Nuclei are "small": if an atom was the size of a football field, the nucleus would be an apple sitting on the 50-yd line. At the same time, nuclei are "dense": the Earth, compressed to nuclear density, could fit inside four Sears Towers. The subatomic level is strange and exotic. For that reason, it's not hard to get young minds excited about…

In this article, the authors describe a lesson that uses the 5E Learning Cycle to help students not only understand the atomic model but also how Ernest Rutherford helped develop it. The lesson uses Rutherford's gold foil experiment to focus on three aspects of the nature of science: the empirical nature of science, the tentativeness of scientific…

Augmented reality (AR) technologies are identified as one of key emerging technologies for education in the next 5 years. AR takes advantage of virtual objects or information overlaying physical objects or environments, resulting in a mixed reality in which virtual objects and real environments coexist in a meaningful way to augment learning…

The Rutherford scattering experiment plays a central role in working out atomic models in physics and chemistry. Nevertheless, the experiment is rarely performed at school or in introductory physics courses at university. Therefore, we realized this experiment as a remotely controlled laboratory (RCL), i.e. the experiment is set up in reality and…

Where you live should have something to do with what you teach. In the Arctic, the idea of place-based education--teaching and sharing knowledge that is needed to live well--is central to the UARCTIC consortium and the 4th International Polar Year educational reform effort. A place-based issue oriented context can engage students in chemistry…

The nuclear fuel cycle consists of a series of industrial processes that produce fuel for the production of electricity in nuclear reactors, use the fuel to generate electricity, and subsequently manage the spent reactor fuel. While the physics and engineering of controlled fission are central to the generation of nuclear power, chemistry…

The recent international story about the death of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko has more than just a few wondering about radiation poisoning and the sinister sounding polonium-210. I was preparing to begin a nuclear radiation unit the Monday after Thanksgiving 2006. As it turned out, Litvinenko died Thanksgiving Day after a short and…

The use of recorded music to add interest to a variety of lecture topics is described. Topics include the periodic table, the formation of ionic compounds, thermodynamics, carbohydrates, nuclear chemistry, and qualitative analysis. (Contains 1 note.)

This article describes several applications of the use of solubility data. It is not meant to be exhaustive but rather to show that knowledge of solubility data is required in a variety of technical applications that assist in the design of chemical processes. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)

The paper describes a teaching model of the atomic force microscope (AFM), which proved to be successful in the role of an introduction to nanoscience in high school. The model can demonstrate the two modes of operation of the AFM (contact mode and oscillating mode) as well as some basic principles that limit the resolution of the method. It can…

Scientific and pedagogical comments about the fundamental physical concept of energy are made. In particular, we argue for an historical presentation of this concept because its essential justification is the research, conscious or not, of a characteristic quantity of a system whose fundamental property is to be conservative. Some delicate issues…

The emerging energy situation in the United States puts chemical engineering at the forefront of the large research and education effort that will need to be undertaken during the next 20 years. Chemical engineering undergraduates and graduate students will need to be literate on energy alternatives and the interconnection of technology,…

This paper reports on a student summer project performed in 2006 at the University of Frankfurt. It is addressed to undergraduate students familiar with the basic principles of relativistic quantum mechanics and general relativity. The aim of the project was to study the Dirac equation in curved spacetime. To obtain the general relativistic Dirac…

While observation is critical to science, sometimes things cannot be observed directly. Sometimes things happened long ago (in paleontology, for example) or are too small to observe (like atoms). Many students believe that science progresses only through direct observation. Students may also believe that giant microscopes provide insight into…

Recently, the significance of learners' informal reasoning on socio-scientific issues has received increasing attention among science educators. To gain deeper insights into this important issue, an integrated analytic framework was developed in this study. With this framework, 71 Grade 10 students' informal reasoning about nuclear energy usage…