Picture boards as a visual support aid for in-lab demonstrator briefings were deployed for a single experiment in both the first and second year undergraduate practical classes. The boards are easy to create and provide an alternative, more accessible and 'presentation friendly' perspective of the laboratory manual associated with an experiment.…

The discipline-based education research (DBER) report from the National Research Council (2012) highlighted the existence of a research-practice gap in science instruction in higher education and the need to identify strategies to close it. This study hypothesizes that one potential factor is instructors' access to research-based…

It has been suggested that Einstein's principle of equivalence (PE) should be introduced at an early stage. This principle leads to the notion of local effective gravity, which in turn defines effective vertical and horizontal directions. Local effective gravity need not coincide with the direction of terrestrial gravity. This paper describes…

Laboratory exercises using "Drosophila" crosses are an effective pedagogical method to complement traditional lecture and textbook presentations of genetics. Undergraduate thesis research is another common setting for using "Drosophila." A significant barrier to using "Drosophila" for undergraduate teaching or research is the time and skill…

In this paper we present a simple set-up that illustrates the mechanism of sap ascent in plants and demonstrates that it can easily draw water up to heights of a few meters. The set-up consists of a tube with the lower end submerged in water and the upper one connected to a filter supported by a standard filter-holder. The evaporation of water…

Using cultured fibroblast cells, undergraduate students explore cell division and the responses of cultured cells to a variety of environmental changes. The students learn new research techniques and carry out a self-designed experiment. Through this project, students enhance their creative approach to scientific inquiry, learn time-management and…

Authors discuss how computer laboratory interfacing has revolutionized their nonscience-major introductory chemistry course. Discusses the advantages of doing away with the "cookbook" approach to laboratory experimentation. Presents an evaluation of the course approach including the finding that over 75 percent of the students felt that…

Hampshire College needed to create opportunities for advanced undergraduates to have extensive laboratory or field experience in experimental sciences. A general biochemistry course, taught almost entirely in the laboratory, is described. The focus of the course is enzymes as catalysts and as proteins. (MLW)

A computer-assisted instruction (CAI) physics lesson on magnetism was supplemented with slides and film loops to provide a simulated encounter with simple magnetism experiments. Two groups of students took the CAI lesson, but one group viewed the simulated experiments, while the other group performed the actual laboratory experiments. Since…