergraduate research and is a growing area…

This article explores how the doing of social class and gender can intersect with the learning of science, through case studies of two male, working-class university students' constitutions of identities as physics students. In doing so, I challenge the taken-for-granted notion that male physics students have an unproblematic relation to…

This study describes the possible variations of thought experiments in terms of their nature, purpose, and reasoning resources adopted during the solution of conceptual physics problems. A phenomenographic research approach was adopted for this study. Three groups of participants with varying levels of physics knowledge--low, medium, and high…

The present research reports the findings of three experiments which explore how subtitles and advance organizers affect EFL learners' listening comprehension of authentic videos. EFL learners are randomly assigned to one of two groups. The control group receives no treatment and the experimental group receives the experimental conditions of one…

We use a tablet to experimentally determine the dependencies of the magnetic field (B) on the electrical current and the axial distance from a coil (z). Our data shows good precision on the inverse cubic dependence of the magnetic field on the axial distance, B?z[superscript -3]. We obtain the value of air permeability µ[subscript air] with good…