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Postsecondary educational opportunities for minorities and women are listed by subject field. Specific information is provided on loans, scholarships, and fellowship opportunities, along with general information on how and where to get general assistance in preparing for educational and career goals. Addresses of the offices that operate the programs are provided. Opportunities in selected fields of study are listed: architecture, arts and science, business administration and management, education, engineering and science, health and medicine, international study, journalism, law, political science and public administration, psychology, sociology and social work, speech/language pathology and audiology, and theology. It is hoped that this information will serve to encourage more minorities and women to enter these fields of study. General educational opportunities exclusively for women, for American Indians, and with the U.S. military are reported. A Student Consumer's Guide to six federal financial aid programs, including Basic Grants and Guaranteed Student Loans, is also provided. (Author/MSE)

Density is the first intensive physical quantity students encounter that can be understood in terms of an underlying model, the particulate theory of matter. Learning about density provides students with explanations for a range of phenomena such as sinking and floating, and changes of state. Teachers report, however, that density is a difficult concept for students to grasp. Researchers conducted pilot studies to determine whether students can understand a visual analog of density presented in computer graphics more easily than they can understand the concept of density inferred from manipulation of real world materials. Second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade students received two sets of parallel tasks: one involved manipulation or real materials and the other involved shapes presented in a computer display. Findings indicate that experience with computer models can help students to think about the difference between steel and aluminum cylinders as an intensive one--that is, stemming from the kind, not the amount of the material. Younger children, however, need help to see the computer analog as a "model" of density. (CW)

The concept of the density of a material has an important role in elementary and secondary school science curricula, but it is a difficult concept to grasp. This project explores why this should be and whether there are some simpler, more accessible notions which can serve as the basis for building a concept of density in students' minds during the later elementary school years. The study explores the effectiveness of using computer models to help students build an understanding of density. This teaching strategy proved to be moderately successful with sixth graders. It was found that the majority of students did correctly assimilate this model in a way that supported their understanding of density as an intensive quantity and that they were able to articulate some relevant differences between weight and density. It was found that this distinction was necessary for children to have success at ordering by relative densities and in understanding a phenomenon such as sinking and floating. Appendices supply a description of the computer programs, worksheets, lesson plans, and interview instruments. (CW)

Because density is unobservable and must be inferred from knowledge about weight and size, it is a difficult concept to teach and learn. Even after traditional instruction, many students still have an undifferentiated concept that mixes characteristics of both weight and density. In this study, researchers tested the effectiveness of a unit they created to help students make this difficult conceptual differentiation, which is crucial to understanding the particulate nature of matter. The Educational Technology Center's Weight/Density Unit uses both computer simulations and classroom activities with real materials of different weights, sizes, and densities. The simulations attempt to make density more visually accessible than it is with real objects. Researchers used the unit in one sixth-grade and one seventh-grade class. The findings suggest that providing conceptual change is both difficult and possible, and they further suggest that computer models, used in combination with hands-on materials can help students to understand an abstract and perceptually inaccessible concept such as density. Evidence from the pre- and posttest and the clinical interviews suggests that the teaching intervention brought about two kinds of change: (1) conceptual differentiation among students who initially made none; and (2) conceptual consolidation in which students who already had a beginning, fragile distinction deepened and extended their understanding. Appendixes make up the bulk of the volume. They include samples of the assessment instruments; teaching materials for three units, with worksheets; and a discussion of the computer programs. (CW)

This historiographic essay discusses and seeks to begin to address the need for a business history of the newspaper. The paper's first section clarifies the terms "business history,""economic history,""political history," and "history of economics," (which the paper suggests have been used interchangeably in the past despite the fact that they are not synonymous). This section extrapolates from the principal discipline of business history to construct a framework for the issues the business history of the newspaper would address. The paper's second section (through a partial review of the literature which concentrates on the scattered journal articles that historians frequently seem to overlook) reveals that while a substantial amount of work does need to be done in the business history of the newspaper, a body of knowledge on a broad range of the important issues exists and awaits historians' attention, criticism, and additions. One hundred eighty-eight notes are included. An appendix contains a six-page bibliography of the research published in scholarly journals. (SR)