High

The “Science Literacy Through Science Journalism” (SciJourn) project explores how the practices of good science journalism can inform high school science education. As high school students report science news, they learn to gather and contextualize information and bring critical eyes to that which they read and write. This effort can be contrasted to the goal of making every student a “little scientist.”

In this study, we examine how a professional science news editor and high school teachers respond to student writing in order to understand the values and priorities each bring to bear on student work. These questions guided our work:

• How do teachers respond to authentic genres in content-area classes?
• How does teacher response compare to the responses of a professional editor?

SmartGraphs is free, open source software that helps students understand graphs and concepts represented in graphs (e.g., slope, velocity, half-life, global warming).

Like citizen journalists, your students can get to the heart of science literacy—and challenging questions like these—with the “learn by doing” methodology in this innovative book. Front-Page Science uses science journalism techniques to help students become better consumers of, and contributors to, a scientifically literate community.

This article describes The Concord Consortium's High-Adventure Science Project, which brings frontier science into the classroom, allowing students to explore questions in Earth and space science that scientists are currently investigating.

This article describes an online climate change curriculum that incorporates dynamic computer models that enable students to visualize the complex interactions related to climate change science. Students learn how adjusting variables in a dynamic model affects the entire system.

A four-year research project funded by NSF examines the efficacy of an approach to high school geometry that utilizes dynamic geometry (DG) software and supporting instructional materials to supplement ordinary instructional practices. It compares effects of that intervention (the DG approach) with standard instruction that does not make use of computer tools. This paper reports a study conducted during the second year of the project. Student learning is assessed by a geometry test and other tests. Data for answering the research questions of the study are analyzed mainly by appropriate HLM methods. The analysis on the geometry test data is discussed in detail. The experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in geometry performance.

One of the most rewarding accomplishments of working with preservice secondary school mathematics teachers is helping them develop conceptually connected knowledge and see mathematics as an integrated whole rather than isolated pieces. The NCTM Connections Standard (2000) states: “Problem selection is especially important because students are unlikely to learn to make connections unless they are working on problems or situations that have the potential for suggesting such linkages” (p. 359).
To help students see and use the connections among various mathematical between this problem situation and various mathematical topics. In addition, their explorations
of multiple approaches to proofs led beyond proof as verification to more of illumination and systematization in understandable yet deep ways (de Villiers
1999); expanded their repertoire of problemsolving strategies; and developed their confidence, interest, ability, and flexibility in solving various types of new problems. These benefits, in turn, will be passed on to their own students.

Science education reforms, such as the introduction of inquiry into the classroom, represent second order educational changes (12,13). Although first order changes require small alterations of existing practices, second order changes challenge the structures and rules of schooling. Research on second order change has shown that, despite best efforts, most reforms are “either adapted to fit what existed or sloughed off, allowing the system to remain essentially untouched” (12, p. 343). RET’s seem to hold the most promise for supporting second order changes as represented by inquiry; however, given the difficulty in achieving and sustaining second order changes, the need for research into their influence is clear. This research project will focus on analyzing RET programs through description of their essential features, their efficacy in fostering teachers’ understanding and enactment of inquiry, their interaction with the personal characteristics of participating teachers, and an examination of the influence of teaching through inquiry on student learning in science.

Many of us learned about dominant and recessive genes in a humdrum high school biology class. Some of us may still recognize the terms and symbols twenty or thirty years later—are your eyes bb or Bb? But, as it turns out, a very small number of traits in humans and other animals, plants, amoeba … you name it … involve the dominance mechanism of a single gene with just two alleles. (An allele is a variation of a gene, like the B or b in the above example.) The more biologists discover about the mechanisms of inheritance, the fewer traits we can point to that involve only one gene or can be illustrated using a simple Punnett square. In fact, biologists are compiling information about our genes at an astounding rate. As the process of sequencing DNA improves, the science of biology is dramatically changing.