In 1900, three botanists claimed they had found regularities in inheritance, which soon would be known as Mendel's Laws, without knowing the work of Gregor Mendel or of each other. Their claims of independent (re)discovery have been thoroughly studied during the past decades, with various outcomes. The case is still of interest today as it offers…

Learning scientists often use Donald Stokes's influential characterization of the relation between basic and applied research in his book "Pasteur's Quadrant" to suggest that most of the work in the learning sciences lies, or should lie, at the intersection of both types of research, that is, in the cell that is epitomized by Pasteur's…

Nested hierarchical structure is one of life's most familiar properties and a major component of biological diversity and complexity. However, there is little effort to teach the evolution of the hierarchy of life, as there is little effort to teach biological complexity per se. We propose a framework for teaching biological complexity based on…

The goal of undergraduate chemistry laboratories is to allow students to learn about chemical systems and key laboratory skills. They should then apply this knowledge to solve problems and connect macroscopic observations in the laboratory with those occurring at the submicroscopic level. Unfortunately, these needs are not met through traditional…

As a cross-cutting and comprehensive subject, medicinal chemistry involves the knowledge of chemical, biological, medical, and pharmaceutical sciences. A comprehensive medicinal chemistry experience for undergraduates is expected to train various experimental skills and enhance their scientific research ability. Herein, a series of laboratory and…

Teaching false theories goes against the general pedagogical and philosophical belief that we must only teach and learn what is true. In general, the goal of pedagogy is taken to be epistemic: to gain knowledge and avoid ignorance. In this article, I argue that for realists and antirealists alike, epistemological and pedagogical goals have to come…

This article charts some of the historical paths that have helped bring forth, in late-modern societies, what I call scientised educational discourses and practices. Though the project of forming the 'scientific man' can be traced back to the nineteenth century, it is argued that the nature of the project changed once it became aligned with the…

Thermoregulation is the maintenance of a relatively constant core body temperature. Humans normally maintain a body temperature at 37°C, and maintenance of this relatively high temperature is critical to human survival. This concept is so important that control of thermoregulation is often the principal example cited when teaching physiological…

Alfred North Whitehead's (1861-1947) theory of the rhythm of education has enjoyed much popularity and success in terms of providing a general model for conceptualizing learning, teaching, and research processes. However, in respect to the Whiteheadian notion that there is a rhythm belonging to such processes, of which educators ought to be aware,…

When the sun rose over America on July 4, 2012, the world of science had radically changed. The Higgs boson had been discovered. Mind you, the press releases were more cautious than that, with "a new particle consistent with being the Higgs boson" being the carefully constructed phrase of the day. But, make no mistake, champagne corks…

In this article we present a synthesis of the research affecting pupils' conceptions of photosynthesis and plant nutrition. The main false conceptions of the pupils identified in this literature review are: that green plants find their food in the soil; that water and mineral salts are sufficient to the growth of a plant; the role of chlorophyll,…

Student reasoning about cases of natural selection is often plagued by errors that stem from miscategorising selection as a direct, causal process, misunderstanding the role of randomness, and from the intuitive ideas of intentionality, teleology and essentialism. The common thread throughout many of these reasoning errors is a failure to apply…

The article explores several perspectives on the interconnection between genre and identity, an issue that has generated significant scholarship in rhetorical genre studies. It suggests that current work in neuroplasticity--that is, changes in the brain that can occur through learning and experience--complicates and problematizes the issue and is…

Personalized genomics companies (PG; also called "direct-to-consumer genetics") are businesses marketing genetic testing to consumers over the Internet. While much has been written about these new businesses, little attention has been given to their roles in science communication. This paper provides an analysis of the gene concept…

One important focus for science education researchers over many years has been the attempts to replace students' commonsense and non-scientific explanations of various phenomena by scientific explanations. The approach we adopted almost three decades ago was conceptual mediation, and this was shown to have a considerable level of success with…