Systems thinking suggests that one can best understand a complex system by studying the interrelationships of its component parts rather than looking at the individual parts in isolation. With ongoing concern about the effects of climate change, using innovative materials to help students understand how Earth's systems connect with each other is…

The discussion here considered projects involving the development of many new courses and strategies for the high school science curriculum. (Author/RK)

The document contains a user's manual and three bibliographies pertaining to Montgomery County, Maryland's Gifted Science Project, a program to provide resources to students in grades 3-8 who are motivated in science. A user's manual offers guidelines for using the project's primary product--the Project Resource File, a collection of resources…

Discusses how to make and fly boomerangs. (BB)

The purpose of a child's participation in a science fair is to experience learning. Seven steps to creating a successful project are described. (MT)

Discusses how snakes can be used for a science project thus helping students better understand snakes. (NQ)

Describes an activity in which students assume the roles of scientists living in the year 2,001,997 and make their own fossil record discoveries of animals that have undergone evolutionary changes since 1997. Students choose the animals as well as create the adaptations that have taken place. Includes a sample scoring rubric. (DKM)

Describes changes in students' ideas about science classes, attitudes about science, and motivations for studying science in a classroom designed to support project-based science learning. Results suggest that providing students with the opportunities to collect and analyze their own data results in a change in students' ideas about science…

Presents an opportunity for students to become better acquainted with inventors and their work, examine past discoveries, and pursue new ideas. (ASK)

The number of students majoring in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) is declining due in part to a lack of student interest (Fairweather 2008; NRC 2012; PCAST 2010). One reason may be the difference between how science is done in school and how it is done in the field (Osborne, Simon, and Collins 2003). An interdisciplinary…

In the fall of 2011, Park Forest Middle School (PFMS) students approached the STEM faculty with numerous questions regarding the popular television show Myth Busters, which detailed Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, and inventor, Archimedes. Two episodes featured attempts to test historical accounts that Archimedes developed a death ray…

Students who fail to develop proficiency in math skills in the primary grades are more likely to experience difficulties in the math curriculum later on. These students may be in need of a more targeted intervention, or Tier 2 supports, in mathematic instruction. Although the instructional principles of an effective math intervention are becoming…

In this paper, the authors describe how two institutions are helping their undergraduate biology students build quantitative competencies. Incorporation of quantitative skills and reasoning in biology are framed through a discussion of two cases that both concern introductory biology courses, but differ in the complexity of the mathematics and the…