For many years, the planet Mars was nothing more than a little red dot in a sea of stars and a blur in many science classrooms. Recent focus on the planet, however, has led to incredible teaching opportunities, such as the Mars Student Imaging Project (MSIP) facilitated by Arizona State University's Mars Education Program. The MSIP curriculum…

In January 2005, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) was awarded a three-year ITEST grant (Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers) through the National Science Foundation (award #04-23417). This "AMNH-ITEST High School Science Research Program" aimed to target 120 urban high school youth, grades 10-12, from…

For the past two and a half years, Research for Action (RFA) worked with student members of Youth United for Change (YUC) and Philadelphia Student Union (PSU). Over that time, these young people have committed themselves to learning social science research methods and conducted a study of their changing schools. Their motivation to be youth…

Partnerships of teachers with scientists are thought to be important for many aspects of science education reform, but it is not always clear how to make such partnerships productive. Between 1994 and 1997, high school teachers were partnered with scientists, to design yearlong ecological research projects in which the teachers were learning for…

In this article we explore the concept of quality in teacher action research by re-examining our participation with science teachers in several different collaborative action research projects. We conducted second-order action research and generated a series reflexive conditions for promoting and ensuring quality action research. We assert that a…

As a part of the teacher licensure program at the graduate level at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), the M.Ed. Licensure candidate is required to complete an action research project during a 3-semester-hour course that coincides with the 9-semester-hour student teaching experience or with school employment. This course, Education…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of high school students' long-term authentic research projects with Information Technologies (IT) in small groups in and out of school time on their affective dispositions in science. This study was conducted in the context of a three-year NSF project, namely, Translating Information…

The model organism, "Caenorhabditis elegans," in addition to being well suited to genetics and cell biology teaching applications, can also be useful in the physiology laboratory. In this article, the author describes how students in a junior level college Comparative Physiology course have made use of "C. elegans" in semester-long,…

In 2005 Motueka High School became involved in the Ministry of Education's Enhancing Effective Practice in Special Education (EEPiSE) project. The following is the story of how we integrated this action research project into our existing Enhanced Programme Funding (EPF). The project was supported by researcher Don Brown and led by our head of…

Nanotechnology refers to the research and technology development at the atomic, molecular, or macromolecular levels, in the length scale of approximately 1-100 nanometer range, that provides a fundamental understanding of phenomena and materials at the nanoscale and creates and use structures, devices, and systems that have novel properties and…

As a part of the teacher licensure program at the graduate level at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), the M.Ed. Licensure candidate is required to complete an action research project during a 3-semester-hour course that coincides with the 9-semester-hour student teaching experience. This course, Education 5900 Culminating…

While helping high school students develop statistical thinking, teachers need to engage them in all phases of investigative cycle. Students should master some of the nonmathematical elements of the cycle involved in identifying a problem, creating a plan of attack and gathering necessary data.

This action research project report examined strategies to motivate students from extrinsically rewarding behaviors to intrinsically motivating behaviors. The action research was conducted in two different schools by four different teacher researchers within the same district. Three teachers in an elementary building (Site A) and one teacher in a…

In this paper, we present the development and implementation over the period of more than 15 years of learning materials focusing on industrial chemistry as the main theme. The work was conducted in the Department of Science Teaching at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. The project's general goal was to teach chemistry concepts in the…

As a part of the teacher licensure program at the graduate level at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), the M.Ed. Licensure candidate is required to complete an action research project during a 3-semester-hour course that coincides with the 9-semester-hour student teaching experience. This course, Education 590 Culminating…