The study seeks to explore the extent to which students think pedagogical activities exemplifying various degrees of contextualization accurately reflect the work of scientists. Arguing for scaffolding across multiple degrees of contextualization, Clough (2006) reasoned that different contextualization plays different, but complimentary, roles in…

Formal understanding of the nature of science (NOS) has been considered to be a major contributor to nurturing students' scientific literacy. In China, this view has been endorsed in the new standard for high school physics curriculum, which has guided the development of the new generation physics textbooks. Following the analytical framework…

Is the reductionist approach to teaching chemical principles in the laboratory adequate for students to make effective evaluations? In this work, using the example of sunscreens, students first assessed the analytical chemistry parameters of the active ingredients, later comparing and contrasting them with organic chemistry information for…

Understanding thermal concepts constitutes one of the most important challenges in teaching science as these concepts are central to the principals of science and allow students to build connections among scientific disciplines. From an early age, students' interaction with daily phenomena and real situations comes to shape their conceptions of…

The effective continuing professional development (CPD) programs primarily aim to have an impact on teachers' knowledge bases, beliefs, and views and their classroom practices, which rationally lead most of the researchers to investigate those changes on teachers primarily. Although neglected, the interrelationship between CPD programs and…

Newton's cradle is a well-known physics toy that is commonly used by teachers to demonstrate conservation laws in mechanics. It can also be used to investigate the physics of colliding objects, by recording motion of the balls on video film. Various experiments are described using 3-ball and 5-ball cradles, showing how different types of collision…

The vertical bounce of a plastic egg was investigated by dropping the egg on a horizontal surface and filming the result with a video camera. If the egg is dropped on one end then it bounces just like a spherical ball. If the top end of the egg is pointing forwards or backwards when it lands on the surface, or if the egg is spinning when it lands,…

The importance of enabling student-teachers to acquire informed conceptions of the Nature of Science (NOS) is widely emphasised. Hence, this study investigated the effectiveness of a science pre-service teacher education programme of one university in Tanzania in enabling student-teachers to acquire informed conceptions of NOS as stages in a…

Several predominant themes have emerged during the COVID-19 global pandemic that intersect with the nature and process of science. This paper identifies three such themes and briefly explores how they can be used as case studies and narrative cornerstones in teaching and learning. The themes include: (1) the understanding that science is…

The article describes the analysis of the Italian physics curriculum documents in terms of the coverage of nature of science (NOS). NOS is not explicitly presented as part of the Italian high-school physics curriculum. The article focuses on analysing the implicit aspects of the curriculum documents. The Family Resemblance Approach (FRA) to NOS…

Purpose: The social aspects of nature of science (NOS) have become more eminent but entrepreneurial perspectives of NOS continue to be neglected. Entrepreneurship is relevant to NOS and science education due to its role in scientific enterprises and its importance as a 21st-century skill required in all subjects, particularly in science,…

This research aims to examine teacher candidates' nature of science beliefs in terms of certain variables (gender, program, and class level). The participants of the research are 364 teacher candidates studying at the faculty of education of a public university in three programs; science education, elementary mathematics education, computer…

Affect and emotions matter to science learning. They also matter because they are integral to science identity formation and sense of belonging. This study aims to foreground the epistemic and affective character of laboratory work in higher science education by conceptualizing it as epistemic practice, in which students activate their body and…

Within citizen science projects, learning about natural resources can encourage environmentally friendly behaviour. More empirical understanding is needed on how citizen science projects facilitate learning outcomes to support sustainable resource management, such as agrobiodiversity. Here we present the learning outcomes of a citizen science…

The goal of the study is to create Visual Basic and MATHCAD apps to create programs that show the core force using physical forces as an example. The research subjects are high school teachers and students; the inherent context is high school STEM courses. Programs for computer visualization have been developed, and theoretical investigations have…