Essential Science for Teachers: Life Science: Session 1. What Is Life?
What distinguishes living things from dead and nonliving things? No single characteristic is enough to define what is meant by “life.” In this session, five characteristics are introduced as unifying themes in the living world.,This segment shows an analogy of a car and a cell and how the analogy breaks down.
Educational Research Mentoring in School-Based Contexts
Sarah Fletcher of Bath Spa University is a professional developer who works with teachers in the United Kingdom. She guides primary and secondary teachers as well as research mentors toward representing knowledge imbedded in teaching.
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Electronic sensors exist in many facets of our lives, from measuring operating conditions of our vehicles to adjusting the temperature of our homes. They can even mean the difference between life and death when used to monitor patients in emergency rooms. Even though sensors work transparently in their multitude of functions, their importance cannot be understated.Sensorland (1) has basic descriptions of a wide variety of sensors and related concepts. Out of the 50 items in the list, some have f
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Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit organization founded by the grassroots Virginia Organizing Project (VOP) in 2002 to help increase public understanding of emerging scientific links between environmental exposure and human health, tracks a broad range of relevant information on this well-designed and useful website. The In the News section of the homepage lists breaking news stories from the world press about environmental health and is updated daily. The New Science area offers paragra
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Long Ashton Research Station -- part of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (UK) -- will close in March 2003, but its online resource Plant-Hormones will continue to provide general information and references on gibberellins, auxins, cytokinins, and other hormone groups. Additionally, this Web site provides a link to a listserver for plant hormone scientists, a discussion forum "intended to promote communication between professionals in the plant hormone field." Plant-Horm
The LEAP Authoring Tool: Supporting complex courseware authoring through reuse, rapid prototyping, a
An important goal of current work in computer-based learning environments is to develop systems that combine the richness and effectiveness of an individually crafted intelligent tutoring system (ITS) with the generality and flexibility of a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) authoring tool. Our effort to achieve this goal is demonstrated in the Learn, Explore and Practice (LEAPsm) ITS shell and its courseware development component, The LEAP Authoring Tool (LAT). The LAT was developed for use b
Obstacles to the development of conceptual understanding in observational astronomy: the case of spa
Simple everyday phenomena like the day - night cycle and the sequence of four seasons are taught at the higher level of elementary education and the lower level of secondary education in Cyprus. Even though there is no specific subject dedicated to Astronomy or spatial reasoning, the day – night cycle, the sequence of the four seasons and the sequence of the lunar phases are part of the national curriculum of Geography. For this reason, the construction of conceptual understanding in basic Astr
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In this Daily Lesson Plan from the New York Times Learning Network, students explore a variety of drought-related issues and research possible courses of action as part of a "drought preparedness taskforce." Based on New York Times coverage of drought in Arizona (story link provided), this exercise offers an active, interdisciplinary way to learn about water conservation and the ecological and economic effects of drought. Designed for grades 6-8 or 9-12, this exercise can be completed in one cla
Verbal and Nonverbal communication in computer mediated settings
The paper discusses the verbal and nonverbal communication during a video-recorded meeting between two physically separate teams as part of a 9 month multi-site construction project. In the extract analysed here, the team which was video-recorded contained three members and the project coordinator, whereas the remote team contained a single individual. Communication between the two teams was by means of telephone and shared computer meeting system. The video-recorded team used nonverbal communic
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The Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus (NDI) "Foundation was formed to support education, research, treatment and cure for Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus." One notable NDI Foundation website service is a sizable glossary of medical terminology with definitions for such terms as apoenzyme, basal nuclei, neuroglia, valine, and many more. The website also contains numerous abstracts of related journal articles. The article references and abstracts can be located by browsing extensive lists organized by
BEARS conference UC Berkeley
The Berkeley EECS Annual Research Symposium (BEARS) is a conference hosted by UC Berkeley's Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences department in the College of Engineering. This website provides the agenda for the 2005 BEARS (held on February 10 and 11) along with information on the presenters and abstracts and video footage of their presentations. The conference highlights work from EECS scientists on "advances enabling computing and communications to connect diverse aspects of our world.
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The New York Times Daily Lesson Plan website regularly features lesson plans for grades for six through twelve on a variety of topics. In this lesson plan, entitled "No Place Like Home: Arguing for the Protection of Endangered Species," students research and present analysis on the impact of the physical environment on an endangered species. Based on their investigations, they also create "a plan for the ideal care of the species" and develop an advertisement that is intended to promote awarenes
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The Evans group at the University of California - Irvine is investigating the unique characteristics of lanthanides and actinide metals. At this website, users can learn about the group's many research projects that generally fall under two categories: redox chemistry and molecules with unusual structure and bonding. The website supplies downloads for many of the publications listed. Students and educators can find general information about lanthanides. Users can learn about the group's exciting
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NewsHour Extra from PBS offers a series of news-related lesson plans designed to make classroom material "more relevant and engaging." This Web site contains a multidisciplinary exercise for grades 9-12 that addresses current genetic research and the ethical implications therein. Written by Sue Rippe of Northwest High School in Wichita, this lesson plan takes three 90-minute periods to complete and includes a number of diverse activities that should appeal to different learning styles.
A Collaborative Case Study System For Distance Learning
Distance Learning from Case Studies involves enabling collaboration between two or more learners at a distance on a case study activity. In this paper we present an empirical qualitative study that simulates a learning scenario in which a pair of subjects at a distance are provided with a collaborative learning environment and required to collaborate in order to solve a case study. The results of this empirical qualitative study have implications that informed the design of a system: LeCS (Learn
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Since the concept of permaculture was introduced by biogeographer Bill Mollison in the 1970s, it has attracted increasing interest from agriculturalists, designers, ecologists, and others. The Permaculture Research Institute (PRI) describes permaculture as "the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. It is also the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems
The Logic-ITA in the classroom: a medium scale experiment
This paper presents the experiment and consequent evaluation of introducing the Logic-ITA in a second year tertiary undergraduate class. The Logic-ITA is a web-based Intelligent Teaching Assistant system, aimed at alleviating some of the problems caused by large classes or distance learning. Its domain of application is the construction of formal proofs in logic. The system acts as an intermediary between teacher and students: on one hand, it provides students with an environment to practice for
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From Natural Resources Canada comes the National Earthquake Hazards Program Web site. Those interested in earthquakes in general or specifically about physical science topics in Canada will appreciate the many informational offerings on the site. Readers can learn about historical earthquakes in Canada and how frequent they are, find out how earthquake hazards are evaluated, how to survive an earthquake, earthquake research in Canada, and much more. The Products and Publications link contains se
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The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) promotes its research to "secure an energy future for the nation that is environmentally and economically sustainable." The website summaries the Laboratory's variety of research and technology including photovoltaics, wind, biomass, geothermal energy, and hydrogen and fuel cells. Visitors can find out the latest NREL news and events. Visitors can locate materials about renewable energy and energy efficiency. The Publications Database offers refere
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An entire site devoted to the Horseshoe Crab? The Ecological Research and Development Group (ERDG) has a "commitment to protect this remarkable mariner who plays a vital role in nature's delicately balanced food web and whose life-sustaining contributions to humanity have yet to be fully realized." This well-designed site gives descriptions of the Horseshoe Crab's natural history, evolution, anatomy, medical uses, conservation, research, and even a section devoted to poems, tales, and images.
