This study is a four-week section of ongoing attempts that aim to improve 6th grade students' understandings of the nature of science. The study was carried out in a sixth grade science and technology class at a rural middle school with 15 students on the basis of action research methodology. During the study, four different stories based on the…

As the application of nanotechnology in everyday life impacts society, it becomes critical for citizens to have a scientific basis upon which to judge their perceived hopes and fears of 'nano'. Although multiple instruments have been designed for assessing attitudinal and affective aspects of nano, surprisingly little work has focused on…

We designed a human biology course that interests nonmajors while improving science literacy through student engagement, using a constructivist-inspired, topic-centered approach. This way of learning highlights common diseases that provide a basis to incorporate specific biological concepts. The topic-centered approach triggers interest and…

A new method for studying the periodic system is described based on the combination of a Kohonen neural network and a set of chemical and physical properties. The classification results are directly shown in a two-dimensional map and easy to interpret. This is one of the major advantages of this approach over other methods reported in the…

Long-standing questions on the theoretical basis of the periodic system have been answered in recent years. A specific type of periodicity is imposed on all elements by the main groups just before and after the noble gasses. The upper "n"p shells of these elements are unique because of their stabilized energies and the large gaps to the next…

The dominant electronic valence configurations of atoms in chemical substances of a transition element of group "G" in period "n" is ("n" - 1)d[superscript "G"]"n"s[superscript 0]. Transition-metal chemistry is d orbital chemistry. In contrast, the ground states of free, unbound atoms derive, in most cases, from configurations ("n" -…

Stars of different masses have varying life spans, with the more massive stars "burning out" more quickly than stars of lower masses. How or what they do when they burn out also varies, depending on the mass of the star. All stars are called "main sequence stars" as they continue fusing hydrogen and staying in a state of equilibrium--a balance…

Demonstrating is a traditional method in teaching science that can raise interest and encourage pupils to think about a topic. While demonstrating, the teacher can focus the pupils' attention on the relevant facts and introduce scientific principles and concepts. Through discussion and actively making observations and inferences, rather than…

There are a variety of teaching tools available for use in introductory modern physics classrooms. Determining which teaching tool students support can help the teacher structure classroom instruction to include more effective teaching tools. Student participants were surveyed at the end of four separate semesters after using different teaching…

An understanding of the scientific enterprise is useful because citizens need to make systematic, rational decisions about projects involving scientific endeavors and technology, and a clearer understanding of scientific epistemology is beneficial because it could encourage more public engagement with science. The purpose of this study was to…

Nature of science (NOS) is beginning to find its place in the science education in China. In a study which investigated Chinese science teacher educators' conceptions of teaching NOS to prospective science teachers through semi-structured interviews, five key dimensions emerged from the data. This paper focuses on the dimension, "NOS content…

Engineers commonly use rules, theories and models that lack scientific justification. Examples include rules of thumb based on experience, but also models based on obsolete science or folk theories. Centrifugal forces, heat and cold as substances, and sucking vacuum all belong to the latter group. These models contradict scientific knowledge, but…

In teaching physics, the history of physics offers fruitful starting points for designing instruction. I introduce here an approach that uses historical cognitive processes to enhance the conceptual development of pre-service physics teachers' knowledge. It applies a method called cognitive-historical approach, introduced to the cognitive sciences…

Most biochemistry, genetics, cell biology, and molecular biology classes have extensive prerequisite or co-requisite requirements, often including introductory chemistry, introductory biology, and organic chemistry coursework. But what is the function of these prerequisites? While it seems logical that a basic understanding of biological and…

The evidential support for scientific claims is quantitatively and qualitatively superior to that for supernatural claims, yet students may not appreciate this difference in light of the fact that both types of claims are learned in similar ways (through testimony rather than firsthand observation) and perform similar functions (explaining…