Download Issue 14 as PDF [5.4 MB]

Editorial Events Feature article: Pierre Léna Cutting-edge science Teaching activities Projects in science education Science topics Teacher profile Scientist profile Reviews Resources on the web

Editorial

• Welcome to the fourteenth issue of Science in School
  Read | PDF [144 KB]

Events

• Forthcoming events
  Read (frequently updated)


• Science on Stage: recent activities
  Read up on the latest Science on Stage events in Spain, Germany and Canada.
  Read (English, Italian) | PDF [606 KB]


• Teachers and scientists face to face: the first EIROforum teacher school
  Eleanor Hayes reports on the first EIROforum teacher school, which took place at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, in November 2009.
  Read | PDF [303 KB]

Feature article: Pierre Léna

• Science is a collective human adventure: interview with Pierre Léna
  Pierre Léna talks to Marlene Rau about science education, the importance of curiosity, and his commitment to inquiry-based science teaching.
  Read (English, French, Hungarian, Spanish) | PDF [758 KB]

Cutting-edge science

• Getting ahead in evolution
  Èlia Benito Gutierrez from EMBL talks about how her favourite animal, amphioxus, could be the key to understanding the evolution of vertebrates.
  Read (English, French, Greek, Portuguese) | PDF [471 KB]


• Starch: a structural mystery
  Dominique Cornuéjols and Serge Pérez explore the intricacies of starch structure - and show that the mystery is by no means solved.
  Read (English, French, Italian, Spanish) | PDF [532 KB]


• Biodiversity: a look back at 2009
  Matt Kaplan takes us on a whirlwind tour through the previous year's most inspiring discoveries of biodiversity.
  Read (English, French, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish) | PDF [463 KB]

Teaching activities

• The microbial fuel cell: electricity from yeast
  We all know that yeast is used to produce beer and bread - but electricity? Dean Madden shows how it works.
  Read (English, French, Italian, Romanian, Spanish) | PDF [639 KB]


• Bringing particle physics to life: build your own cloud chamber
  Francisco Barradas-Solas and Paloma Alameda-Meléndez demonstrate how to bring particle physics into the classroom with a homemade particle detector.
  Read (English, French, Greek, Italian, Maltese, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish) | PDF [356 KB]


• Spectrometry at school: hands-on experiments
  A Slovenian-UK collaboration introduce a selection of spectrometry experiments for school.
  Read (English, Catalan, French, German, Polish, Romanian, Slovene, Spanish) | PDF [377 KB]

Projects in science education

• Physics in kindergarten and primary school
  Werner and Gabriele Stetzenbach show how secondary-school students can introduce the world of physics to kindergarten and primary-school children.
  Read (English, French, Greek, Portuguese, Romanian) | PDF [479 KB]


• The 'Radon school survey': measuring radioactivity at home
  Marco Budinich and Massimo Vascotto introduce a school project to measure radon levels in your own home.
  Read (English, French, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish) | PDF [238 KB]

Science topics

• Natural selection at the molecular level
  Which genetic sequences are beneficial and how do they help us to survive? It's not easy to demonstrate, as Jarek Bryk reports.
  Read (English, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish) | PDF [471 KB]


• Chemistry and light
  Peter Douglas and Mike Garley investigate how chemistry and light interact in many aspects of our everyday life.
  Read (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish) | PDF [483 KB]

Teacher profile

• Juggling careers: science and teaching in Germany
  Jörg Gutschank tells Vienna Leigh how his circus skills inspired him to take up teaching, and how they help in the classroom.
  Read (English, German, Polish) | PDF [369 KB]

Scientist profile

• A scientific mind
  Lucy Patterson talks to Yasemin Koc from the British Council about scientific thinking as a versatile tool for life.
  Read (English, Spanish)| PDF [299 KB]

Reviews

• The Practical Chemistry website
  Read (English, French) | PDF [164 KB]


• Why Evolution is True
  Read | PDF [197 KB]

Resources on the web

• Science comics and cartoons
  Mico Tatalovic suggests some useful comics to help promote and explain science to students.
  Read (English, Italian) | PDF [406 KB]