Recent research suggests that the issue of global warming is one of great concern for Australian children. This point to the need for effective teaching about this issue. Children should be properly informed about actions that help reduce carbon emissions as this may give them a sense of empowerment and go some way to alleviating concerns. This study followed the development in the knowledge of global warming of 29 primary school students in year 6 (the final year of primary) from two regional Australian schools over one school term. A hands-on science unit dealing specifically with global warming was prepared and taught over a period of eight weeks. A mixed methods approach was adopted and data was gathered through pre- and post-testing, through post intervention interviews. The findings of the study indicated that after the unit, students had a clearer understanding of the science of climate change, with the largest improvement in student knowledge occurring where the students had engaged in hands on activities or had effective visual aids. The data also indicated that an increase in knowledge was accompanied by an increase in levels concern in some cases. However, there was also an overall increase in students’ belief about their ability to make a positive impact in relation to global warming and climate change.

 This paper describes an activity the author has carried out with 72 high school science teachers to enable them to overcome their stereotypical perceptions of engineers. The activity introduced them to notable women in environmental engineering, and raised their awareness of these female engineers’ contributions to engineering and society. The results revealed that the activity was effective in countering high school teachers’ misconceptions of engineers. By providing detailed information about the personal lives and work experiences of the female engineers, the biographies might be useful in countering existing cultural stereotypes of female engineers and initiating changes in perceptions needed to narrow the gender gap in engineering. Teachers and professors can use the examples of these notable female engineers as role models to inspire their female students to become engineers.

This article reported and discussed the evaluation of a lecture, designed to change university students’ values related with sustainable ways of living. The outcomes of the study were those obtained from the evaluation of the course titled “Education and Awareness for Sustainability”, which has been offered for three years in the Department of Elementary Education, Middle East Technical University–Ankara (Turkey). The study was realized with the participation of 85 students from different faculties (faculty of education, economy, administration and engineering). The study comprised three steps: need assessment (NA), formative evaluation (FE) and summative evaluation (SE). The evaluation model of DIPO emphasizing needs-objectives relationship was used for evaluation. Analyzes, on the other hand, were realized by the use of both qualitative and quantitative research techniques. It was concluded as a result of the study that integrating real life cases with the issues in the course makes students feel comfortable about the course and feel themselves sensitive and responsible. 

The purpose of this study was to investigate Thai students’ understanding of dilution and related concepts. The literature suggests that a complete understanding of chemistry concepts such as dilution entails understanding of and the ability to integrate mental models across three levels of representation: the macroscopic, sub-microscopic and symbolic. In this work students’ understanding was probed using the interview about events (IAE) approach employing open-ended questions, and also by analysis of student descriptions, and drawings. The research findings suggest that all students were able to answer openended questions related to dilution and related concepts. Less able students presented representations at the symbolic level and subsequently described events at the submicroscopic and macroscopic levels. However, these latter representations typically were unrelated to the representations presented at the symbolic level. In contrast, more able students were able to present consistent representations of dilution at each level of representation.

The purpose of this study was to determine the predictors of student grades in introductory physics courses utilizing problem-based learning (PBL) approach and traditional lecturing. The study employed correlational/predictive methods to investigate and describe/explain relationships of students’ physics grades with their expectations, attitudes, epistemological beliefs about physics and physics learning, and demographic variables. The subjects involved in this study were 264 freshmen engineering students (PBL, n = 100; traditional, n = 164) at Dokuz Eylül University (DEU) in Izmir, Turkey. All students were surveyed at the beginning and at the end of the spring 2007 semester using the Maryland Physics Expectations Survey (MPEX) to determine their expectations, attitudes, and epistemological beliefs about physics and physics learning. Students’ physics learning was measured via their end of semester physics grades. Correlational analyses indicated significant relationships between variables of the study. Forward stepwise linear regression analyses revealed the effort cluster and selected background variables (e.g., gender) as significant predictors of physics grades. Results suggest that further study is needed to investigate predictors and correlates of students’ physics learning using qualitative measures to support and more clearly interpret the numerical findings.

It is generally accepted that the environmental education deals with a wide range of environmental experiences, methods and processes. Teaching the subject of the environment should not be considered as an easy task. It should not only cover pure ecology education; but also include the citizenship responsibilities and the problems that are sourced from other interdisciplinary factors. Therefore teachers should have the responsibility to facilitate environmental issues. Hitherto no researcher has undertaken a comprehensive study that focuses on environmental education in teacher training programs. This study aims to detect basic environmental knowledge of Turkish teacher candidate at the onset of their studies. This study has been conducted during in the fall of 2007 with a heterogeneous group of 248 teacher candidates from Education Faculty in Turkey, 82 students chosen from randomly from biology, science and 84 students from classroom teacher departments. To detect respondents’ basic knowledge about environmental pollutants we administrated the questionnaire during the 1st month of their last academic year. The results found in this research have shown that teacher candidates possess less pro environmental knowledge. An interpretation of these results is that the teacher candidates do not fully comprehend the underlying ecological and environmental concepts related to environmental issues. Therefore, the design of pre service programs should take into account the characteristic of the student population which are the outcome of their social, cultural, and physical environments, and include all the necessary components for adequately preparing future educators to effectively address the environmental education of their future students. This may reflect into pupils’ attitudes during teaching process in primary and secondary schools.