This research explored uppersecondary school students' approaches when they engage in planning and conducting science experiments. Approaches to science experiments are important because they provide insight into students' scientific reasoning and their enactment of scientific methods. An explanatory mixed-methods design was employed to determine…

Failed experiments are a common occurrence in research, yet many undergraduate science laboratories rely on established protocols to ensure students are able to obtain results. While it is logistically challenging to facilitate students' conducting their own experiments in the laboratory, allowing students to "fail" in a safe environment…

Assessment literacy is a crucial aspect of teachers' professional knowledge and relevant to fostering students' learning. Concerning experimentation, teachers have to be able to assess student achievement when students form hypotheses, design experiments, and analyze data. Therefore, teachers need to be familiar with criteria for experimentation…

Teaching blackbody radiation within the framework of astrophysics can motivate students to learn and obtain a more profound and qualitative understanding of the subject. In this paper we present a teaching module that intertwines teaching blackbody radiation via the continuous spectrum of hot objects, especially the stars. The module's approach…

Mass spectrometers are ever-increasingly powerful, user-friendly, and affordable. Thus, the addition of mass spectrometry experiments into the undergraduate laboratory curriculum is now both feasible and an effective tool to introduce students to relevant instrumentation. Here an experiment demonstrating the use of a high-resolution electrospray…

Experiments written for students who were quarantined during the COVID-19 pandemic are described. These were developed to provide hands-on lab experiences that students would not get due to the online nature of course offerings during the crisis. The laboratories described include an extraction and oxidation of aldehydes from food items, a study…

Given student familiarity with electronic cigarettes (e-cigs), this lab uses a student-built smoke collection apparatus to collect e-cig vapors to teach students about gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Students in a second semester, introductory organic chemistry course spent 1 week collecting e-cig vapors and 1 week qualitatively…

Virtual laboratory activities are flexible approaches to engage undergraduate students in scientific practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. By utilizing online simulations, students can conduct virtual experiments on important biochemical reactions that occur during photosynthesis. The learning module described here provides students with this…

The objective of this study is to design a temperature measurement system based on a non-contact method using a sensor camera from a webcam. The material being measured is nickel wire given an electrical current of 4.5 A-6.5 A with an interval of 0.5 A. The temperature measurement is based upon the measurement of the average pixel value…

The concepts of the Coriolis and the centrifugal force are essential in various scientific fields and they are standard components of introductory physics lectures. In this paper, we explore how students understand and apply concepts of rotating frames of reference in the context of an example lecture demonstration experiment. We found in a…

Along with substantial consensus around the power of active learning, comes some lack of precision in what its essential ingredients are. New educational technologies offer vehicles for systematically exploring benefits of alternative techniques for supporting active learning. We introduce a new genre of Intelligent Science Station technology that…

Demonstration of a colorimetric approach for nucleic acid detection represents an attractive educational experiment for chemistry undergraduate students in the time of coronavirus pandemic. Herein, a rapid and vivid detection method that visualizes the presence of a specific DNA sequence is described. The plasmon resonance of gold nanoparticles…

Access and personalized instruction required for laboratory education can be highly compromised due to regulatory constraints in times such as COVID-19 pandemic or resource shortages at other times. This directly impacts the student engagement and immersion that are necessary for conceptual and procedural understanding for scientific…

A two-week summer camp was designed, implemented, and then updated for high school students focusing on organic chemistry, solar energy, and green chemistry principles. Students learn about laboratory safety, perform organic reactions, go on field trips, and take part in interactive lessons that focus on both fundamental chemistry topics as well…

Contribution: A do-it-yourself (DIY) light wave sensing (LWS) and communication project was developed to generate interest and clarify basic electromagnetic (EM) and wireless sensing/communication concepts among students at different education levels from middle school to undergraduate. This article demonstrates the nature of the project and its…