Describes activities which help students understand several basic scientific concepts regarding water. Outlines objectives, materials needed, procedures, and questions to ask about student observations. Investigations include working with the self-sealing property of water, talcum powder, paper clips, and making water wetter. (RT)

Describes an organic chemistry experiment for teaching the basic concepts of chemical kinetics. Provides background information about first- and second-order reactions, experimental procedures of the Diels-Alder reaction between cyclopentadiene and dimethyl fumarate, and the experimental results. (YP)

Describes the discovery and characteristics of superconductors. Discusses some experiments on the levitation of a magnet over a superconductor. (YP)

Describes experimental procedures to produce magnetic fields with a thermocouple. Provides diagrams showing the apparatus, tables of experiment data, and background information on the theory. (YP)

Answers the question about the crown effect of a liquid drop. Describes the concepts of surface tension, irregularities, and pinch effect. (YP)

Describes ways to make use of lab activities and time for effective learning and student motivation. Provides information on the classification of lab activities, class data for measuring student power output, and a sample pre-lab "think sheet" activity. States the importance of relating activities to topics studied. (RT)

Examines the psychology of learning and its application to work in the laboratory. States that the working memory capacity of students is limited; therefore the amount of information they can process needs to be controlled and "recipe following" in the laboratory is perfectly reasonable. (RT)

Provided are two experiments which deal with the formation of callus and embryos from tissue culture of carrot roots. Outlined are the purpose, materials, procedure, and results for each. (RT)

Several modifications that improve upon the assay of photosynthesis are suggested. Described are the apparatus, materials, light intensity and photosynthesis measurements, and results. A table of the average light intensity values versus the screen number and a sketch of the experimental set-up is included. (RT)

Introduces an experiment involving the observation of Brownian motion for college students. Describes the apparatus, experimental procedures, data analysis and results, and error analysis. Lists experimental techniques used in the experiment. Provides a circuit diagram, typical data, and graphs. (YP)

Describes "Parents and Children for Terrific Science (PACTS)" program sponsored by the American Chemical Society's Education Division for encouraging the development of family science projects at the elementary and intermediate school levels. Discusses some examples and the results of the project. (YP)

Students use their preschool experiences to form personal theories about the world and rarely correct misconceptions even when new information is presented. This article describes an elementary science teacher's efforts to help fifth and sixth graders revise personal electricity theories, based on experimentation. There is no simple way to…

Presents a distillation experiment that uses temperature sensors connected to a computer in place of thermometers, and enables the whole class to view the data on a monitor and interpret and discuss the data in real time. (JRH)

Presents authentic assessment laboratory activities in which students measure the amount of sugar in bubble gum and test the lasting power of soap bubbles. Includes scoring rubrics. (MKR)