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Book Chapter
What Is the Nature of Science, and What Does It Mean for Conceptual Understanding?
This chapter examines the nature of science and the connection to conceptually understanding science, as well as its importance to anyone teaching for conceptual understanding. The recognition of the importance of developing understanding of the natu...
Book Chapter
How Does the Nature of Children’s Thinking Relate to Teaching for Conceptual Understanding?
This chapter presents the current view of the nature of children’s thinking. During the last few decades, research on learning combined with the wisdom of practitioners have given us important new ideas to consider about deepening students’ unde...
Book Chapter
This chapter looks back at our attempts at making science teaching more meaningful through the use of the research findings available. It also provides a very brief history of science education in the United States from the turn of the 20th century u...
Book Chapter
How Is Conceptual Understanding Developed Through the Three Dimensions and Learning Strands?
This chapter examines A Framework for K–12 Science Education learning practices of science and engineering, focusing primarily on science and the role in teaching science through the learning strands. The list of scientific and engineering pract...
Book Chapter
How Does the Use of Instructional Models Support Teaching for Conceptual Understanding?
This chapter is devoted to describing instructional models developed over time by teachers, curriculum developers, and researchers, including a current research-based model that explicitly supports the practices of science—Argument-Driven Inquiry ...
Book Chapter
What Are Some Instructional Strategies That Support Conceptual Understanding?
In this chapter, strategies are described that can be used to promote learning within an instructional model. There are many strategies that researchers and practitioners have determined to be effective in supporting conceptual understanding. This ch...
Book Chapter
How Does Linking Assessment, Instruction, and Learning Support Conceptual Understanding?
This chapter focuses on connecting instruction, assessment, and learning. It features some of the ways you can use formative assessment to support conceptual understanding in science so that teachers can make better instructional decisions that suppo...
Book Chapter
What Role Does Informal Education Have in Developing Conceptual Understanding?
This chapter addresses learning in informal environments and in this age of technology, informal education is everywhere. Although opportunities have been available for many years, it’s only recently that educational researchers have become interes...
Book Chapter
Putting It All Together: “Balancing” Case Study
This Appendix features a case study of a lesson on “balancing” using the principles and ideas espoused in the book and in A Framework for K–12 Science Education. To illuminate the three dimensions and the four strands in “science as practic...
Book Chapter
Bond Character and Molecular Polarity
The purpose of this lab is to introduce students to the concepts of bonds and molecular polarity to determine ”How Does Atom Electronegativity Affect Bond Character and Molecular Polarity?” It also gives students an opportunity to use a computer ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this lab is to introduce students to the valence shell electron pair repulsion (VSEPR) model and to determine ”How Does the Number of Substituents Around a Central Atom Affect the Shape of a Molecule?” It also gives students an opp...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this lab is to introduce students to the concepts of solutes, solvents, solubility, and rate of dissolution....
Book Chapter
The purpose of this lab is to introduce students to the concepts of solutes, solvents, and molarity. It gives students an opportunity to use a computer simulation to explore “What Is the Mathematical Relationship Between the Moles of a Solute, the ...
Book Chapter
Temperature Changes Due to Evaporation
The purpose of this lab is to introduce students to intermolecular forces. It gives students an opportunity to determine ”Which of the Available Substances Has the Strongest Intermolecular Forces? based on the temperature change observed during eva...
Book Chapter
Pressure, Temperature, and Volume of Gases
The purpose of this lab is to introduce students to the gas laws related to pressure, temperature, and volume of gases. It gives students an opportunity to develop a mathematical model that can be used to describe “How Does Changing the Volume or ...