Through the science curriculum, teachers can use students' passion for screen content to motivate them to explore innovative new ways to bring their science learning to life through video making. Communicating science concepts using multimodal literacies can be a particularly powerful way for students to learn about science, especially when they…

When working within a meaningful context quite young students are capable of working with sophisticated data. Year 3 students investigate thermal insulation and the transfer of heat in a STEM inquiry, developing skills in measuring temperature by conducting a statistical investigation, and using a stylised graph to interpret their data.

On 12 November 2014 the Fairfax media reported allegations of cheating by students at a number of Australian higher education providers through the purchase of assignments, particularly through the MyMaster website. The Honorable Christopher Pyne MP, Minister for Education and Training, referred the matter to the Tertiary Education Quality and…

This article considers the value of elite interviews as a frequently overlooked methodology in investigations of policymaking in early childhood education and care (ECEC). We contextualise the discussion within a study that examines constructions of quality in Australian ECEC policymaking between 1972 and 2009. We conclude that, despite their…

Ever wondered why children have difficulty using a ruler? In this article Michael Drake investigates some of the difficulties students encounter and provides some ideas for teaching about and learning to use rulers.

Although number sense is difficult to define, it involves having a good intuition about numbers and their relationships, including the ability to have a "feel" for the relative size of numbers and to make reasonable estimations. Students with good number sense typically recognise the relative magnitude of numbers, appreciate the effect…

Composting can provide both a means of managing organic waste, and a vehicle to teach Science at all levels of schooling. In response to a local organic waste issue a process has been developed to compost waste from an olive oil press and analyse the resultant compost. In this article, the composting process is described in a manner that can be…

In 2001, the Australian Science Teachers Association's (ASTA's) Golden Jubilee year, a special commemorative combined issue of the then "Australian Science Teachers' Journal" (ASTJ) and "Investigating" (Australian Primary and Junior Science Journal), charted ASTA's beginnings and growth, from a "loose affiliation of four…

The quest to find the equation of a catenary makes an ideal investigation for upper secondary students. In the modelling exercise that follows, no knowledge of calculus is required to gain a fairly good understanding of the nature of the curve. This investigation is best described as a scientific investigation--a "hands on" experience…

Space to Grow is an Australian Research Council Grant that engages high school students in real science and supports their teachers in implementing inquiry-based approaches using astronomy as the focus. Currently, Grade 9-12 students and their science teachers from three educational jurisdictions in one Australian state are acquiring, and making…

A practical exercise for developing a simple cost-effective solar ultraviolet radiation dosimeter is presented for use by middle school science students. Specifically, this exercise investigates a series of experiments utilising the historical blue print reaction, combining ammonium iron citrate and potassium hexacyanoferrate to develop an…

Project-based learning (PBL) is a well-known methodology for engineering design education due to a number of benefits it is claimed to offer. This paper presents the initial offering of a first-year engineering PBL unit at Griffith University in Australia. An evaluation of student perceptions of the unit revealed that students generally enjoyed…

In this paper we demonstrate that "lesson study" may be adapted from its primary use as a professional development strategy for use as a research strategy, especially to identify principles of good lesson design. We report on a project undertaken in two Australian secondary schools where lesson study research was used to investigate the…

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how leadership can be conceptualised as a social fashioning process performed in everyday practice as a de-centred web of sociomaterial network building activity. Rather than positioning investigations of leadership according to units of analysis or a priori variables of interest, the leadership approach…

This is the first of two papers that draw on a study of the national BHP Billiton Science Awards, a peak competition funded by BHP Billiton and administered by CSIRO. BHP Billiton, CSIRO and ASTA together oversee the strategic direction of the Awards. This paper reports an analysis focussed on the outcomes for students of participation in open…