Dr. Spencer Published in the Journal of Chemical Education
Ranney School Faculty member Dr. Roxanne Spencer, Chair of the Science Department, recently published, “Recipe for Developing High-School Research Projects Illustrated by a Student’s Interpretation of Historical Metal Casting” in the Journal of Chemical Education.
The article talks about how Incorporating research activities at the secondary-school level is an effective method to teach science; however, students and teachers may feel intimidated when trying to identify a suitable research topic. Ideas may be obtained from short articles in periodicals or newspapers to allow students to design their own experiments and interpret data. To illustrate how high-school research projects can be developed from such sources and accomplished with simple techniques and tools, a student-directed project inspired by historical metal-casting methods is described. References to key steps in the process of scientific inquiry are included to demonstrate how simple ideas can yield research questions.
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