Girls performing well in mathematics at school do not necessarily enrol for mathematics courses at South African universities. Teachers could be transferring beliefs about the nature of mathematics favouring boys. This paper compared male and female pre-service teachers' beliefs about the nature of mathematics. A quantitative, descriptive research…

Learning and understanding physics requires more than studying physics texts. It requires doing physics. Doing research is a key opportunity for students to connect physical principles with their everyday experience. A powerful way to introduce students to research and technique is through subjects in which they might find interest. Presented is…

Learning science is language intensive. Students might have to interpret the meaning of models, support claims with evidence, communicate arguments, and discuss phenomena and scientific principles. For English Language Learners (ELLs), engaging in scientific and engineering practices includes additional challenges. This article describes a series…

Recent science education standards emphasize the importance of the instruction of nature of science (NOS) concepts at all levels of schooling from pre-K to K-12. Delivering a proper NOS education to students is excessively dependent on their teachers with an adequate understanding of NOS concepts. The present study investigated the science…

Despite the rising popularity of Citizen Science (CS) projects, there is little empirical evidence for effects on learning outcomes, particularly when young people are involved. It is also often not clear how CS projects are linked to science education (SE) research. The aim of this study was to examine biodiversity CS projects in an outdoor…

We consider the application of both conservation of momentum and Newton's laws to the Moon in an assumed circular orbit about the Earth. The inadequacy of some texts in applying Newton's laws is considered.

In this paper we have calculated the work of friction force on the arbitrary path. In our method didn't use from energy conservative conceptions any way. The distinction of this procedure is that at least do decrease measurement on the path once. Thus we can forecast the amount of work of friction force without information about speed of…

In April 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted noticed that the needle of a nearby compass deflected briefly from magnetic north each time the electric current of the battery he was using for an unrelated experiment was turned on or off. Upon further investigation, he showed that an electric current flowing through a wire produces a magnetic field. In 1831…

The physics of walking is explored, using a toy as a concrete example and a "toy model" applied to it. Besides using Newton's second law, the problem is also discussed from the thermodynamical perspective. Once the steady state (constant velocity) is achieved, we show that the internal energy of the toy is dissipated as heat in the…

In nature, water drops can have a large variety of sizes and shapes. Small droplets with diameters of the order of 5 to 10 µm are present in fog and clouds. This is not sufficiently large for gravity to dominate their behavior. In contrast, raindrops typically have sizes of the order of 1 mm, with observed maximum sizes in nature of around 5 mm in…

In introductory texts Ampere's law is generally introduced in the steady-current form ?B · dl = µ[subscript 0]I, and it is later extended to a more general form involving the so-called displacement current I[subscript d], ?B · dl = µ[subscript 0](I + I[subscript d]) · (1). Here the line integral is to be taken along a closed…

The study reported here investigated experienced teachers' views on several nature of science (NOS) issues 2 to 5 years after they completed a demanding secondary science teacher education program in which the NOS was an extensive and recurring component. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed to determine study…

A project-based biophysical chemistry laboratory course, which is offered to the biochemistry and molecular biology majors in their senior year, is described. In this course, the classroom study of the structure-function of biomolecules is integrated with the discovery-guided laboratory study of these molecules using computer modeling and…

Undergraduate physics laboratories seldom have experiments that measure the Coriolis acceleration. This has traditionally been the case owing to the inherent complexities of making such measurements. Articles on the experimental determination of the Coriolis acceleration are few and far between in the physics literature. However, because modern…

Carbon is at the heart of many of today's environmental challenges. It is the central element responsible for the structure and function of living systems--taken up by plants through photosynthesis and moving from plants to other organisms, soil, and the ocean and into the atmosphere. The imbalance of these connected biogeochemical…