Historically, physical education has a stereotypical image as being neither very physical nor educational. NASPE [National Standards for Physical Education] Standard 2 indicates that students in physical education classes should be able to demonstrate understanding and movement concepts, principles, and tactics as they apply to physical activity.…

Integrating indigenous knowledge (IK) into school science teaching is one way of maximising the socio-cultural relevance of science education for enhanced learners' performance. The epistemological differences however between the nature of science (NOS) and nature of indigenous knowledge (NOIK) constitute a major challenge for an inclusive…

Background: One of the most important goals of science education is to enable students to understand the nature of science (NOS). However, generally regular science teaching in classrooms does not help students improve informed NOS views. Purpose: This study investigated the influence of an explicit reflective conceptual change approach compared…

Research globally has shown that many children lose interest in science towards the end of primary school and throughout the post-primary phase. This article explores children's experience and views in Irish schools that have adopted innovative practices that aim to empower, excite and inspire children in science. One of these focuses on explicit…

The purpose of this case study is to delve into the complexities of how preservice science teachers' science teaching orientations, viewed as an interrelated set of beliefs, interact with the other components of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Eight preservice science teachers participated in the study. Qualitative data were collected in the…

While haptics (simulated touch) represents a potential breakthrough technology for science teaching and learning, there is relatively little research into its differential impact in the context of teaching and learning. This paper describes the testing of a haptically enhanced simulation (HES) for learning about buoyancy. Despite a lifetime of…

A kinesthetic technique for learning to recognize elements and compounds is presented in this article. The current common pedagogy appears to merge recognition and implementation into one naming method. A separate recognition skill is critical to students being able to correctly name and write the formulas of compounds. This article focuses on…

A concept of the turbidimetric method for determining the concentration of ethanol in water-ethanol mixtures is described. A closed sample cell containing the analyte was heated to achieve vapor saturation and subsequent condensation. As the condensation occurred, the decrease in percentage transmittance with time due to light scattering was…

This laboratory exercise demonstrates the use of an immunoassay for studying kinase enzyme activity in living cells. The advantage over the classical method, in which students have to isolate the enzyme from cell material and measure its activity in vitro, is that enzyme activity is modulated and measured in living cells, providing a more…

Additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D printing, is gaining popularity in a variety of applications and has recently become routinely available. Today, 3D printing services are not only found in engineering design labs and through online companies, but also in university libraries offering student access. In addition, affordable options for…

A simple inductive gravimeter constructed from a rigid plastic pipe and insulated copper wire is described. When a magnet is dropped through the vertically mounted pipe it induces small alternating voltages. These small signals are fed to the microphone input of a typical computer and sampled at a typical rate of 44.1 kHz using a custom computer…

There is a popular myth that Galileo dropped two objects of the same shape but different mass, noted their equal fall time, and concluded that gravitational motion is independent of the mass of the object. This paper demonstrates that this experiment--if actually performed--most likely would have yielded a different result and thus with modern…

This article describes the Lissajous generalized figure and the original instrument for its investigation. Two specially prepared electrodynamic loudspeakers--a horizontal and a vertical--cause oscillations in two mirrors. It is possible to precisely control the motion of the mirrors, achieve a high frequency of oscillation and investigate…

In this article we propose an activity aimed at introductory students to help them understand the Stefan-Boltzmann and Wien's displacement laws. It only requires simple materials that are available at any school: an incandescent lamp, a variable dc energy supply, and a computer to run an interactive simulation of the blackbody spectrum.…

This paper demonstrates ways in which family and consumer sciences (FCS) educators can explore more opportunities to integrate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) principles into secondary education curriculum. Interior design is used as a case study for creating learning modules that incorporate STEM principles in a creative and…