Evolutionary theory is fundamental to biology, yet evolution instruction in high schools has often been unsatisfactory. How or whether high school biology teachers teach evolution is influenced by their own acceptance or rejection of evolutionary theory, parents' and community members' views, and in the case of some private schools, their…

When considering performing an Introductory Physics for Life Sciences course transformation for one's own institution, life science majors' achievement goals are a necessary consideration to ensure the pedagogical transformation will be effective. However, achievement goals are rarely an explicit consideration in physics education research topics…

Professional development is vital to help teachers gain skills and knowledge to teach about current environmental and societal issues. For climate change education, educators may need information paired with content-specific teaching strategies in order to build confidence to incorporate the topic into their curriculum. We applied educative…

The leaf electroscope is a common piece of demonstration equipment found in many high school and introductory college physics laboratories. Its simplicity allows a compelling demonstration of electrostatic forces, and its versatility makes it useful in the demonstration of a number of physical phenomena. The electroscope has a long history; a…

To develop Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) talents, both researchers and policy developers recommend that educators begin early. In this randomized study, we document the efficacy of teacher professional development and a rich problem-based inquiry curriculum to develop the science talent of elementary students. The…

Student use of out-of-class time was measured for four years in the introductory second-semester calculus-based physics course at the University of Arkansas. Two versions of the course were presented during the time of the measurement. In both versions, the total out-of-class time a student invested in the course explained less than 1% of the…

This study examined the evolution of student responses to seven contextually different versions of two Force Concept Inventory questions in an introductory physics course at the University of Arkansas. The consistency in answering the closely related questions evolved little over the seven-question exam. A model for the state of student knowledge…

The force concept inventory and a 10-question context-modified test were given to 647 students enrolled in introductory physics classes at the University of Arkansas. Context changes had an effect ranging from -3% to 10% on the individual questions. The average student score on the ten transformed questions was 3% higher than the average student…

At the 2009 Professional Conference of the NCSSSMST, humanities types were gratified to find eight sessions devoted to the arts and humanities as well as several others with a civic or humanistic component. Integration and inclusion, it seemed, were in the air, embracing not just science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but philosophy,…