Sixth-grade science students at Gauger-Cobbs Middle School in Newark, DE, had misconceptions about how heat energy moves in the hydrosphere through conduction, convection, and radiation. As a result, students struggled to develop and connect ideas that correctly and completely explained heat transfer in the hydrosphere at the end of the lesson…

Physical and virtual labs have unique capabilities that can influence how students learn from them. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of physical and virtual manipulatives on students' learning of heat and temperature and to examine the influence of various combinations of physical and virtual manipulatives. A total of 205…

Students come to class with ideas about science content and the practices used to generate knowledge. Their lived experience provides them with basic ideas about how the world works. Tapping into their innate understandings and testing their ideas allows them to construct a more accurate understanding. Research shows that all students are ready to…

Thermal science is a perennial obstacle for learners. Infrared camera technology provides an opportunity for pupils to confront challenging thermal ideas. From an embodied cognition perspective, sensory experiences form metaphoric relations that underpin conceptualisation and reasoning about abstract scientific phenomena. This study investigated…

Comics have an important role in non-formal learning environments. However, how comics may be effective teaching/learning activitities in formal education is an ongoing debate in literature. The purpose of this study is to create and evaluate a series of instructional comics about heat related concepts to be used as teaching/learning activities in…

This study of three science teachers' lessons on heat and temperature seeks to characterise classroom talk that highlighted the ways language is used and to examine the nature of the language demands revealed in constructing, negotiating, arguing and communicating science ideas. The transcripts from the entire instructional units for these…