This study investigated inservice PreK to Grade two teachers' knowledge of some earth and space science concepts before and after a short-term teacher institute. A one-group pre-test-post-test design was used in the current study. Earth science concepts targeted during the professional development included properties of rocks and soils, and the…

Creativity continues to be an important goal for 21st century learning. However, teachers often have difficulties fostering creativity in their classrooms. Current creativity research suggests that the act of making can enhance the teaching of creativity. Hands-on engineering design lessons are ideal contexts for studying this effect. Through…

The state of education in the United States, particularly in the areas of science, mathematics and technology, has been a consistent source of concern since at least the early 1980s when student performance on the 1986 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) revealed that science proficiency was lower than comparable measures from the…

University of Nebraska-Omaha (UNO) and Metropolitan Community College (MCC) have recently completed a five-year NSF STEP project to increase the number of homegrown STEM graduates. The overall project has been quite successful, and the numbers of degrees granted has increased. However, some strategies have worked much better than others. Among the…

Inquiry has been cited as an essential goal of science education for decades. While terminology has evolved over time, the notion that students need to apply various analytic and thought related skills in order to better learn underlying scientific concepts and processes, remains central to science education. This article looks at four major…

The author describes a professional development model for high school science teachers based on the framework of inquiry and science standards. The "Learn-Teach-Assess Inquiry" model focuses on guided inquiry labs as the central theme and builds on these labs to reinforce science concepts and abilities to understand and engage in inquiry in…

The author examines the use of constructivist teaching practices by four new secondary school science teachers (NSTs) from a preparation program with a focus on constructivism. Data of the NSTs is compared to data of secondary school teachers from two different sources: (i) new teachers (NTs) from a broad-scale nationally-funded project involving…

By contrasting two case studies of school districts, this paper illustrates the effectiveness of K-12 science departments in supporting elementary science education, especially in response to NCLB's push towards the articulation of curriculum across all grades and as a response to the erosion of instructional time on science in elementary schools…

This paper presents a discussion of writing frames as a method of fostering scientific writing skills in the inquiry-based science classroom. Writing frames are described as templates that contain leads, cues, clues, and insights that collectively work together and provide a skeleton outline to scaffold writing tasks. The uses and benefits of…

The author explores the history of nature of science beliefs among pre-service and in-service teachers primarily in the United States and Thailand and compares this history to findings in a current study being conducted in Thailand. Two research questions were used to guide this current study: What are pre-service and in-service science teachers'…

Making chemistry both accessible and interesting to middle and high school students can be difficult. Convincing middle and high school teachers that they will learn something new and applicable from a professional development workshop in chemistry can be equally challenging. This paper describes the use of material science as a means to enhance…

This article is the first in what will become a continuing series of articles highlighting the perspectives of renowned science educators. The first featured article is by Robert Yager, Science Education Center, University of Iowa, USA. Dr. Yager has directed over 100 NSF projects designed to improve K-16 science programs. He has served as…

The Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) is a major national research and development effort that supports innovative partnerships among institutions of higher education (IHEs), local K-12 school systems, and their supporting partners in order to improve K-12 student achievement in mathematics and…

This study sought to examine physics offerings and enrollments, as well as teacher certification data, in small schools (less than 600 students) throughout New York City during the 2004-2005 academic year. Results were then compared to those for mid-sized (600-1200 students) and large (greater than 1200 students) high schools. The following…

In this article, the authors offer a framework that identifies two critical problems in designing inquiry-based instruction and suggests three models for developing instruction that overcomes those problems. The Protocol Model overcomes the Getting on Board Problem by providing students an initial experience through clearly delineated steps with a…