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This study examined preservice teachers' understanding of biotechnology and its related processes. A sample comprised 88 elementary education preservice teachers at a large university in the Midwest of the USA. A total of 60 and 28 of the participants were enrolled in introductory and advanced science methods courses, respectively. Most participants had taken two integrated science courses at the college level. Data were collected using a questionnaire, which had open-ended items and which required participants to write the definitions and examples of the following terms: biotechnology, genetic engineering, cloning and genetically modified foods. The results indicate that preservice teachers had limited understanding of biotechnology and its related processes. The majority of the preservice teachers provided poor definitions, explanations, and examples of biotechnology, genetic engineering and genetically modified foods. Surprisingly, however, a moderate number of preservice teachers correctly defined cloning and provided correct examples of cloning. Implications for science teacher education, science curriculum, as well as recommendations for further research are discussed., (Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

The currentK-12 Science Educationframework andNext Generation Science Standards(NGSS) in the United States emphasise the integration of engineering design in science instruction to promote scientific literacy and engineering design skills among students. As such, many engineering education programmes have developed curriculum materials that are being used in K-12 settings. However, little is known about the nature and extent to which engineering design skills outlined in NGSS are addressed in these K-12 engineering education programme curriculum materials. We analysed nine K-12 engineering education programmes for the nature and extent of engineering design skills coverage. Results show that developing possible solutions and actual designing of prototypes were the highly covered engineering design skills; specification of clear goals, criteria, and constraints received medium coverage; defining and identifying an engineering problem; optimising the design solution; and demonstrating how a prototype works, and making iterations to improve designs were lowly covered. These trends were similar across grade levels and across discipline-specific curriculum materials. These results have implications on engineering design-integrated science teaching and learning in K-12 settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of science and engineering practices in K-12 science education is currently an area of growing national interest in the United States, as evidenced in the recently published document titled A framework for K-12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. However, to date, little is known about the extent to which these practices are covered in the widely used K-12 engineering programs. As a response to the dearth of research in this area, this study investigated the nature and extent to which science and engineering practices are covered in the widely used K-12 engineering programs in the United States. Nine programs that are widely used in the United States were analyzed via document content analysis method using the K-12 science education framework. The results revealed important findings showing the similarities and disparities in the coverage of science and engineering practices in the analyzed programs, grade levels, and in different science discipline units. This study is significant because an understanding of the current status of science and engineering practices coverage would be helpful to educators and curriculum designers as they strive to further the development of integrated science and engineering curricula, as well as shaping the scope and sequence of engineering design thinking learning activities in the K-12 science curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed Zambian Junior High School pre-service science teachers' understanding of the particulate nature of matter. A sample comprised 30 pre-service science teachers at a teacher training college. Data was collected through a questionnaire adopted from Ozmen and Kenan (2007). Results show that most teachers had correct views on the effect of phase change on speed, spaces and number of particles in a substance. However, most pre-service teachers had poor understanding about the effect of phase change, cooling and heating on the size of the particles in a substance. Most pre-service teachers erroneously believed that when a substance is cooled it contracts because the sizes of its particles decrease, and when a substance is melting the size of its particles increase. Results have implications on science teaching and learning and teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]