Search

Governance and regulation of the use of live animals in research and teaching is examined in Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, China, Japan and India. A comparison of the systems in different countries will enable the determination of best practice and fit-forpurpose regulation. The most comprehensive government regulation of animal welfare in institutions covers a broad range of animals and institutions are required to have an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, whose membership is specified in guidelines or regulations. The work of the Committees is rigorously overseen by government and facilities that use live animals are audited externally. All countries examined have legislation governing the use of live animals in research, although only Australia and Malaysia have a fully equivalent mandated oversight of teaching. Teaching that uses live animals is partly covered in the Philippines, Japan, Singapore and Thailand This paper thus aims to review the regulation of animal use in different Asian jurisdictions in order to determine best practices that are appropriate to those settings. The most comprehensive oversight is provided in Australia and Malaysia that essentially use the same regulatory framework.

In Australia, a significant number of students enrol in first-year university biology without the benefit of high school biology. In order to help students support each other, the authors of this paper (a central unit academic developer and a biology coordinator of first-year biology) created a classroom activity that facilitated the distribution of the more experienced students of biology throughout the practical work groups. An important feature of this creative design for forming groups, called the GLO Activityin this paper, was the embedding of two of the University's key teaching and learning priorities within the activity. These were the University's eight graduate learning outcomes (GLOs) and, inclusive education practice. We discuss creative pedagogies in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) and their link to supporting students in their first year of university study. We explain our scholarly thinking behind the GLO Activity and evaluate its impact. Finally, we reflect on how we, the educators, found satisfaction in thinking deeply to create a new learning structure for a biology practical class that solved one teaching challenge but also met a number of the University's curriculum principles.

Menstrual health literacy has a direct impact on young peoples' quality of life, health, academic and professional performance. In Australia, the key learning area of Health and Physical Education [HPE] provides opportunities for students to develop menstrual health literacy. This paper reports on the findings of a survey of 5007 young Australian women aged 13-25 on their experiences of menstruation, dysmenorrhea and education. The discussion herein relates to the qualitative component that asked the question 'What was the most useful information about menstruation received in HPE [Health and Physical Education] class?' Applying a thematic analysis to the data, three key themes emerged. These include: (a) it's all just biology; (b) the cause but not the effect, and; (c) too little, too late. The findings suggest limitations in educational approaches taken by teachers potentially resulting in poor menstrual health literacy portending long-term negative health consequences for some individuals.

Research from the fields of science representation, genre pedagogy and disciplinary literacy for adolescents indicates that achievement for students, including those from linguistically diverse backgrounds, will improve if they engage with the meaning-making conventions of disciplinary texts, but there is no current agreement on the nature of teaching practices for supporting such work. This paper reports on the pedagogical changes that occurred when a high-school biology teacher was supported to develop knowledge about systemic functional linguistics and to use genre pedagogy. The case study of one biology teacher discussed here demonstrates that student participation in dialogue about the language patterns of scientific texts improves when the teacher uses genre pedagogy during text deconstruction. Student involvement in dialogue about content area language increases when the teacher focuses on specific parts of texts, prepares students for what to look for within texts, and elaborates on student input. Preparation included converting language to everyday meanings, while elaboration involved recasting to academic language, as well as prompting to reword and expand meaning.

Are there neurobiological reasons why we are willing to trust other people and why "trust" and moral values such as "care" play a quite pivotal role in our social lives and the judgements we make, including our social interactions and judgements made in the context of schooling? In pursuing this question, this paper largely agrees with claims made by Patricia Churchland in her 2011 book "Braintrust". She believes that moral values are rooted in basic brain circuitry and chemistry, which have been shaped over evolutionary time. However, these naturalistic claims raise important issues, including the standard philosophical objection that they fall victim to the naturalistic and/or deontic fallacies. This paper provides an overview of the neurobiology of trust and examines some of the main objections, in the belief that recognising the neurobiological substrate of care and trust can deepen our appreciation of the role these play in education.

This paper provides a brief introduction to teaching strategies that can be used to support English as Additional Language (EAL) students in learning biology terminology. The paper begins with an overview of EAL students and considers the difficulties that they may face in the classroom along with the challenges that mainstream teachers may have when teaching EAL students. Then, an outline of strategies identified in the literature as promoting effective learning of biology terminology is discussed and critiqued. Next, some feedback and suggestions about how to support EAL students learning biology terminology is offered by an experienced teacher of both biology and EAL students. This paper focuses on these strategies (and others found in the literature) and discusses how they can be implemented, why they are effective, and how these strategies can be modified and enhanced.

This paper investigated the use of term recall and recognition tools for learning terminology and concepts in a senior biology classroom. The paper responded to a set of research questions from a teacher researcher perspective, making use of data collected from the teacher researcher's classrooms over several years, based on the implementation of two teaching strategies. Findings indicated that while looking for a teaching procedure to support a specific purpose may seem a simple task, in reality it was a complex task. However, the complexity lead to a greater awareness of the teacher researcher's teaching practice and inspiration to develop ideas for new and enhanced practice.

In this paper, we propose computational scientific inquiry (CSI) as an innovative model for learning important scientific knowledge and new practices for "doing" science. This approach involves the use of a "game-like" virtual world for students to experience virtual biological fieldwork in conjunction with using an agent-based computer model to enable computational inquiry activities. After an overview of literature into learning about scientific inquiry and the use of virtual worlds and game-like systems for learning science, we provide a description of the technology systems we developed and the methods of the study. The results are reported of a two-week intervention involving the use of a CSI approach in two eighth-grade classes that found significant learning gains by students. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings and a consideration of CSI more generally for learning important and difficult scientific knowledge and practices.

The topic of living things is ideal for exploring the ideas of children in the early years of school. Preschool and primary school teachers are reasonably confident with the subject matter and all children will have had some life experiences that contribute to their prior knowledge. For this reason, the question 'Is it alive?' is one that Foundation-year students will be ready to engage with. The diversity of living things and non-living artefacts that children have encountered in their everyday lives provides a rich foundation for discussion. Engaging children in talking about familiar topics is a good way to support emergent science ideas and the development of scientific thinking and inquiry skills. This paper presents a sequence of learning tasks comprising about one hour of lesson time from a unit of work for Foundation-year students. Emphasis is placed on supporting children to develop the science inquiry skill of communicating with a focus on early argumentation. Talk with fellow students and adult teachers supports children expressing their ideas and observations with reasons and evidence, a practice central to science communication (Russell & McGuigan, 2016). The learning experiences featured occurred early in Term 1 of the school year in two kindergarten classes. Both groups of children were involved in learning about living things and their survival needs. In this all-girls school, a science specialist (author) taught each class collaboratively with their classroom teacher.

STEM is about the integration of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. To teach STEM effectively, students need practical examples of subject integration. A good example is the use of an electron microscope in teaching physics and biology. An electron microscope is an instrument in which the operation depends on electromagnetism and quantum mechanics, in particular wave-particle duality. In teaching physics, an electron microscope can be used to measure the separation of repeated structures that give rise to interference phenomena. This paper describes the use a tabletop scanning electron microscope to teach physics and biology together through imaging butterfly wings. Students are able to identify structures with a spacing comparable to visible light on butterflies exhibiting structural colour and much larger spacing on wings without structural colour.

Adding to concerns about falling participation rates in science education, the profile of certain student groups who go on to study decreases, particularly as the year level increases. The aim of this paper is to examine if, and in what ways, demographic factors predict students' post-16 participation in biology, physics, chemistry and earth/space sciences. The study was conducted in Australia, drawing on data from over 4,300 students. Characteristics of focus include students from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds, indigeneity and gender. Outcomes of this study indicate that SES predicts participation in post-16 science subjects in each science domain. Indigenous status was a negative predictor of student participation in biology, physics and chemistry, but not earth/space sciences, where there were no significant differences in participation. Gender is a significant predictor in biology and physics participation, but not chemistry or earth/space sciences. Drawing on Bourdieusian perspectives, the authors discuss associations between participation and access to cultural, social and science capitals. Implications for the ways in which students' capital may impact their subject choices and how capital may be enhanced, are explored.

This paper describes students' experience of participating in a case-based peer-assisted learning (PAL) program in order to examine whether the approach is pedagogically effective and likely to contribute to students' professional development. It presents the findings of a study which examined the integration of PAL and case-based learning (CBL) in a multidisciplinary radiologic biology unit as part of an undergraduate degree program in Radiography and Medical Imaging. The study indicated the value of students working together in small groups to prepare and offer a case-based tutorial for their peers, with the cases offering a focus for their research and teaching in the multidisciplinary context. Working in groups and peer teaching were the most beneficial aspects of the program for enhancing student learning. The program involved three episodes of peer assessment (assessing teaching, assessing learning and assessing contributions to group work), with the first of these contributing most to the program, though further development and exploration of the latter two aspects are needed. The integration of PAL with CBL provided a "real world" context for teaching and learning. Students recognised that interacting with peers would be an important aspect of their professional lives and that the program offered them opportunities to prepare for this. Implementation and evaluation of this approach with other groups of students in vocational and non-vocational courses would determine its broader pedagogical effectiveness.

Global progress has arisen from scientific advances and we currently live in the age of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM); science as a way of increasing the knowledge base, technology as a means of manifesting the science, engineering as a way of building and creating with it, and mathematics to devise the language we use for science to explore new realities. Strengthening science-related economies requires more students to pursue STEM subjects which means that we need to retain them early in the education pipeline in order to strengthen knowledge-based communities and nations' economic growth. In Australia, however, there is a trend of more occupations requiring STEM skills while there is a declining interest in studying STEM subjects at secondary school. The disengagement of students from STEM subjects is most notable amongst girls towards the physical sciences such as physics and mathematics. When girls are considering life pathways at high school they generally view STEM subjects as difficult, leading to career pathways that are not aligned to their interests. With the exception of biology girls do not deem STEM subjects as relevant to improving the human condition. Moreover, the STEM subjects are not viewed as interconnected and contributing to areas of knowledge that impact our lives. To increase the accessibility of STEM subjects and STEM careers to enable students and unblock the pipeline into the work sector we need to rationalise how the STEM areas work together and impacts the fabric of life beyond the knowledge silos. In addition, as educators we need to show young people how STEM skills and learnings are integrated into areas such as psychology, economics, computing, and data science. In this paper we describe how a pilot of the "Growing Tall Poppies STEM" program (GTP) has enabled female high school students and (largely) female scientists at the University of the Sunshine Coast to explore the interdigitated nature of STEM subjects and psychology to support the understanding of how STEM skills are important, relevant, and life changing. By way of background, the GTP program framework was developed to encourage secondary students, particularly girls, to choose to study STEM subjects in their final years of secondary school by demonstrating (a) the relevance of these subjects to their everyday lives, (b) that girls are capable of STEM-related academic success, (c) that STEM subjects are career-empowering, by (d) providing examples that debunk the stereotypic expectations of female students and employees. This pilot project highlighted how the STEM skills of critical thinking, problem solving, and innovation can be used "beyond" traditional STEM disciplines such as psychology. In this regard, a group of four Year 10 girls were immersed in an applied social psychology laboratory in 2016 to participate in a genuine research investigation, and students were given autonomy to contribute and take charge of their own project question. Thus the girls experienced firsthand the interdisciplinary nature of STEM disciplines, and in this way STEM learnings were related to a broader range of applications and career paths for these students. While this pilot was the first university-high school GTP collaboration, pleasingly this group of students advised that they felt inspired to continue in their study of STEM subjects on their return to school, and indicated that they were more inclined to choose STEM subjects beyond Year 10.

This paper reports on an Action Research project that investigated the integration of Aboriginal and Western knowledge into science learning in a Montessori classroom in regional Queensland, Australia. Drawing on the local knowledge of fauna of community members, the study explored the teaching of science to 12 year 8-9 students in an Aboriginal independent high school in Queensland. The overall study covered 83 lessons that included an initial Short-beaked echidna study. It applied thematic analysis to data to explore the effect of this integrated approach on students' pride in heritage, cultural knowledge, learning and the Linnaean zoology taxonomy. Results revealed that the contextualisation of Aboriginal and Western science knowledge strengthened students' Aboriginal personal identity as well as identities as science learners and status of local Aboriginal knowledge.

This paper addresses how teachers can be trained to enable cumulative knowledge-building. It focuses on the final intervention stage of the "Disciplinarity, Knowledge and Schooling" ("DISKS") project at the University of Sydney. In this special issue, Maton identifies "semantic waves" as a crucial characteristic of teaching for cumulative knowledge-building; and Martin explores a "power trio" of intertwining linguistic resources which contribute to the creation of these waves. This paper draws on these complementary theoretical frameworks from Legitimation Code Theory and Systemic Functional Linguistics to explore their implications for teacher training. Specifically, it links one Year 11 Biology teacher's experience of new metalanguage and explicit pedagogy, in teacher training, to first attempts at classroom Joint Construction, a form of collaborative text creation. This paper then raises important issues regarding collaborations concerned with classroom interaction and knowledge-building practices. (Contains 4 tables and 8 figures.)

In this paper, we examine students' reflections about the value of two photo-sharing activities that were implemented in undergraduate Biology and Chemistry subjects. Both activities aimed, broadly, to provide support for authentic and meaningful learning experiences in undergraduate science. Although the activities were similar--both required students to capture and share images as part of an independent inquiry activity--students in the Biology case study were more positive, overall, than the Chemistry students in their evaluation of the activity. In this paper, we examine the findings from the two case studies in parallel to provide insight into our understanding of meaningful learning in undergraduate science. The results suggest that, for meaningful learning to occur, the learning activity needs to be well aligned with students' individual learning goals and with the objectives and characteristics of the course. In the two case studies examined in this paper, this alignment was successful for the Biology case study but less successful in the Chemistry case study. (Contains 1 figure and 3 tables.)

This paper investigates the magnitude of difference of academic achievement scores by language of instruction of prior education and the magnitude of interaction between language of instruction of prior education and students' preferred learning trait on academic performance of a group of international students in two teaching and learning practices. The magnitude of difference and magnitude of interaction were determined by using Cohen's "d" with Hedges "g" correction. Coe's spread sheet was used for the analysis. The study showed that the magnitude of difference of academic achievement score was found to be "very small" on Traditional method of Teaching and Learning (TTL) and small on Problem-Based method of Learning (PBL). However, the magnitude of interaction between language of instruction of prior education and learning traits varied from very small to large. It is a challenging task to accommodate international students from different language background and optimize the whole learning process in an English speaking teaching and learning environment.

This paper investigates various approaches to learning and their effect on performance of a cohort of international students in two different pedagogical environments. The effect of approaches to learning on performance was determined by using Cohen's "d" with Hedges "g" correction. Coe's spread sheet was used for the purpose. The study showed that the magnitude of difference in the effect of approaches of learning on performance varied from "very small" to "medium". Teaching international students from diverse educational, linguistic and cultural backgrounds is a complex task. Students from different cultural backgrounds tend to exhibit greater diversity in their approaches to learning. Appropriate teaching strategies are suggested to use to enhance the learning process of international students. An understanding about the magnitude of difference in performance of students with various approaches of learning helps to optimize the learning environment.

This paper explores teacher education through a self-study approach to researching practice. The development of the notion of tensions--in this case, the tension between confidence and uncertainty--is used as a way of understanding the complex nature of teaching and learning about teaching with a focus on teacher education practice. The paper is organised so that each section illustrates a particular concern or issue arising from an examination of practice by posing questions about the particular aspect of practice under consideration. The paper illustrates how the results of self-study research can help to build confidence both individually and collectively among the teacher educator profession, so that genuine change in teacher education practices might be enacted in teacher education programs.

This paper explores the teaching of beauty therapy in the Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. It uses the theoretical concept of bio-power to examine how the body is compliant with intimate treatments in the name of beauty. Bio-power makes visible the anatomical and biological transformation and re-formation of the human body. Bio-power constructs and is in turn constructed by the work of beauty therapy teachers in the practice of transforming the body, regulating the physical functions of the body and disciplining the choices of teachers working with training packages. Through this conceptual framework, a unit of competency is analysed to determine the association of bio-power with two training packages when teaching beauty therapy. It will show that working intimately with the human body from the inner mechanisms at the cellular level to managing the therapist/client relationship is both physically and emotionally laborious. Consequently, the two training packages that are meant to frame and conceptualise this work may not provide adequate explanations of its complexity.

In many countries there remain substantial sex differences in enrolments in elective science courses, despite concerted efforts in recent years to alleviate them. This paper explores the reasons for these differences by comparing models of male and female enrolment intentions in elective courses in biology, chemistry and physics. The models are based on responses from approximately 450 students from 5 Australian high schools. First, a theoretical model, the Science Enrolment Model, was derived from Eccles and colleagues' General Model of Academic Choice. Students' responses were then used to develop empirical models of enrolment intentions in the three elective courses. Analyses for the models were conducted using the LISREL "mean structures" extension. Sex differences in the dependent variables in the models were then attributed to the relevant sets of independent variables. Substantial sex differences were identified in measures of perceived career value, interest and performance expectations in all three models which explained between 70% and 82% of the sex differences in enrolment intentions. (Contains 1 table and 5 figures.)

In this paper, insight into forensic science students' experiences of a case-based scenario with an interdisciplinary guided-inquiry experience in chemistry and biology is presented. Evaluation of student experiences and interest showed that the students were engaged with all aspects of the case-based scenario, including the curriculum theory components as well as the active learning within interdisciplinary laboratories. Working in groups of three during laboratories was favored by students, but mixed responses for group assessment were observed. Since the introduction of the case-based scenario, sustained improvements in student assessment outcomes were observed. Questionnaire respondents indicated a strong interest in case-based learning. We propose a methodology framework for the case-based scenario investigation in forensic science and discuss the student experiences and improved learning occurring with the scenario involving an interdisciplinary guided-inquiry experience in chemistry and biology. This work suggests that an interdisciplinary guided-inquiry learning approach, ideally contextualized within a case-based scenario, is adaptable to other science discipline combinations.

In a global climate increasingly shaped by neoliberal agendas that privilege meritocratic individualism, it is apparent that society as a whole and educational policy-makers and practitioners in particular expect students to take more "responsibility" for their own learning and behaviour at school. In the Australian context, as elsewhere, schools are seen as sites in which students should develop and practise responsibility for self and others in ways that are enterprising, productive, civic-minded, and in accordance with social norms. Yet, few studies have critically examined how the concept of responsibility features in the everyday, taken-for-granted, discursive practices of policy-makers, teachers and students. This paper discusses findings from an ethnographic study concerned with how the discursive constructions of responsibility in three regional Australian primary schools shape upper-primary students' understandings and experiences of responsibility for self and others. Using the theoretical insights of Michel Foucault, Emmanuel Levinas and Judith Butler to interpret data, I argue that gendered discourses of biological determinism and peer pressure work to reinforce the misconception that violence and irresponsibility are 'naturally' masculine traits.

This paper analyses some contemporary educational contexts that teachers should consider for their puberty education programmes and/or curricula, for primary and secondary school students. The educational contexts addressed here include significant international puberty education framework documents, socio-biological factors including earlier puberty and a developmental approach, demographic and technological factors, and school factors including what students want from such education, and its professional teaching standards. Teachers and course designers may use these educational contexts to guide their planning, accommodate students' needs and motivation, identify goals, processes and solutions, and respond to international policy directions encapsulating the accelerated change that is the spirit of the age.

A greater emphasis in school curricula on the technology of science would encourage teachers to engage their students more in practical work. This in turn might be expected to improve students' attitudes towards science and enhance cognitive outcomes. The paper presents findings from a study on first-year university students' school experience of, attitudes towards, and knowledge of, microscopy. The findings reinforce the general expectations alluded to above. They also draw attention to the importance of the lower secondary science experience--often a suboptimal one owing to a poor resource base--to the formation of student attitudes and cognitive development with respect to science.

At the present, human capital theory (HCT) and neuroscience reasoning are dominant frameworks in early childhood education and care (ECEC) worldwide. Popular since the 1960s, HCT has provided an economic understanding of human beings and offered strategies to manage the population with the promise of bringing improvements to nations. Neuroscience arguments added new ways to regulate human beings, and thus another "hopeful ethos" and investment into the future. In this paper, we examine different positive, life-improving, and hopeful takes on early childhood as forms of biopolitical government, which are closely related to the enhancement of individual capacities and the shifting problems of the neoliberal state. Curiously, this process, grounded on biological fatalism and naturalizing arguments, has led to new class categorizations and ways of social discrimination. We hence argue that even though a "hopeful ethos" is offered through the (bio)politicization of neurosciences, it has led to eugenic arguments by re-inscribing social and economic differences into differences in brain architecture. Finally, we aim to demonstrate that ECEC policy offers an example of how current policies govern through scientific evidence and softer forms of "government by example", at the same time moving the government of population into the home, and with that privatizing and personalizing self-investment.

This paper investigates the cognitive experiences of four religious students studying evolutionary biology in an inner city government secondary school in Melbourne, Australia. The participants in the study were identified using the Religious Background and Behaviours questionnaire (Connors, Tonigan, & Miller, 1996). Participants were interviewed and asked to respond to questions about their cognitive experiences of studying evolutionary biology. Students' responses were analysed using cultural analysis of discourse to construct a cultural model of religious students of science. This cultural model suggests that these students employ a "human schema" and a "non-human schema," which assert that humans are fundamentally different from non-humans in terms of origins and that humans have a transcendental purpose in life. For these students, these maxims seem to be challenged by their belief that evolutionary biology is dictated by metaphysical naturalism. The model suggests that because the existential foundation of these students is challenged, they employ a "believing schema" to classify their religious explanations and a learning schema to classify evolutionary biology. These schemas are then hierarchically arranged with the "learning schema" being made subordinate to the believing schema. Importantly, these students are thus able to maintain their existential foundation while fulfilling the requirements of school science. However, the quality of this "learning" is questionable.

Lack of clarity about assessment criteria and standards is a source of anxiety for many first-year university students. The Developing Understanding of Assessment for Learning (DUAL) programme was designed as a staged approach to gradually familiarise students with expectations, and to provide opportunities for the development of the skills required to successfully complete assessment tasks. This paper investigated the students' perceptions of the first two components of the DUAL programme, which assist first-year biology students to engage with stated assessment criteria and standards in order to develop their capacity to make judgements about scientific report exemplars, their peers' scientific reports and ultimately their own. The study found strong evidence (96% of responses) that the marking and discussion of exemplar reports with peers and demonstrators clarified expectations of scientific report writing. A key feature of this element of DUAL was the opportunity for structured discussion about assessment criteria and standards between peers and markers (demonstrators). During these discussions, students can clarify explicit statements and develop a tacit knowledge base to enhance their ability to judge the quality of others' work and their own. The peer review exercise (the second element of DUAL) was not rated as highly, with 65% of students finding the process helpful for improving their report. The negative reactions by a sizeable minority of students highlight the need to clearly communicate the expectations and benefits of peer review, with a focus on how the process of giving feedback to peers might benefit a student as much as receiving feedback on their own report.

This study used an interactive dynamic simulation of action potential to explore social practices of learning among first year undergraduate biology students. It aimed to create a learning environment that fosters knowledge building discourse through working with multiple concept-specific representations. Three hundred and eighty-nine students and twenty-four tutors from different tutorial classes in Queensland, Australia participated in the study. Students were randomly allocated to two experimental groups and a comparison group. In the experimental groups, pairs of students used the interactive simulation to explore action potential. Only one of the experimental groups received instruction that modelled the scientific and visual language conventions of the representations within the simulation. In the comparison group, small groups of students used a traditional paper-based activity. Students across all groups were audio recorded using a think-aloud protocol while completing the group activity. Individual learning gains in the experimental groups and the comparison group were similar. However, the experimental groups showed a significantly greater frequency of knowledge construction discourse that included explanatory answers, evaluations, interpretation, testing and synthesis compared to the comparison group, indicating a deeper understanding of action potential. Analysis of misconceptions on the post-test and tutors' reflections revealed that the experimental group receiving instruction modelling the scientific and visual language conventions around the representations had a better grasp of the terminology associated with the concepts compared with the other groups. The findings suggest that instruction focussing on the language conventions of concept-specific representations fosters the development of disciplinary discourse by transforming students' social practices of working with scientific knowledge.

Academics teaching large and highly diverse classes are familiar with the inevitable effect this has on promulgating teaching and assessment practices to "middle of the distribution", thus ignoring the distribution extremes. Although the literature documents a wide range of strategies for supporting poor-performing students in large class settings, very little work has been reported on catering for more capable students who may feel frustrated and poorly challenged in such settings. This paper reports on the introduction of alternative assessment tasks into two first-year science units of study, with the aim of providing more challenging learning opportunities for high-performing students. It analyses student engagement with and perception of alternative assessment, and concludes that such opportunities are well received by students, even when no additional marks are available nor special credit recognition given for completing an advanced task.

Background: The ubiquity, availability and exponential growth of digital information and communication technology (ICT) creates unique opportunities for learning and teaching in the senior secondary school biology curriculum. Digital technologies make it possible for emerging disciplinary knowledge and understanding of biological processes previously too small, large, slow or fast to be taught. Indeed, much of bioscience can now be effectively taught via digital technology, since its representational and symbolic forms are in digital formats. Purpose: This paper is part of a larger Australian study dealing with the technologies and modalities of learning biology in secondary schools. Sample: The classroom practices of three experienced biology teachers, working in a range of NSW secondary schools, are compared and contrasted to illustrate how the challenges of limited technologies are confronted to seamlessly integrate what is available into a number of molecular genetics lessons to enhance student learning. Design and method: The data are qualitative and the analysis is based on video classroom observations and semi-structured teacher interviews. Results: Findings indicate that if professional development opportunities are provided where the pedagogy of learning and teaching of both the relevant biology and its digital representations are available, then teachers see the immediate pedagogic benefit to student learning. In particular, teachers use ICT for challenging genetic concepts despite limited computer hardware and software availability. Conclusion: Experienced teachers incorporate ICT, however limited, in order to improve the quality of student learning.

Plant families are the level of the taxonomic hierarchy that many biologists use to organise their understanding of plant diversity. Consequently, from many perspectives, it is very useful to be able to recognise the major plant families "on sight". To this end numerous books and web sites have described and illustrated plant families, but few resources are available for students to test their recognition skills. The application described in this paper features an illustrated tutorial for 11 of the largest plant families in Australia (they cover over 50% of Australia's plant species), augmented with a series of interactive tests. The tests are organised in five groups of 20 high quality images. Each image is supplemented with optional hints to the main features of flower structure and an optional reminder of the family names. The web site is one part of an integrated series of activities to assist students to recognise some of the most important plant families and thus master a very useful practical skill. (Contains 1 table and 3 figures.)

Capitalising on areas in which teachers feel most comfortable, the teaching of Biology, environmental education or nature to young children can be an alternative way of introducing and understanding Science. A "Citizen Science" program currently being run by the University of South Australia (UniSA) may be an appropriate starting point. "Citizen Science" is research involving interested members of the public, including school groups and parents, who participate by collecting scientific data in collaboration with scientists and professional bodies. Following the success of two previous projects, "Operation Possum" and "Operation Bluetongue", the 2009 venture of "Operation Magpie" encouraged interested participants to access a website, where information was provided regarding magpie behaviour and bird watching. This paper reports on a series of lessons developed from the program to encourage teachers and students to understand how better to interact with wildlife in their backyards (UniSA 2009). (Contains 1 table and 2 photos.)

Although the important role of providing fieldwork experiences for students in the natural environment is now well-established within environmental education literature, there is still little research evidence to guide teachers in their choice of effective teaching strategies. This paper presents findings from an interpretive case study designed to investigate the value of combining experience-based fieldwork in a mangrove and coastal environment with reflective and metacognitive activities. Analysis of video recordings, researcher observation notes and interviews of a class of Year 11 biology students who participated in the activities resulted in the emergence of five themes. These themes together provided evidence of enhanced student environmental learning, and included student appreciation for various learning contexts, self-awareness of group learning processes, and awareness of the integration of cross-curriculum knowledge. The study supports and illustrates the contention that the most effective environmental learning experiences are likely to be those that integrate learning in the natural environment "with" classroom learning strategies.

Problem based learning (PBL) is a recognised teaching and learning strategy used to engage students in deep rather than surface learning. It is also viewed as a successful strategy to align university courses with the real life professional work students are expected to undertake on graduation (Biggs, 2003). Problem based learning is practised internationally, for example, in Europe, Australia and the United States (Dolmans et al., 2005; Savin-Baden, 2000; Schwartz et al, 2001). In this paper I report on implementing PBL tasks to replace conventional tutorial and laboratory sessions in three first year units during 2007 and 2008. I also describe participant unit coordinators' understanding of the changes required to shift their focus from "what the teacher is teaching" to "what the students are learning" and include student perceptions of PBL in these units. Generally unit coordinators perceive the implementation as successful and valuable to enhance the student learning experience. Student feedback on PBL is varied and ranges from enjoyment to resentment. (Contains 4 tables.)