The current study aimed at identifying the effectiveness of cognitive conflict strategy in improving academic achievement and modifying sex education misconceptions in the Science course among intermediate second-grade students in Jeddah. Based on the cognitive conflict strategy, a teacher guide was prepared for teaching Family Planning and…

Data-driven decision making is essential in K-12 education today, but teachers often do not know how to make use of extensive data sets. Research shows that teachers are not taught how to use extensive data (i.e., multiple data sets) to reflect on student progress or to differentiate instruction. This paper presents a process used in an National…

As part of a 3-year longitudinal study, 136 sixth-grade students completed an engineering-based problem on earthquakes involving integrated STEM learning. Students employed engineering design processes and STEM disciplinary knowledge to plan, sketch, then construct a building designed to withstand earthquake damage, taking into account a number of…

This article presents a meta-analysis of experimental and quasi-experimental studies in which intermediate and secondary students with learning disabilities were taught science content through the use of graphic organizers (GOs). Following an exhaustive search for studies meeting specified selection criteria, 23 standardized mean effect sizes were…

Describes the development of a coding scheme that represents students' ideas and its application to the analysis of interviews with urban students (n=8). Results indicate that decomposition is a linchpin concept for building an understanding of nutrient cycling, and ideas which relate to children's natural framework theories provide a generative…

Investigates students' causal beliefs about the relationship between variables in an electric experiment and the degree to which their tendency to make either idea-based or evidence-based statements depends on a prior belief about the causal efficacy of that variable. Reports that 34% of responses were idea-based despite the presentation of…

Sixty fifth-grade students were randomly assigned to a group to be trained in solving Inhelder and Piaget's pendulum problem by Siegler's method or to a control group. A significant training effect was found. A weak transfer effect was found, but delayed performance showed no training effect. (Author/BW)

Presents ideas for spring flower displays. Has students constructing their own interactive flower displays as extra-credit assignments to reinforce vocabulary and scientific concepts, and modeling flowers with household items. (JRH)

Presents an activity that requires middle level students to use mathematics and measurement skills to estimate the mass of an extinct dinosaur using museum-quality models. (JRH)

Presents activities designed to allow students with backgrounds in states of matter and measurement to have a very concrete hands-on, minds-on experience with both physical and chemical changes and to compare and contrast the end products of each type of change in a concrete way. (PR)

Presents a lesson plan for teaching abstract science concepts to gifted middle school students. The lesson integrates a physical education component into science instruction to reinforce the abstract notion that electrons emit energy in the form of visible light. (CR)

Features the concepts of optics and geometry of eclipses. Presents the "eclipse rule," suggesting classroom activities in which students derive this rule. Includes some triangles activities for outdoors that illustrate eclipsing and sighting phenomena. (ET)

Discussion of how the nature and use of visual and verbal meaning-making systems vary across formats. Focuses on a comparative study of CD-ROMs and printed books dealing with scientific concepts in upper primary grades. Topics include linguistic and visual semiosis; the use of images; and meanings in images. (Author/LRW)

Describes a program designed to educate and train selected teachers to utilize hands-on activities, provide inservice workshops for their colleagues, and function as resource persons within their school districts. Discusses participant selection, workshops, and final project overview and evaluation. Concludes that the stated goals of the project…