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Book Chapter
Modeling: Changes in Traditional Physics Instruction
This chapter highlights the modeling approach to high school physics instruction—a curriculum design that engages students in constructing a few basic models of physics. Model development begins with students working in cooperative groups, designin...
Book Chapter
Guided by the Standards: Inquiry and Assessment in Two Rural and Urban Schools
This chapter features the environment in which the authors—Teresa and Steve—work. Both are at schools near the border of Mexico, and while both have a student body of predominantly Hispanic, one is a rural school and one is an urban school. The N...
Book Chapter
The author stumbled across the Physics, Physiology, & Technology (PP&T) program while attending a Modeling Instruction meeting. Modeling Instruction is a national science program that has been tried and proven. In this chapter, the author describes b...
Book Chapter
Aristotle took the ideas of those who had come before him and melded them into a grand theory that attempted to explain and classify everything know. It was an enormous accomplishment, and it set a base for science that is still with us today. ...
Book Chapter
For decades, many of the nation’s life science classrooms have been anything but lively. Biology has been criticized for being content heavy, overloaded with vocabulary, and tested by rote. Six to seven hundred pages of text, presented to teenagers...
Book Chapter
Introduction to Watershed Dynamics
The title of this book, Watershed Dynamics, refers to the idea that streams, rivers, lakes, and other water bodies are dynamic systems, continuously changing in many ways—physically, chemically, and biologically. Have you ever wondered why some st...
Book Chapter
Opponents to teaching the theory of evolution declare that it is only a theory and not a fact; and that science relies on observation, replication, and experimentation, but nobody has seen the origin of the universe or the evolution of species, nor h...
Book Chapter
Classroom Management and Safety
Welcome to the challenge of making good science come to life in your classroom. In this chapter, we look at how to get the science classroom ready for inquiry-based lessons and how to prepare students for engaging, productive, and safe activities. In...
Book Chapter
A Bright Idea: Reinforcing Logico-Deductive Reasoning
Many students in freshman- and sophomore-level science courses have little experience formulating testable hypotheses. However, an accurate comprehension of the scientific method is critical for understanding experimental design and for the success ...
Book Chapter
Successful learning is more apt to occur when students are engaged in discovering and building their own frameworks of knowledge. To meet this standard, teachers must design work that actively involves students in asking questions and finding answers...
Book Chapter
This book is a compilation of brief descriptions of innovative and effective ideas, tips, and approaches in undergraduate science teaching. Assessment must be aligned with learning goals and successful learning is promoted by frequent assessment, whi...
Book Chapter
Every course covers some concepts that will present challenges to many students. Once those challenges have been identified how do you present them for successful learning? This part contains multiple articles with descriptions of effective ways that...
Book Chapter
It's only human nature to ask, "If sea anemones can clone themselves without trying, and the natural cloning powers of plants are so easily exploited, why can't we begin learning how to clone ourselves?" This chapter presents an overview of the natur...
Book Chapter
The only form of gambling under the control of the state and to which the profits accrue directly for the state, is the lotteries. In this chapter, we'll compare its profits with private gambling enterprises, and search for the true worth of this mec...
Book Chapter
Cats and Their Impact on Wildlife Populations
Could you be harboring a killer in your home? Is it possible that the cute little cat snoozing so angelically on the sofa is one of the major predators of wildlife in the United States? With a U.S. population of 60 million cats, researchers estimate ...