This study investigated the effect of non-traditional guided inquiry instruction on middle school students' conceptual understandings of lunar concepts. Multiple data sources were used to describe participants' conceptions of lunar phases and their cause, including drawings, interviews, and a lunar shapes card sort. The data were analyzed via a…

Science educators often suggest that students should learn science in ways and settings that bear family resemblance with "the real thing." Internship in science laboratories constitutes one such way in which students may learn science and learn about science. However, very little is known about "how" participants experience a science internship…

Project MLeXAI [Machine Learning eXperiences in Artificial Intelligence (AI)] seeks to build a set of reusable course curriculum and hands on laboratory projects for the artificial intelligence classroom. In this article, we describe two game-based projects from the second phase of project MLeXAI: Robot Defense--a simple real-time strategy game…

Compared to other subjects, the typical introductory programming (CS1) course has higher than usual rates of both failing and high grades, creating a characteristic bimodal grade distribution. In this article, I explore two possible explanations. The conventional explanation has been that learners naturally fall into populations of programmers and…

This article reports on a study of student engagement in the first year of their undergraduate information and communication technology (ICT) degree at an Australian university. The study was conducted at Monash University in the four undergraduate ICT degrees of the Faculty of Information Technology. The study draws on data collected from staff…

A broad continuum exists to describe the structure of inquiry lessons (Hanegan, Friden, & Nelson, 2009). Most teachers have heard inquiry described from a range of simple questioning to completely student-designed scientific studies (Chinn & Malhotra, 2002). Biotechnology education often uses a variety of inquiries from cookbook laboratory…

The colour of the copper layer deposited on a graphite electrode during electrolysis of an aqueous solution of copper(II) sulfate looks whitish-grey when inspected in situ. Taking the electrode out of the solution reveals the familiar orange-red colour of deposited copper. The explanation is found in terms of the almost ideal complementary colours…

Adding Mentos to an open bottle of Diet Coke can produce a fountain of liquid and froth extending several metres high. This activity can engage a wide audience of learners in a relevant and meaningful way, provide a model for creative science teaching, and help to develop learners' attitudes towards school science as a subject. In this paper, the…

This article is based on the work of Louv (2005, 2008) and Lowell (2008) and their ideas are explored with regard to barriers to, as well as opportunities for, effective environmental education. State curriculum standards in the U.S. include substantial environmental education (EE) content. Despite this, overall education policy stymies educators'…

This paper discusses the role of cinema as a tool for science education. Based on the socio-cultural approach put forward by Vygotsky, it draws attention to the fact that an audience can interact with the characters and share their emotions and actions showed in an audiovisual setting. Experiences come from an interaction with a learning…

Students' understanding of energy has been primarily within the domain of physics. This study sought to examine students' understanding of concepts relating to energy and the human body using pencil and paper questionnaires administered to 610 students in Years 8-12. From students' responses to the questionnaires, conceptual patterns were…

Due to the rapid development and growing societal role of nanoscience and nanotechnology (NST), these emerging fields are also growing in educational importance. The demands for incorporating NST-related issues into curricula are often expressed with reference to the goals of scientific and technological literacy. This paper reports on a…

This paper describes the development of different lesson plans dealing with authentic and controversial socio-scientific issues in the framework of climate change. These lesson plans orient themselves along the socio-critical, problem-oriented approach to science teaching. They deal with the use of bioethanol as an alternative fuel and with the…

The nature of science aspects (NOS) are the most emphasized theme in many curriculum and reform attempts. Teachers as a curriculum implementer in the classroom play important role for policy, arrangements and classroom experiences on NOS understandings of students. Researchers generally assessed the teachers' NOS conceptions using open-ended…

The gross anatomy dissection course is a cost-intensive piece of undergraduate medical education that students and professionals alike describe as very important within the overall medical curriculum. We sought to understand more explicitly students' valuation of gross anatomy as an "important" course and so developed a quantitative longitudinal…