The adult cerebral cortex can adapt to environmental change. Using monocular deprivation as a paradigm, we find that rapid experience-dependent plasticity exists even in the mature primary visual cortex. However, adult cortical plasticity differs from developmental plasticity in two important ways. First, the effect of adult, but not juvenile…

Extinction of conditioned fear in animals is the explicit model of behavior therapy for human anxiety disorders, including panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Based on previous data indicating that fear extinction in rats is blocked by quinpirole, an agonist of dopamine D2 receptors, we hypothesized…

Olfactory recognition memory was tested in adult male mice using a social discrimination task. The testing was conducted to begin to characterize the role of protein synthesis and the specific brain regions associated with activity in this task. Long-term olfactory recognition memory was blocked when the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin was…

The impact of a previously successful or unsuccessful experience on the subsequent acquisition of a related task is not well understood. The nature of past experience may have even greater impact in individuals with learning deficits, as their cognitive processes can be easily disrupted. Mice with a targeted disruption of the [alpha] and [delta]…

We investigated the influence of the protein synthesis blocker anisomycin on contextual memory in the terrestrial snail "Helix." Prior to the training session, the behavioral responses in two contexts were similar. Two days after a session of electric shocks (5 d) in one context only, the context conditioning was observed as the significant…

Membrane transport is a fundamental concept that undergraduate students of cell biology understand better with laboratory experience. Formal teaching exercises commonly used to illustrate this concept are unbiological, qualitative, or intricate and time consuming to prepare. We have developed an exercise that uses uptake of radiolabeled nutrient…

This paper describes an activity which attempts to change the discourse of a mathematics classroom with the specific intent to help children who may have difficulties with mathematics and ways of communicating. Ten 8-year old children in the Learning Support Programme were engaged in an open-ended geometric task. In this paper a brief description…

Objective: Our objective was to develop an organized system to assess individual and group exposure to animal hazards on a college campus. Main points: The scope and complexity of college health services continue to expand as campuses confront unforeseen exposures and disease entities. Of great concern are students and faculty who are exposed to…

This article presents research on the foreign travel of Yugoslav teachers, students and beekeepers in the 1920s and 1930s. It focuses on Yugoslavs' travels to Czechoslovakia and examines the role that notions of the "Slavic" played in the international circulation of ideas within these particular networks. During this period one finds…

This study explored and documented Taiwanese students' alternative conceptions of animal classification. We examined the understanding of the "animal", "vertebrate" and "invertebrate", "fish", "amphibian", "reptile", "bird", and "mammal" concepts among elementary,…

Both the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2001 (No Child Left Behind) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 show a public policy preference for the use of interventions that are supported by scientific evidence of their efficacy. At the same time, parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)…

This manual was developed by the Community Resource Curriculum Development Project (CRCDP), a cooperative project to develop multi-disciplinary, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural science/social sciences teaching units based upon the Illinois State Goals for Learning. This manual contains seven teaching units that include several experience-based…

This thematic unit involves kindergarten and 1st grade students in the production of a theatrical performance based on the folktale, "The Little Red Hen." The interdisciplinary unit connects knowledge related to theater arts, art, language arts, music, applied mathematics, social studies, and science. Students visit a local theater and…

The goal of this guide is to address a major environmental dilemma: worldwide habitat destruction and the disappearance of species. This guide is one of six that are included in the Habitat Ecology Learning Program (HELP), a holistic life science curriculum that involves students in an in-depth study of ecology. HELP includes six teaching guides…

Two studies of the development of children's moral relationships with nature addressed such questions as: (1) What does it mean to say that we have an obligation not to harm the natural environment? (2) Does the natural environment feel pain? (3) Does it have rights? or (4) Is moral obligation an inappropriate construct by which to understand the…