Science process skills are claimed to enable an individual to improve their own life visions and give a scientific view/literacy as a standard of their understanding about the nature of science. The main purpose of this study was to develop a test for measuring a valid, reliable and practical test for Science Process Skills (SPS) in secondary…

Responding to calls for an empirical glimpse into a socioscientific issues (SSI)-based curriculum that aims to promote democratic participation, enhance students' connections to science, and empower students for the betterment of society (Dos Santos, 2008; Sadler, Barab, & Scott, 2007; Tal & Kedmi, 2006; Fusco & Barton, 2001; Hodson, 2003), this…

A phylogenetics exercise is incorporated into the "Introduction to biocomputing" course, a junior-level course at Savannah State University. This exercise is designed to help students learn important concepts and practical skills in molecular phylogenetics through solving a real-world problem. In this application, students are required to identify…

This position paper addresses some enduring, as well as emerging issues, associated with the crucial question of benchmarking understandings about nature of science (NOS) for precollege science education. The question of benchmarking NOS understandings is revisited in light of the often cited, continuing debates among historians, philosophers, and…

The aim of this paper is to introduce a simple and low-cost experimental setup that can be used to study the eddy current brake, which considers the motion of a sliding magnet on an inclined conducting plane in terms of basic physical principles. We present a set of quantitative experiments performed to study the influence of the geometrical and…

Graduate students entered our online classrooms with robust, but nonscientific, opinions on climate change. To expose students to critical analysis of media and emphasize the nature of science, we required them to access scientific reports and participate in mandatory peer discussions. An introductory survey probed incoming knowledge and opinions,…

A major topic that has marked "modern physics" is the theory of special relativity (TSR). The present work focuses on the possibility of teaching the basic ideas of the TSR to students at the upper secondary level in such a way that they are able to understand and learn the ideas. Its aim is to investigate students' learning processes towards the…

An experimental learning module has been developed to study the mass and energy balance involved with operation of an AA Alkaline battery under a load current. An extension of the module allows evaluation of laboratory-assembled batteries using granular anodic/cathodic materials. The system allows load resistance to be varied and measures voltage…

The flow of electricity from one body to another has been known by man since we first learned how to gather an electric charge. In contrast to conventional wisdom, the process in the general case is not easy to explain. It is different in plasma in the Sun or in your colour TV display, in semiconductors inside your computer or TV set circuits, or…

Based on a photograph, the density of a watermelon floating in a pail of water is estimated with different levels of simplification--with and without consideration of refraction and three-dimensional effects. The watermelon was approximated as a sphere. The results of the theoretical estimations were verified experimentally. (Contains 6 figures.)

A recent article showed how the influx of neodymium magnets has provided striking demonstrations of the interactions between magnets and conductors. The "shaking torch" is yet another example. Many of these torches require no batteries and can be submerged in water--indeed, a light for life. In this article, the author disassembles a shaking torch…

This study examined how 21 college-level general chemistry students, who had received instruction that emphasized the symbolic level of ionic equations, explained their submicroscopic-level understanding of precipitation reactions. Students' explanations expressed through drawings and semistructured interviews revealed the nature of the…

A survey on the teaching of thermodynamics and transport phenomena in chemical engineering curricula in European and US Universities was performed and results are presented here. Overall, 136 universities and colleges responded to the survey, out of which 81 from Europe and 55 from the USA. In most of the institutions responding at least two…

Baseball and softball bats are sold according to length in inches and weight in ounces. Much to the consternation of players buying new bats, however, not all bats that weigh the same swing the same. The reason for this has to do with moment of inertia of the bat about a pivot point on the handle, or what the sporting goods industry refers to as…

On Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2007, at 6:05 p.m. (during evening rush hour), the I-35W bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145. At the time of the collapse, repair work was in progress on the deck of the bridge, resulting in an additional 287 tons of construction material and equipment being on the…