Describes a curriculum development project that took place in the San Benito Consolidated Independent School District. Explains what a curriculum guide is and provides a six-step approach to developing guides. (PR)

Describes how science fiction films can be used in science instruction. (PR)

Presents a series of science teaching ideas with the following titles: When Demonstrations Are Misleading, Lasers and Refraction, An Improved Stair-Step Model, Correcting Your Compass, Seeing Is Not Believing, Food Coloring: From the Kitchen to the Lab, Punny Business, Portfolios in Science, Feathers or Gold: A Case for Using the Metric System,…

Outlines the characteristics of "friendly" science textbooks and demonstrates how these characteristics increase students' overall comprehension of reading materials. (PR)

Presents an activity that models the work of chemical engineers. Students design, fabricate, and perform mechanical tests on plaster matrix composites and compare the strength to mass ratios of several products. (PR)

Describes student projects that involve caring for and maintaining invertebrate organism that can be purchased inexpensively from bait shops. (PR)

Describes simple and inexpensive labs for introducing students to fiber optic communications. Students investigate light as a carrier wave; look into the difficulties associated with "light" communication; and learn about modulation, optical fibers, and critical angles. (PR)

Describes a teaching strategy, used in a high school physics class, based on a series of "what if" questions. (PR)

Describes activities to help students inductively develop a broad understanding of the nature of science--its process, product, and technological relationships--without going into an in-depth treatment of the history, philosophy, or sociology of science. (PR)

Describes a class project of producing a geologic report of a park for a community. (PR)

Describes a student project for building a laboratory balance. (PR)

Reviews research related to the question of whether or not science class sizes should be reduced. Research is grouped into two categories: (1) empirical research on achievement; and (2) research on teaching methodology. Discusses the Robert Slavin/Harris Cooper debate, when results defy common sense, and the Tennessee-based…

Describes a collaborative natural history class/science club program designed to offer science-oriented students the chance to expand their classroom knowledge of camping skills, first aid, environmental awareness, and survival techniques by participating in hands-on environmental activities. (MDH)

Describes symbiosis and its significance in the day-to-day lives of plants and animals. Gives specific examples of mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism in the relationships among fungus and plant roots, animals and bacteria, birds and animals, fish, and predator and prey. (MDH)

Uses extremely strong neodymium magnets to demonstrate several principles of physics including electromagnetic induction, Lenz's Law, domain theory, demagnetization, the Curie point, and magnetic flux lines. (MDH)