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Journal Article

Creating Direct Channels of Communication

Biology students in a large-class, active-learning environment used e-mail and in-class written notes for student-instructor communication. Most students sent e-mail messages and about half were content-related. Messages from females and males reflec...

Journal Article

The Democratic Science Classroom: Science Teaching that Can Improve Student Behavior and Enhance Inquiry

“How can we prepare students to function in a democratic society if we don’t model democracy in our schools and classrooms?” The author works with his students to develop the class syllabus and vote on which Earth science topics to cover, witho...

Journal Article

Finding the Science in Art

In the interdisciplinary, team-taught course described here, the authors use the subjects of art and art history to bridge to math and chemistry. Specifically, the course investigates ways in which chemical and mathematical concepts inform artistic t...

Journal Article

Practicing Real Science in the Laboratory

In a molecular biology laboratory, students study the role of the enzyme polygalacturonase in the softening of tomatoes during ripening, developing their own hypotheses and designing their own experiments. While the experiment is new to the students ...

Journal Article

Action Research Brings Results

Action Research, defined as long-term efforts by teachers to collect and examine their own data to make informed decisions about instruction, is one form of professional development that allows teachers to choose from a variety of options and design ...

Journal Article

Switching Students on to Science

The Extended Physics courses at Rutgers University provide a successful alternative to the traditional introductory physics classes for students at risk of failure. The authors discuss methods for addressing at-risk factors in introductory physics an...

Journal Article

Miniature Sleds, Go, Go, Go!

Design Technology: Children’s Engineering (Dunn and Larson 1990), is a learning model that allows children to experience developmentally appropriate, hands-on instructional methods that enable them to draw, plan, design, build, test, and improve th...

Journal Article

Using the Past in Class: Learning from historical models of cell membranes

Studying the history of science shows students how science is a process that occurs over time. A sample lesson in which secondary life science students examine the history of the development of the cell membrane model is included. After discussing th...

Journal Article

Commentary: Talk of the Town

An opinion piece about the concerns highlighted at the Town Meeting at the 2001 NSTA Convention. ...

Journal Article

Quicksand Query: Using a popular fallacy to teach about density and volume

A popular misconception—quicksand sucks people under—is used to teach students about density. In a series of lab activities, students create quicksand, determine its density, and measure the density of water and irregular objects. Students learn ...

Journal Article

Tech Trek: Flash forward to problem-based science

Read about The Reconstructors, a website designed to combine aspects of problem-based learning and science standards and deliver them over the Web via interesting multimedia....