While interdisciplinary approaches in the STEM subjects are widely advocated there are concerns that disciplinary learning can be compromised, especially in mathematics. The Interdisciplinary Mathematics and Science (IMS) project is a three-year longitudinal study in four Victorian primary schools that has developed a pedagogical approach to…

For more than 20 years, traditional medicine of Mexico, the U.S. Southwest and other countries has been taught as a series of academic course at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque in the United States. These courses focus on traditional uses of healing plants and rituals for students in higher education and the community. These courses…

Human beings do not usually recognize plants although they exist widely in their environment. This condition has been described as plant blindness in literature. The main purpose of this study is to examine pre-service elementary teachers' awareness of plants. Moreover, the study examined from which sources student-teachers gained knowledge about…

This article is a special blend of research, theory, and practice, with clear insight into the origins of Cosmic Education and cosmic task, while recalling memories of student explorations in botany, in particular, episodes from Mr. Leonard's teaching. Mr. Leonard speaks of a storytelling curriculum that eloquently puts perspective into dimensions…

School students, and their teachers, seldom have opportunities to investigate something in nature. Yet children's development, as perceived by Piaget, and historical scientists' learning, involves investigation. We acted to include these investigative responses and historic resources into our work with new science teachers. We did this in the…

This paper describes the effects of the implementation of constructivist techniques with interactive computer simulations on conceptual understanding of plant nutrition and critical thinking skills in heterogeneously grouped secondary biology classrooms. The study focused on three strategies for teaching plant nutrition: (1) traditional; (2)…

An ethnographic study was conducted with the goal of comparing the botanical knowledge of nine sixth grade students with the botanical concepts developed in the elementary textbook series, Science, by Silver Burdett, 1985. The extent to which the child's conceptual framework resembles that of the scientist and the extent to which the textbook…