Hands-on dissections of animals are traditionally regarded as an essential part of biology education. Nowadays, regardless of the reported educational benefits, there is a gradual change in the concept and acceptance of hands-on dissection, leading in many cases to its abandonment in schools and its replacement with alternatives such as 3D models,…

Extracurricular learning plays a key role in shaping students' interest in (not only) biology. The research examined which extracurricular areas related to biology can make biology more attractive for the participating Finnish and Czech students. A 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was administered to 178 Finnish and 195 Czech 9th-grade…

Even though genetics has been implemented in biology curricula at secondary schools for decades, reports repeatedly indicate that students still hold various misconceptions about this topic. To successfully target these misconceptions, we need to know their nature and origin. We aimed to investigate these properties in the Czech educational system…

Background: Studies comparing the effect of dynamic and static visualization suggest a predominantly positive effect of dynamic visualization. However, the results of individual comparisons are highly heterogeneous. In this study, we assess whether dynamic visualization (3D models and animations) used in the experimental group has a stronger…

The main objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of inquiry-based science education in Human biology lessons at the university level and compare this efficacy with traditional laboratory works using "cookbook" manuals written by teachers. Pre-tests and post-tests were used to measure the level of students' knowledge and…

The aim of the paper is the presentation of an interdisciplinary topic that allows applying content knowledge in physics, mathematics and biology in real life environment. Students use to play games and view crime scenes but in common they have little knowledge about the science used during crime scene investigation. In this paper the science…

A curriculum is generally regarded as an instructional plan that describes what, why and how students should learn. In this comparative study, we analysed the Czech and Slovak intended curricula of science subjects (physics, chemistry, biology, geography, and geology) and mathematics by comparing their national curriculum documents in terms of…

Comparative studies on science curricula provide insights into educational standards worldwide. Accordingly, in this study, we analysed the intended curricula of mathematics and science subjects of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland and Slovenia by comparing their lower secondary (ISCED 2) National Curriculum Documents on mathematics, physics,…

This contribution belongs to a larger empirical study that focuses on issues related to the implementation of inquiry-based learning and formative assessment in science and mathematics education, while it also refers to the issue of STEM education. Here, we discuss the two topics from the perspective of professional preparation of primary school…

The student teacher usually learns their trade under the guidance of a mentor during teaching practice. Reflections usually take place after the mentor's observation of the student´s lesson, and take the form of an interview between the two participants. Recently, video recordings have been used advantageously to add an extra dimension to such…

This chapter examines whether the environment of Science Olympiads and competition tasks produced within the Olympiad framework can provide opportunities for teacher preparation for inquiry science teaching, both in pre- and in-service training. The chapter describes the Biology Olympiad (BiO) concept and then briefly discusses the question of…

Purpose: The purpose of this scientific monograph is to show new and creative approaches to different school subjects in primary and secondary level. Methodology: Interdisciplinary and international comparative approaches were used. Now according to the 7th Framework Program, the preferred form of Science Education (www.scientix.eu) is preferred…

This document is the proceedings of the 10th annual meeting of the International Organization for Science and Technology Education (IOSTE). Papers include: (1) "Liberal Education, Information Assessment and Argumentation in Science-LIA" (Andreas Quale, Anders Isnes, Terje Kristensen, and Ketil Mathiassen); (2) "Placing the History…

Using interesting interactive educational tasks increases student motivation in difficult subjects such as biology, physics, and chemistry and creates more effective science instruction. This paper presents a method for developing interactive educational tasks that make science subjects easy to understand. (Contains 10 references.) (YDS)