Describes activities to help students overcome "microbe phobia" through "kitchen microbiology." Directions for making yogurt, sauerkraut, and root beer are provided. (PR)

Describes procedures for identifying the protein ribonuclease from plant tissue extracts using mini-gel electrophoresis. (PR)

Describes a multicultural unit for elementary students. Children select a folk art or craft and become experts, learn the craft, research the craft, pass the craft on, and review their discoveries. The unit culminates in a folk arts festival at which students demonstrate their craft to classmates, teachers, and guests. (SM)

Reports on content and teaching strategies in 10 drug abuse prevention curricula for public and private schools. Although similarities exist among the curricula, they employ a range of content and strategies. Many strategies are too complex, and the curricula do not provide sufficient background information and training for classroom…

Describes a simulation exercise involving an imaginary organism in which students study the effect of predation on allele frequencies, examine the assumptions of the Hardy-Weinberg law, and consider whether the need to survive is a guiding force in evolution. Includes instruction for conducting the exercise. (MDH)

Describes a six-week project, in which students ground their own mirror, built a working telescope, and learned how and why it all works. (PR)

Describes the importance of the psychological factors of motivation, learned helplessness, and self-esteem in learning at the community college level. (PR)

Provides insights for college-level teachers beginning their tasks of directing student research. (PR)

Describes the use of "contracting" as a method to remind students of the importance of independent investigations. The contract is an agreement for learning between the student and professor. (PR)

Describes the history, chemistry, and uses of sulfuric acid. Presents demonstrations with this the cheapest bulk acid that is available in every country of the world. (PR)

Describes approaches and benefits of having students make observations and inferences from tracking-pattern diagrams and actual tracks made in sandboxes. (PR)

Describes an exercise where a team of students constructs a scale map of objects located on their laboratory tabletop. Another group then tries to reorient the objects to fit the groups map. This leads to a discussion concerning the aspects of good and bad maps. (PR)

This article describes an environmental inventory, "Analyzing the Communication Environment," which allows the evaluator to analyze the extent to which specific activities encourage functional communication for particular students with severe communication impairments. The inventory may be used to compare different activities across the student's…

In this objective scoring procedure for assessing learning-disabled students' writing, a standardized process is used to collect writing samples, which are then scored for number of legible words, total number of words written, percentage of legible words, correctly spelled words, number of correct word sequences, and mean length of correct word…

A professor and educational researcher at Stanford University discusses the evolution of "normal schools" of teacher preparation into the teacher education programs of today, advocates the integration of content material into teacher education, and explains the concept of reflection in teaching. (KS)