Browsing by Subject "Science"

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Achieving the Science Standards: A National Study of Inquiry-Based Instruction in High School Science
(Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement, 1999) Huffman, Douglas; Lawrenz, Frances
The National Science Teachers Association's SS&C(Scope, Sequence & Coordination)project created a new high school science curriculum that coordinated the content in the four basic sciences (life, earth, physics and chemistry) to allow students to study every science every year. The curriculum sequenced activities to encourage teachers to use inquiry-based instruction where students engage in hands-on activities before teachers define concepts.To examine the impact of SS&C, researchers at CAREI designed a comprehensive study comparing students who took SS&C science in 9th and 10th grade to students who did not take the new course. The study used a time-lag design which compares the prior year's science students to the present year's science students. The purpose of the study was to closely examine the effect of the standards-based curriculum on both the classroom learning environment and on students' achievement in the sciences. Thirteen schools implemented the new science course. The schools were located in California, Iowa, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Texas and the District of Columbia and included more than 4,000 ninth graders and 2,500 tenth grade science students.
An analysis of the relationship between K-5 elementary school teachers' perceptions of principal instructional leadership and their science teaching efficacy.
(2009-04) Clark, Ian
The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between K-5 elementary school teachers' perceptions of principal instructional leadership and their science teaching efficacy. The influence of background variables on both leadership and efficacy is also analyzed. A sequential mixed methods approach was used in this study. The survey sample was comprised of teachers in the elementary divisions of schools from the nine international school regional associations. Teacher participation was obtained through an email containing an online survey link. Following the analysis of survey responses (N=356), in-depth interviews (N=17) were conducted. Reliability for the instructional leadership scale was found to be .94 (coefficient alpha) and .69 for the personal science teaching efficacy (PSTE) scale. The results show a significant correlation between elementary school teachers' perceptions of principal instructional leadership and their PSTE levels, with the most significant correlation that between the study of a science-related major or minor at college and higher PSTE scores. Strong correlations were also found between PSTE levels and having principals who discussed goals at faculty meetings, participated in science curricular review, supported recognition of student progress, encouraged new skills and concepts, discussed student progress with faculty, and used assessments to see science progress towards easily understood goals. PSTE levels were also higher in schools where principals had grade or school level science coordinators in place and where they supported the use of science kits.
Care of the Machine Self: physiology, cybernetics, humanistic systems in ergonomics
(2013-01) Martinez, Mark A.
This dissertation discusses the ways that scientific thought and philosophy have theorized human life and machines in western thought.
Dictionaries of science as participants in the scientific knowledge economy.
(2012-08) Menagarishvili, Olga
The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how the first dictionary of science that appeared in English (Lexicon Technicum: or, an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences by John Harris) and one of the most recent dictionaries of science published in English (McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms) participate in the scientific knowledge economy. In order to answer that question, the study analyses the dictionaries from two perspectives: (1) as participants in knowledge making and (2) as products of capitalism. The model of production-consumption cycles is used, which is the extended version of Latour's model of knowledge accumulation, to consider dictionaries of science from both perspectives. The methodology combines lexicography (the science of dictionary-making and dictionary criticism) and cultural studies (the approach that focuses on the questions of power and culture and, therefore, allows one to discuss "knowledge legitimation within cultural contexts" (Longo, Approach 112). I am using lexicographic archaeology, which is one of the standard lexicographical methods for the comparison of different versions of the same dictionary. At the same time, I am extending the traditional lexicographic analysis by applying a cultural studies approach and using the cultural analysis of the front matter of each edition of a dictionary and employing production-consumption model, which is the discussion of how each dictionary functions in the model of production-consumption cycles.
Editor's Introduction to Special Issue on the Works of Alan Gross
(POROI, University of Iowa, 2014-12) Beard, David; Newman, Sara
Episode 11: Local Health Co-Beenfits of Urban Climate Action
(2017-12-21) Ramaswami, Anu; Conners, Kate
Reducing carbon emissions across multiple urban infrastructure sectors can yield significant local air pollution related health co-benefits. But cities will see and experience these co-benefits in different ways and to different degrees. In this podcast, Anu Ramaswami, professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, discusses the emerging science around how to connect global carbon reduction actions to city-specific health outcomes.
Episode 12: Circular Economies and Low-Carbon Urban Infrastructure Planning
(2017-12-21) Ramaswami, Anu; Conners, Kate
What is the unique role that urban infrastructure planning can play in national carbon mitigation? In this podcast, Anu Ramaswami, professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, discusses how cities are positioned to plan infrastructure systems using circular economy principles that reduce material and energy reuse across sectors to deliver a low-carbon future.
Episode 13: All-city Carbon Emissions: Understanding City Types and Impact
(2017-12-21) Ramaswami, Anu; Conners, Kate
It is common practice to consider the carbon emissions of single cities. But what happens when you analyze carbon emissions for all cities in a country using nationally aligned data? In this podcast, Anu Ramaswami, professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, discusses how all-city analysis can reveal “city types” that help inform carbon policy and action.
An Evaluation of Homeschool Students' Interest In Science and Science Careers
(2017-03) Carlson, Anne E
This paper evaluates homeschoolers' interest in science and science careers. Studies by Phillips (2010) and Wheaton (2010) found that homeschool students do not major in natural science as frequently as non-homeschool students, or take as many, or high as level, of science courses as non-homeschool students. The purpose of this study was to determine if interest in science was a factor in homeschool students not majoring in natural science in college or taking as many science courses in high school. The study found that young homeschool students are interested in science but there was not conclusive data on whether homeschool students are interested in science careers. This paper also highlights some problems with teaching science in homeschool and provides recommendations for further research.
Healthy Living Can Affect Youth In School
(2017-06) Johnson, Katie A
This study is a convergent mixed method study which looked at the effect of healthy living habits among students in the fifth grade and their academic performance. The study examined whether six weeks of healthy living instruction for 45 minutes impacted academic grades in science and changed students' behaviors. Data was collected from a control and experimental group in Southern Minnesota. The students in each group were observed prior to the healthy living instruction for two hours and after the six week instruction with a post observation that looked at the behavior of the students. Suggestions for future research include expanding the study to rural, suburban and inner city schools.
Identifying variations in thinking about the nature of science: a phenomenographic study
(2010-05) Keiser, Jonathan Charles
It is hard to imagine how one can be scientifically literate without understanding what science is about. One of the central elements of science education reform efforts over the last twenty years has been ensuring that students have a deep understanding of the nature of science (Abd-El-Khalick et al., 2008). However, research suggests these efforts have done little to improve students’ understanding of the nature of science (Sutherland et al., 2007). Much of the current research is aimed at evaluating the correctness of students’ conceptions or classifying conceptions according to philosophical positions (Bell et al, 2003; Khishfe 2008). This study attempts to build off that work by using an emergent phenomenographic research approach to identify variations in high school chemistry students’ thinking about the nature of science, using open-ended written response data from a six-item questionnaire that probes the following aspects of the nature of science: • Purpose of science • Tentativeness of scientific knowledge and the nature of theories • Creativity & imagination • Aim & structure of experiments This analysis yielded 39 primary level codes, which were then collapsed based on similarity into 14 categories of description. These categories reflect a wide range of understanding about science. Further analysis highlighted relationships between the categories and suggests two different orientations toward the nature of science. Some high school students orient their thinking about science in terms of an activity driven to prove or make certain, characterized by a collection of facts, whereas other students orient their thinking about science in terms of a finding out activity that results in discovering new information. The results of this study reveal more nuanced conceptions within these four aspects of the nature of science. Implications for science education and future research are discussed.
Laboratory literature: science and fiction in the place of production
(2013-10) Hadley, Matthew James
In this dissertation, I claim that the figure of the scientific laboratory in literature serves as a means for the literary text to reflect upon its own conditions of possibility, its processes of production, and its socio-cultural functions, all of which enact an autocritique of literature by literature. In representing production within the scientific laboratory, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (chapter one) and H. G. Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau (chapter two) demonstrate how this space of scientific labor is a model for the space of literary production. Following out the claim that an isomorphism exists between these two spaces, I offer new insights into the processes and effects of literary inscription. With this focus on literary production, I read these literary texts from the perspective of the material and affective processes that constitute a literary object rather than from a point of view on the finalized product alone. I argue that the novel itself becomes a laboratory, a space of experimentation in and through which one enacts and reenacts the myriad living processes associated with literary discourse. In my third chapter, I further elaborate this perspective through a reading of bodies and social groups in Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy that take on the qualities of scientific or literary laboratories, and often both at once. I specifically pay attention to Butler's use of genetics and genetic engineering in both the content and formal characteristics of her novels. Here, I take the laboratory as a concept for thinking through both literary labor, as well as the function of speculative fictions and utopian thought in the biotech industry and the life sciences. Finally, my fourth and final chapter considers the function of the laboratory as a social apparatus for the production of discourse on life in Ridley Scott's film Prometheus. As in the previous chapters, the laboratory is here a site in and through which the work's conditions of possibility are made visible, enabling the film to critique the roles of marketing and finance in contemporary laboratory practices that come to blur the line between the fictional and the scientific in the era of biocapital.
Lessons for High School Students: 2008 Implementation and Evaluation Report
(University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies, 2008-12) Glick, David A.
The Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Institute at the University of Minnesota is developing materials for high school students in an effort to increase their awareness of transportation-related issues and careers. Five lesson plans were developed in early July 2008 and piloted during three of the four weeks of Exploring Careers in Engineering & Physical Science (ECEPS), a summer camp experience for high school students that is a program of the Institute of Technology Center for Educational Programs (ITCEP) at the University of Minnesota. Lesson plans were continuously modified during the summer camps based on feedback from surveys that were administered to students. The modifications were needed to help improve the lesson plans for future high school classroom use. In addition, the lesson plans were piloted at Patrick Henry High School in Minneapolis, MN in October 2008. The lesson plans will be piloted at two additional high schools in the next several months; Anoka-Hennepin Secondary School in Anoka, MN and Maplewood High School in Maplewood, MN. The lesson plans were also presented at the Minnesota Science and Math Teachers Association in October 2008 to gain interest from teachers. Feedback from survey results and discussions with teachers, will allow for the implementation of new curriculum enhancements and designs for future transportation lessons.
Looking Toward the Seventh Generation: Transformation through Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Feminist Science
(2013-10-01) Cote, Creanna
An examination of feminist theory and science provides a theoretical framework to explore options for sustainable practices within indigenous cultures. Native science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) provides theoretical and practical examples of how to incorporate other knowledge practices into Western Scientific knowledge. The result of incorporating TEK into Western knowledge practices will allow for more complete and holistic knowledge production.
Making science education meaningful for American Indian students : the effect of science fair participation
(2008-10) Welsh, Cynthia Ann
Creating opportunities for all learners has not been common practice in the United States, especially when the history of Native American educational practice is examined (Bull, 2006; Chenoweth, 1999; Starnes, 2006a). The American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) is an organization working to increase educational opportunity for American Indian students in science, engineering, and technology related fields (AISES, 2005). AISES provides pre-college support in science by promoting student science fair participation. The purpose of this qualitative research is to describe how American Indian student participation in science fairs and the relationship formed with their teacher affects academic achievement and the likelihood of continued education beyond high school. Two former American Indian students mentored by the principal investigator participated in this study. Four ethnographic research methods were incorporated: participant observation, ethnographic interviewing, search for artifacts, and auto-ethnographic researcher introspection (Eisenhart, 1988). After the interview transcripts, photos documenting past science fair participation, and researcher field notes were analyzed, patterns and themes emerged from the interviews that were supported in literature. American Indian academic success and life long learning are impacted by: (a) the effects of racism and oppression result in creating incredible obstacles to successful learning, (b) positive identity formation and the importance of family and community are essential in student learning, (c) the use of best practice in science education, including the use of curricular cultural integration for American Indian learners, supports student success, (d) the motivational need for student-directed educational opportunities (science fair/inquiry based research) is evident, (e) supportive teacher-student relationships in high school positively influences successful transitions into higher education. An overarching theme presented itself embedded within all themes: the importance of understanding the continued resiliency of the American Indian culture as it relates to success. Ultimately, for long-lasting change to occur, teachers and the community must focus on eliminating educational barriers, while supporting academic success, in order to initiate renewal and school wide change.
Making Sense of Science: An Ethnographic Study of Somli American Students’ Funds of Identities
(2024-04) Abdi, Abdirashid
The overall achievement levels of Somali students in Minnesota’s urban schools are considerably lower than their peers. The Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), 2023) reported that only 5% of all tested Black or African American students identified as English language learners met or exceeded the standards in science, 21.7% in reading, and 18.9% in mathematics. This study employed the Funds of Identity theoretical and conceptual framework to investigate the multiple identities Somali diaspora youth navigate and the cultural assets they bring to the classroom while trying to make sense of scientific concepts. This study utilized ethnography as a methodological framework to understand the nature of Somali diasporic middle-grade students’ funds of identities, epistemological struggles, and disconnect between who the students wanted to be and what they wanted to pursue in science and life. The data were collected over one year using classroom observations, one-on-one interviews, focus group interviews, interview circles, and student artifacts. The qualitative inductive analysis of the data showed that Somali students are strongly aligned with identities supported by their funds of knowledge, which is their funds of identities; the struggle to reconcile between science knowledge and knowledge as stated in the Islamic (Quranic) texts, thus creating epistemological challenges to make sense of science learning and Islamic learning, nature of communication styles generating misunderstandings, students’ identities, precisely that of the girls, shaped by their future goals, specifically what science learning meant personally and for the family, and a strong sense of certainty on the issues of human evolution. The findings of this study suggest the presence of several “funds of identities” exhibited by Somali youth who participated in the study, which confirms previous research findings, including continuously navigating multiple identities and contradicting epistemologies as well as global and transnational identities. Additionally, this study found that participants' epistemological struggles were so enormous that the existing research in this area of literature could not adequately capture its dynamics. Most struggles occur in the Metaphysical realm, where youth question the validity of scientific knowledge, the nature of truth, and living in spaces that simultaneously hold contradictory views.
Philosophical problems in physical science
(Marxist Educational Press, 1980) Hörz, Herbert; Pöltz, Hans-Dieter; Parthey, Heinrich, 1936-; Röseberg, Ulrich; Wessel, Karl-Friedrich
This work is the first available in English that examines philosophical problems in classical and modern physics from the dialectical-materialist viewpoint. A team of five outstanding philosophers of natural science in the German Democratic Republic examine such questions as the nature of physical concepts, physical properties and quantities, elementary particles, and the fundamental interactions. This revised English-language edition is suitable for natural scientists having little previous contact with philosophy. --Publisher's summary.
Project Intersect: Year Two Evaluation Report (Cloquet Public Schools & Fond Du Lac Ojibwe School)
(Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement, 2008) Dretzke, Beverly
Project Intersect is funded by a Department of Education grant awarded to Cloquet Public Schools and the Fond du Lac Ojibwe School for a period of three years: July 1, 2006, to June 30, 2009. The primary purpose of the project is to help students increase their understanding and appreciation of visual and performing arts, language arts, math, and science and how American Indian culture intersects with these areas. The project is a collaborative effort of the American Indian community, the Ojibwe tribal college, the elementary and middle schools, University of Minnesota art education faculty, and the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration. Year one of the project was a planning year devoted to establishment of a design team and development of an intervention design to integrate American Indian arts content into grade 1-8 curriculum. Year two was the first implementation year. In addition to continuing implementation, year three will include creation of a replication manual and dissemination of print and Web-based materials. CAREI evaluated three aspects of Project Intersect: teacher participation, teacher professional development, and classroom implementation.
Reconstructing Student Conceptions of Climate Change; An Inquiry Approach
(2015-08) McClelland, J
Abstract No other environmental issue today has as much potential to alter life on Earth as does global climate change. Scientific evidence continues to grow; indicating that climate change is occurring now, and that change is a result of human activities (National Research Council [NRC], 2010). The need for climate literacy in society has become increasingly urgent. Unfortunately, understanding the concepts necessary for climate literacy remains a challenge for most individuals. A growing research base has identified a number of common misconceptions people have about climate literacy concepts (Leiserowitz, Smith, & Marlon 2011; Shepardson, Niyogi, Choi, & Charusombat, 2009). However, few have explored this understanding in high school students. This sequential mixed methods study explored the changing conceptions of global climate change in 90 sophomore biology students through the course of their participation in an eight-week inquiry-based global climate change unit. The study also explored changes in students' attitudes over the course of the study unit, contemplating possible relationships between students' conceptual understanding of and attitudes toward global climate change. Phase I of the mixed methods study included quantitative analysis of pre-post content knowledge and attitude assessment data. Content knowledge gains were statistically significant and over 25% of students in the study shifted from an expressed belief of denial or uncertainty about global warming to one of belief in it. Phase II used an inductive approach to explore student attitudes and conceptions. Conceptually, very few students grew to a scientifically accurate understanding of the greenhouse effect or the relationship between global warming and climate change. However, they generally made progress in their conceptual understanding by adding more specific detail to explain their understanding. Phase III employed a case study approach with eight purposefully selected student cases, identifying five common conceptual and five common attitudebased themes. Findings suggest similar misconceptions revealed in prior research also occurred in this study group. Some examples include; connecting global warming to the hole in the ozone layer, and falsely linking unrelated environmental issues like littering to climate change. Data about students' conceptual understanding of energy may also have implications for education research curriculum development. Similar to Driver & While no statistical relationship between students' attitudes about global climate change and overall conceptual understanding emerged, some data suggested that climate change skeptics may perceive the concept of evidence differently than non-skeptics. One-way ANOVA data comparing skeptics with other students on evidence-based assessment items was significant. This study offers insights to teachers of potential barriers students face when trying to conceptualize global climate change concepts. More importantly it reinforces the idea that students generally find value in learning about global climate change in the classroom.
Refiguring old age: shaping scientific research on senescence, 1900-1960.
(2009-07) Park, Hyung Wook
This dissertation traces the origin and the development of gerontology, the science of aging, in the United States and the United Kingdom. I argue that gerontology began to be formed as a multidisciplinary scientific field in the two countries from the 1900s to the 1950s. Unlike earlier scholars who had thought that the aging of the whole body was caused by the inevitable decline of an unknown critical factor, such as "vital heat," gerontologists of the twentieth century conceived aging as a contigent phenomenon whose rate and mode differed in distinct portions of the body. They also introduced systematic experimental approaches in their investigation which had seldom been employed in the study of aging before the twentieth century. Furthermore, with these new ideas and methodologies, gerontologists established their research field in which scholars from diverse disciplines could work in a cooperative manner, including biologists, physicians, psychologists, and social scientists. Amid the Great Depression, which threatened the very survival of the elderly, these multidisciplinary scholars formed professional societies and research institutes for more organized study of aging. But gerontology followed different paths of development in America and Britain due to their distinctive political and cultural conditions, academic traditions, and leading scholars' social and academic status. While British scientists of aging were struggling with various problems related to funding, professional recognition, and the recruitment of scholars interested in aging, American gerontologists came to have relatively ample and stable sources of financial support and an expanding network of national and local organizations. By analyzing this difference and tracing the beginnings of the new concepts and approaches, this dissertation aims at explaining the birth of a multidisciplinary scientific field within historical contexts.

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