The purpose of this study was two‐fold: (1) to understand the conceptual frameworks that sixth‐grade students use to explain the nature of matter and molecules, and (2) to assess the effectiveness of two alternative curriculum units in promoting students' scientific understanding. The study involved 15 sixth‐grade science classes taught by 12 teachers in each of two successive years. Data were collected through paper‐and‐pencil tests and clinical interviews. The results revealed that students' entering conceptions differed from scientific conceptions in various ways. These differences included molecular conceptions concerning the nature, arrangement, and motion of molecules as well as macroscopic conceptions concerning the nature of matter and its physical changes. The results also showed that the students taught by the revised unit in Year 2 performed significantly better than the students taught by the original commercial curriculum unit in Year 1 for 9 of the 10 conceptual categories. Implications for science teaching and curriculum development are discussed.

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Faculty members at Purdue University in the departments of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Biological Sciences, and Chemistry conducted a reform effort for the undergraduate curriculum utilizing action‐based research teams. These action‐based research teams developed, implemented, and assessed constructivist approaches to teaching undergraduate science content in each department. This effort utilized a partnership of scientists, science educators, master teachers, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Results indicated that the project partners were able to (a) implement more inquiry‐based teaching that emphasized conceptual understanding, (b) provide opportunities for cooperative learning experiences, (c) use models as an ongoing theme, (d) link concepts and models to real‐world situations, e.g., field trips, (e) provide a more diverse range of assessment strategies, and (f) have students present their understandings in a variety of different forms. Further, we found that we were able to (a) involve graduate and undergraduate students, classroom teachers, scientists, and science educators together to work on the reform in a collaborative manner, (b) bring multiple perspectives for teaching and for science to support instruction and, (c) provide scientists and graduate science students (who will become university professors) with more effective teaching models. We also found that the collaborative action‐based research process was effective for contributing to the reform of undergraduate teaching.

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Scientific habits of mind are an integral part of contemporary definitions of scientific literacy being presented in national reform documents such as Science For All Americans (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989) and the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996). These scientific habits also serve as an important link between scientific inquiry and science education. This article focuses on three habits associated with personal values and attitudes and one habit associated with the social skills of doing science. These four habits of mind balance the objectivist perspective that misrepresents science as a cold and emotionless abstraction (Pert, 1997) by highlighting a subjective view of scientific activity that is often omitted from school science. The four habits of mind are first illustrated through the story of a modern scientific investigation and then described as the basis of a school laboratory science experience. Implications related to the integration of these four habits of mind into science laboratory reform are discussed.