Examines the psychology of learning and its application to work in the laboratory. States that the working memory capacity of students is limited; therefore the amount of information they can process needs to be controlled and "recipe following" in the laboratory is perfectly reasonable. (RT)

A team of teachers, scientists, and high school students at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston has developed activities to teach concepts in learning through an inquiry-based laboratory method. The Learning Education and Research Network (LEARN) activities were field tested at the Society for Neuroscience Conference, in the…

Discusses some of the difficulties involved with chemistry laboratory experiences and some laboratory manuals. Cites studies that indicate that part of the difficulty can be attributed to constraints relating to the short-term memory of the operational information and the assumption that students have a certain level of knowledge. (TW)