The ongoing battle to insert intelligent causes into the science classrooms has been met with political approval and scientific rejection. Administrators in the United States need to be aware of the law related to creationism and intelligent design in order to lead in local curricular battles. Although unlikely to appease the ID proponents, there…

This paper reports on the development of a science unit for Nunavut students and my collaboration with Louise Uyarak, an early years teacher and a graduate of Arctic College's teacher education program. The unit addresses light outcomes in the "Canadian Common Framework of Science Learning Outcomes, K-12". More importantly, it incorporates…

What do you see in a mirror when not looking at yourself? What goes on as a pendulum swings? Undergraduates in a science class supposed that these behaviors were obvious until their explorations exposed questions with no quick answers. While exploring materials, students researched Galileo, his trial, and its aftermath. Galileo came to life both…

Where you live should have something to do with what you teach. In the Arctic, the idea of place-based education--teaching and sharing knowledge that is needed to live well--is central to the UARCTIC consortium and the 4th International Polar Year educational reform effort. A place-based issue oriented context can engage students in chemistry…

In our research, we investigated whether students will develop inquiry skills, such as hypothesis exploration and formulation and interpretation, and metacognitive skills, such as comprehension of new knowledge, as a result of a storytelling strategy employed during teaching. We also investigated whether students will utilize the skills and…

Reflection on several decades of science teaching at the secondary-school level leads to the strong suggestion that a theory of science education should be based on arguments emanating from insights into the process of meaningful communication in the light of modern epistemology. These arguments show that the teacher's personality and engagement…

This article is based on results from a research project which focused on chemistry teachers and student narratives from lived experience. The purpose was to find a way to make abstract chemistry more meaningful. The project began with six experienced teachers who used narratives and stories as a didactic tool. These narratives stemmed from the…

A teacher and a college student explore experimental science and its history by reading historical texts, and responding with replications and experiments of their own. A curriculum of ever-widening possibilities evolves in their ongoing interactions with each other, history, and such materials as pendulums, flame, and resonant singing tubes.…

Some 35 years ago, Gerard K. O'Neill used the large context of space travel with his undergraduate physics students. A Canadian physics teacher, Art Stinner, independently arrived at a similar notion in a more limited but, therefore, more generally useful sense, which he referred to as the "large context problem" approach. At a slightly earlier…

This article traces the development of a contextual approach to the teaching of science (physics) subsequently called the Large Context Problem (LCP) approach. This approach is based on the general observation that learning could be well motivated by a context with one unifying central idea capable of capturing the imagination of the students. The…

The contextual approach to teaching is generally recognized as a reasonable and desirable strategy to enhance student learning in science. Using several cognitive and learning theories together with various philosophical considerations, I identify five distinct contexts that are important in engaging learners: the theoretical, practical, social,…

It is well established that thought experiments are both scientifically and philosophically significant, and even that they are pedagogically significant. However, the basis and methodology for their pedagogical use is not as well established. Pedagogical thought experiments are defined as mental simulations with special features to isolate…

This article attempts to demonstrate the intelligibility of Bergson's philosophy by analyzing his philosophical method and then applying it to the notions of biological time and of temporal hierarchy in biology. Bergson's philosophical method contains three parts: the first is factual and scientific, the second intuitional and reflective, and the…