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Background/purpose. This study aimed to identify the impact of teaching science based on John Zahorek’s model on the acquisition of scientific concepts among seventh-grade female students.Materials/methods. It was based on the quasi-experimental method. The study participants, comprising 58 seventh-grade students, were intentionally selected from the Kasbah Zarqa District and divided into two groups. The sample was selected from among the two divisions by random appointment, where the experimental group consisted of 30 female students in the first division and the control group (28) female students in the second division.Results. After conducting statistical analysis through the SPSS program, the study showed a statistically significant effect at the significance level (α=0.05) of teaching science based on John Zahorek’s model in acquiring scientific concepts among seventh-grade female students.Conclusion. The study recommended a set of recommendations, the most prominent of which are: Adopting John Zahorek’s model as part of science education strategies in Jordanian schools.

Background/purpose. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a computerized instructional module based on artificial intelligence in acquiring scientific concepts and developing critical thinking among seventh-grade female students.Materials/methods. To achieve the study's objectives, an AI-based computerized instructional module was created, and two tests were prepared to measure their performance in acquiring scientific concepts and critical thinking. The study sample consisted of two classes of seventh-grade female students selected conveniently in the first semester of the 2023/2024 academic year, totaling 48 students. One class was randomly chosen as the experimental group of 27 students, taught using the computerized instructional module based on artificial intelligence. In contrast, the other class was the control group, with 21 students taught using the traditional method.Results. The study results showed a statistically significant difference in the acquisition of scientific concepts, both individually and collectively, and the development of critical thinking, both individually and collectively, between the performance of the two study groups in favor of the experimental group who studied using the artificial intelligence-based instructional moduleConclusion. The study recommended the importance of using smart applications in education, especially in the field of science teaching, due to their significant impact on achieving interactivity and practical experience, which contributes to enhancing students' understanding and motivating them to discover more scientific concepts innovatively and enjoyably and developing their critical thinking.

Students’ problem-solving ability depends on their understanding of related scientific concepts. Therefore, the modeling and assessment of students’ understanding of specific scientific concepts is important to promote students’ problem-solving ability, as it can find students’ understanding difficulties and explore breakthrough strategies accordingly. Inspired by the theory of knowledge integration and combined with the situational characteristics of science education in China, this study established a conceptual framework about buoyant force, which was applied to model students’ different understandings of it. And based on the established framework, an assessment of buoyant force was designed and tested among 622 Chinese lower-secondary school students. Through the analysis of the test data and the interview outcomes, it was found that students’ understanding of buoyant force could be divided into three levels of knowledge integration including novice, intermediate, and expert. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that an emphasis on the nature of buoyant force can be an effective strategy to help students achieve a deeper conceptual understanding of buoyant force, leading to a more integrated knowledge structure.

A critical assumption made in Kapur's (Instr Sci 40:651–672, 2012) productive failure design is that students have the necessary prerequisite knowledge resources to generate and explore solutions to problems before learning the targeted concept. Through two quasi-experimental studies, we interrogated this assumption in the context of learning a multilevel biological concept of monohybrid inheritance. In the first study, students were either provided or not provided with prerequisite micro-level knowledge prior to the generation phase. Findings suggested that students do not necessarily have adequate prior knowledge resources, especially those at the micro-level, to generate representations and solution methods for a multilevel concept such as monohybrid inheritance. The second study examined how this prerequisite knowledge provision influenced how much students learned from the subsequent instruction. Although the prerequisite knowledge provision helped students generate and explore the biological phenomenon at the micro- and macro-levels, the provision seemingly did not confer further learning advantage to these students. Instead, they had learning gains similar to those without the provision, and further reported lower lesson engagement and greater mental effort during the subsequent instruction.

Cooling massive particles to the quantum ground state allows fundamental tests of quantum mechanics to be made; it would provide an experimental probe of the boundary between the classical and quantum worlds. Delić et al. laser-cooled an optically trapped solid-state object (a ∼150-nanometer-diameter silic a nanoparticle) into its quantum ground state of motion starting from room temperature. Because the object is levitated using optical forces, the experimental configuration can be switched to free fall, thereby providing a test bed for several macroscopic quantum experiments. Science , this issue p. 892 A levitated nanoparticle trapped in an optical cavity is cooled to the quantum ground state. Quantum control of complex objects in the regime of large size and mass provides opportunities for sensing applications and tests of fundamental physics. The realization of such extreme quantum states of matter remains a major challenge. We demonstrate a quantum interface that combines optical trapping of solids with cavity-mediated light-matter interaction. Precise control over the frequency and position of the trap laser with respect to the optical cavity allowed us to laser-cool an optically trapped nanoparticle into its quantum ground state of motion from room temperature. The particle comprises 10 8 atoms, similar to current Bose-Einstein condensates, with the density of a solid object. Our cooling technique, in combination with optical trap manipulation, may enable otherwise unachievable superposition states involving large masses.

This paper is concerned with the investigation for finding missed models that combining between thermodynamic and kinetic theory of gases. The research was initiated by supposing a fixed number of molecules at gas state in a closed box of two equivalents parts. When the barrier between those two parts is removed, the volume of the box will be double of the first stage. It was concluded that the present study gives confirmation for the already existing models with no new developed model unless the employment of Charles's law in derivation process, in spite of the last law is proper for ideal gas rather than the proposed real gas. The derived model of entropy (ΔS) using the last law gives the same value of ΔS that calculated from the standard model. The presented article can be considered as a good exercise for students in order to get an idea of how one could think for connect two different subjects for developing new models which could help in understanding the scientific theories and also in opening new doors of science.

Present-day galaxies are surrounded by cool and enriched halo gas extending for hundreds of kiloparsecs. This halo gas is thought to be the dominant reservoir of material available to fuel future star formation, but direct constraints on its mass and physical properties have been difficult to obtain. We report the detection of a fast radio burst (FRB 181112), localized with arcsecond precision, that passes through the halo of a foreground galaxy. Analysis of the burst shows that the halo gas has low net magnetization and turbulence. Our results imply predominantly diffuse gas in massive galactic halos, even those hosting active supermassive black holes, contrary to some previous results.

First-order relationships between organic matter content and mineral surface area have been widely reported and are implicated in stabilization and long-term preservation of organic matter. However, the nature and stability of organomineral interactions and their connection with mineralogical composition have remained uncertain. In this study, we find that continentally derived organic matter of pedogenic origin is stripped from smectite mineral surfaces upon discharge, dispersal, and sedimentation in distal ocean settings. In contrast, organic matter sourced from ancient rocks that is tightly associated with mica and chlorite endures in the marine realm. These results imply that the persistence of continentally derived organic matter in ocean sediments is controlled to a first order by phyllosilicate mineralogy.

Improving the platinum (Pt) mass activity for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) requires optimization of both the specific activity and the electrochemically active surface area (ECSA). We found that solution-synthesized Pt/NiO core/shell nanowires can be converted into PtNi alloy nanowires through a thermal annealing process and then transformed into jagged Pt nanowires via electrochemical dealloying. The jagged nanowires exhibit an ECSA of 118 square meters per gram of Pt and a specific activity of 11.5 milliamperes per square centimeter for ORR (at 0.9 volts versus reversible hydrogen electrode), yielding a mass activity of 13.6 amperes per milligram of Pt, nearly double previously reported best values. Reactive molecular dynamics simulations suggest that highly stressed, undercoordinated rhombus-rich surface configurations of the jagged nanowires enhance ORR activity versus more relaxed surfaces.

Statistical mechanics relies on the maximization of entropy in a system at thermal equilibrium. However, an isolated quantum many-body system initialized in a pure state remains pure during Schrödinger evolution, and in this sense it has static, zero entropy. We experimentally studied the emergence of statistical mechanics in a quantum state and observed the fundamental role of quantum entanglement in facilitating this emergence. Microscopy of an evolving quantum system indicates that the full quantum state remains pure, whereas thermalization occurs on a local scale. We directly measured entanglement entropy, which assumes the role of the thermal entropy in thermalization. The entanglement creates local entropy that validates the use of statistical physics for local observables. Our measurements are consistent with the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis.