Science in rural and remote schools has received unenviable press around the world. The political and administrative spotlight has fallen on the inadequate physical resources available to rural schools (Hawkes, Halverson and Brockmueller, 2002), inadequate professional development (Howley, Chadwick and Howley, 2002), and the problems…

A recent national study into Science, ICT and Mathematics education in rural and regional Australia (SiMERR) highlighted the disadvantages faced by rural and remote communities in terms of science learning and teaching. Focus group interviews conducted in rural primary schools in South Australia identified a lack of resources and of access to…

This study reports on the strategies that regional science teachers found useful when early career scientists--tertiary science students were employed as peer mentors in their science classroom with indigenous and non-indigenous Year 7-10 students. Teachers engaged in a participatory action research to define the role of the early career…

Developing scientific literacy drove the teaching and learning experiences provided to pre-service primary education teachers. Interactive whiteboard (IWB) pedagogy was used to engage and motivate these students' to explore science's role in making sense of our world and to understand key scientific concepts. Active science learning connected to…

Giving students the opportunity to extract, manipulate and visualise DNA molecules enhances a constructivist approach to learning about modern techniques in biology and biotechnology Visualisation usually requires agarose gel electrophoresis and staining. In this article, we report on an alternative DNA stain, Nile Blue A, that may be used in the…

A summer school in Science and Technology was held in January 2008 for nineteen Indigenous students commencing year 11 who were identified as having high academic potential in science and mathematics. Known as the Aboriginal Summer School for Excellence in Technology and Science (ASSETS) the summer school was held at the Australian Science and…

Teaching Robotics in the classroom involves the use of different strategies to a conventional classroom but yields exceptional outcomes: in most cases students are teaching themselves and may not even realise it! This is "learning by stealth" and produces effective knowledge. Students also develop many additional and complementary skills…

Edmund Rice Education Australia Flexible Learning Centres (EREAFLCs) operate within a social inclusion framework to "walk with" young people who have disengaged from the traditional schooling system. Students attending the centres face multiple stressors in their everyday lives, as well as significant barriers to achieving success in the…

There is now broad agreement that learners in primary and secondary school science need to know how to interpret and construct subject-specific ways of representing science activity and knowledge. There is also growing recognition that students are more motivated and learn more when they have opportunities to refine understandings through revising…

This paper reports on the results of a survey of primary teachers who attended a series of three 1/2 day workshops that focused on primary science activities concerned with two key outcome areas from the Tasmanian Essential Learnings curriculum: "Investigating the Natural and Constructed World" and "Inquiry." The workshops…

Increasingly, the general media cover new advancements and research in the field of biology. Stem cell research, emerging diseases and bioethics are some of the issues gaining public attention. The rate of increase of these new developments creates additional challenges to teachers of biology as they try to remain abreast of new information and…

With research consistently showing that students can be motivated to learn with ICT, this case study sought to investigate Year 7 students' learning about simple machines in an ICT-enhanced environment where they could self-direct their own learning with minimal intervention from the teacher. The study is focused on how well do students and…

Of concern is an international trend of students' increasing reluctance to choose science courses in both their final years of secondary school and tertiary levels of education. Research into the phenomenon indicates an influencing factor to be the "uninteresting curriculum" (OECD, 2006) of school science. This article presents an…

This article presents the findings from classroom based research into the use of SMART Boards (interactive whiteboards) with kindergarten children. SMART Boards have been used successfully over the past 8 years at Abbotsleigh Junior School as innovative ways to enhance teaching and learning and facilitate assessment in primary Science. Key…