Опубликована Июнь 26, 2013

This paper focuses upon the problem of raising environmental awareness in the context of school science. By focusing, as it does, on the relationship between the self and the natural environment, the paper discusses the difficulties that exist, such as the students’ involvement with the natural world, as their object of study, the empirical treatment and the modeling of the natural world, and the purpose of learning science, as well as the possibilities for promoting the development of such relationship by keeping the natural world, as an object of study, in the foreground of the teachinglearning process. Such possibilities refer …

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Опубликована Июль 7, 2014

The literature on professional development is replete with studies that utilize survey, interview, and classroom observation data, primarily collected post professional development experience, to explore teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and actions; however, we lack a clear understanding of teachers’ learning process and reflections during the professional development. The current study aims to address the abovementioned gaps in the literature, by utilizing participant reflections and assignments during a summer professional development opportunity, to elucidate the process by which teachers learn about inquiry-based teaching and begin to implement it in their planning, in addition to factors they deem influential in this process. The …

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Опубликована Июль 7, 2014

The purpose of this study is to investigate the environmental attitudes (EA) in the population of 15-year-old French students and, to check if the French student population presents similar EA categorization as described in the different models in the literature (e.g. the Model of Ecological Values, Wiseman & Bogner 2003). The second aim of this study is to identify the different factors influencing students’ EA. We analyse the results of the questionnaire-based Relevance of Science Education Project carried out in France in 2008 as a part of a wider international comparative study ROSE (Relevance Of Science Education). The hierarchical ascendant …

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Опубликована Янв. 10, 2013

The present study explores the use of a conventional school ground of a primary school and its potential as a space for creative play and environmental learning. Children’s play behavior and views of the school ground are explored, as well as their vision for its improvement. The research constitutes part of a wider school ground project and was carried out in a primary school in Volos city, Greece, during the 2010-2011 schoolyear. Geographical and participatory design methods were used that capture children’s experience of space and their will for participation in redesigning their school ground. They included mapping of the …

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Опубликована Янв. 10, 2013

Achieving a sustainable future requires that individuals adopt sustainable behaviors, which are often learned and cemented at a young age. Yet, traditional education efforts have been inadequate in fostering transformative change, in part because many programs focus on fact-heavy, teacher-centered techniques while neglecting the practices that behavioral and sustainability scholars highlight as central to creating change. To address this gap, the present research integrates three critical yet mostly disparate bodies of research— educational pedagogy, behavior change, and sustainability competencies. This interdisciplinary approach to education was implemented and evaluated with a small group of students during an intensive summer program and …

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Опубликована Янв. 10, 2013

Science teachers frequently select science news articles as supplementary teaching materials; however, the literature indicates that students encounter difficulties in examining and evaluating the news content and textual elements. This paper reports an instructional strategy of utilizing science news articles and investigates its effectiveness in enhancing students’ cognitive learning outcomes. In this quasi-experimental study, 118 seventh graders from four classes in one secondary school in Taiwan took part in the Science News Instruction (SNI). After eight weeks of instruction about Genetics and Reproduction, all students were requested to present their written arguments to the selected science news article. Two of …

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Опубликована Окт. 10, 2012

Learning about global problems, such as climate change, is not only a cognitive endeavor, but also involves emotions evoked by the seriousness and complexity of these problems. Few studies, however, have explored how young people cope with emotions related to climate change. Since coping strategies could be as important as the emotions themselves in influencing whether young people will acquire knowledge concerning climate change, as well as ethical sensibility and action competence, it is argued that it is important for teachers to gain insight into how young people cope with this threat. Thus, the aim of this study was to …

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Опубликована Окт. 10, 2012

Students are making choices in middle school that will impact their desire and ability to pursue STEM careers. Providing middle school students with accurate information about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) careers enables them to make more knowledgeable choices about courses of study and career paths. Practical ways of helping students understand the nature of science careers are limited. This study investigates using video interviews of STEM professionals as a method for better informing students about STEM career possibilities. ANCOVA analysis was used to compare treatment and comparison student interest in pursuing STEM careers before and after viewing video interviews …

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Опубликована Окт. 11, 2012

Inquiry-based learning [IBL] enhances students’ critical thinking abilities and help students to act as a scientist through using scientific method while learning. Specifically, inquiry as a teaching approach has been defined in many ways, the most important one is referred to nature of constructing knowledge while the individuals possess a question about natural worlds and explore the answers for the questions. The aim of this content analysis study was to analyze research related to inquiry based teaching through published research reports in the form of full papers and theses by Turkish researchers. For these purpose national and international journals and …

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Опубликована Июнь 4, 2012

The purpose of this study is to construct a structural equation model to examine the links among attitudes, values, and behaviors pertaining to sustainability, participation in outdoor recreation as well as gender and tendency to follow mass media for university students. The data were collected by on-line administration of a survey to 958 students at Middle East Technical University during February-June of 2008. It needs to be stressed that gender emerged as a strong factor explaining sustainability-related attributes. It was reflected that female students having higher tendency to follow media held more favorable attitudes and behaviors toward sustainable life styles, …

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