This paper proposes a model of interactions between university scientists and the private sector in which graduate students feature as important enablers. This conceptualization proposes that students represent a dimension of scientists' research capacity which improves their ability to identify and act on industry-related opportunities, and which…

Our paper presents an in-service primary school teachers' training program which is based on the idea that the history of science can play a vital role in promoting the learning of physics. This training program has been developed in the context of Comenius 2.1 which is a European Union program. This program that we have developed in the…

The idea that everything is made of the four "elements", earth, air, fire and water, goes back to the ancient Greeks. In this article, the author talks about the origins of ideas about the elements. The author provides an account that attempts to summarise thousands of years of theoretical development of the elements in a thousand words or so.

Library/information science professionals need a clearly articulated definition of usability/Web usability to implement intuitive websites. In this study, the authors analyzed usability definitions provided by the ARL library professionals and those found in the library/information science and computer science-information systems literature.…

The Future Scientists Program of Texas A&M University and the Agricultural Research Service branch of USDA serves as a model program of effective collaboration between a federal agency and K-12. It demonstrates true partnership that contextualizes learning of science and provides quality professional development, benefiting teachers and their…

While every state continues to experience the impacts of the economic downturn and resulting recession, it will be many years before people understand the full nature and causes of the financial crisis. But it appears that one of the contributing factors to both the crisis and the anemic nature of the recovery has been the weakened position of the…

The number of women in science and engineering is growing, yet men continue to outnumber women, especially at the upper levels of these professions. In elementary, middle, and high school, girls and boys take math and science courses in roughly equal numbers, and about as many girls as boys leave high school prepared to pursue science and…

Media centers have been transformed from warehouses for books and equipment into the hub of the learning community. Media specialists keep the hub functioning properly. If school library media specialists are doing their job well, they are making a difference in the ways teachers teach and in the ways students learn. On any given day, a media…

"MyScience" ("www.myscience.edu.au") is a pioneering primary science initiative that uses a distinctive team approach, with primary teachers, primary students and volunteer mentor scientists working collaboratively as students conduct authentic scientific investigations to find answers to their own questions. The initiative is…

The present study analyzes decision-making and argumentation by high school students in a debate situation on a socioscientific issue, the use of embryonic stem cells in research and therapy. We tested the influence on the debates of two different contexts. Adolescent students at the high school level in the same grade (mean age 16.4 years) from…

Explores the effectiveness of bringing female scientists into elementary classrooms to promote change in the stereotypical images of scientists. Indicates that despite the efforts of the scientists to encourage students to question their image of a scientist, students held onto stereotypical images. Uses both qualitative and quantitative methods…

An awareness of the history of science is important for tomorrow's science teachers. It provides a human dimension to a field such as chemistry that is often regarded by students as remote and impersonal. Elizabeth Fulhame was an accomplished research chemist of the late eighteenth century who was well known to the prominent chemists of her era…

In the last several decades the image of the leaky pipeline has become commonplace as a metaphor for the loss of women and minorities to the physics enterprise at every stage, from high school to the most advanced positions in academia. At the 2007 Winter AAPT meeting in Seattle, however, the AAPT Committee on Women in Physics sponsored a session…

After "A Nation at Risk" was released, the state of American education was widely discussed, and not just by educators. The 1980s produced a number of reports on the status of science education that complained of declining science and mathematics achievement, falling enrollment in the subjects, and a shortage of qualified teachers. All the…

The purpose of this study is to examine practicing scientists' views of nature of science (NOS) and explore possible relationships between these views and science context. Science educators emphasize teaching NOS through inquiry-based learning experiences throughout science disciplines. Yet aspects of NOS that are agreed upon as relevant to…