To achieve the goal of scientific literacy, besides conveying science and technology concepts, cultivating students' modeling ability has become important. However, in-service teachers face the difficulty that their teaching load increases while they are still bound by limited teaching hours. Teachers may know of modeling ability, life related content and hands-on activities which are all important and beneficial for science learning; however, they very often find it is hard to engage all these methods into their limited teaching hours. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop an efficient method of instruction based upon the frameworks of cognitive apprenticeship and modeling ability to promote students' modeling ability and scientific concept regarding battery. A topic oriented instructional design has been adopted to develop a four-lesson instruction (200 minutes in total). There were 149 non-science majors from three classes invited to participate in this study. They were randomly assigned different instructions, and students' performances were evaluated by three kinds of tests: the general modeling ability test, concept tests and context-based modeling tests. The results indicate cognitive apprenticeship and modeling ability instruction could significantly improve students' modeling ability and also enhance their learning regarding the concept of the battery. However, it is remarkable to point out that, "modeling ability instruction" and the "video lab" provided in this study play the crucial roles. The implication of this study is also discussed. (Contains 8 tables and 1 figure.)