This study examined the features of peer argumentation in middle school students' scientific inquiry. Participants were two boys and six girls in grade 8 of a middle school in Seoul, Korea. Students engaged in open inquiry activities in small groups. Each group prepared the report for peer review and then, during the peer discussion, presented their inquiry results while another group acted as critics, in a way similar to conference presentations by scientists. This study's data sources included audio-and video-tapes of discussions, copies of student reports, questionnaires completed by the students and transcripts of interviews with the students. It was found that the critical peer discussion in general proceeded through the following four stages: Focusing, Exchanging, Debating and Closing. In addition, 75.6% of evidence used in students' arguments was personal evidence and students used various cognitive and social strategies in the critical discussion. For an effective critical discussion, making good use of the Focusing Stage was found to be important factor. Students improved their interpretation and methods of experiment during the argumentation process and this feedback made the inquiry circular. Finally, we identify a model of argumentative scientific inquiry as an open inquiry that has the key components of authentic scientific inquiry.

The signal generated by a weak impulse propagates in an oscillatory way and dispersively in a gravitationally compacted granular chain. For the power-law type contact force, we show analytically that the type of dispersion follows power-laws in depth. The power-law for grain displacement signal is given by h − 1 4 (1− 1 p ) where h and p denote depth and the exponent of contact force, and the power-law for the grain velocity is h − 1 4 ( 1 3 + 1 p ) . Other depth-dependent power-laws for oscillation frequency, wavelength, and period are given by combining above two and the phase velocity power-law h

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We study the use of a thermal camera as an educational tool for physical phenomena. In particular, we check three factors: surface temperature, emissivity, and external thermal source for more physically accurate use. First, the surface temperature measured using the thermal camera is confirmed by direct comparison with the temperature obtained using a reference thermometer. Second, we demonstrate that using an appropriate emissivity of the target object is significant for accurately measuring the temperature. Finally, the exclusion of an external thermal source is essential for using a thermal camera as an accurate tool in thermal physics. We expect that this study will demonstrate the suitability of thermal cameras as convenient thermometers and the factors required to deliberately consider them in physics classes.

The purpose of the study is to explore the types and coping methods of dilemmas that pre-service science teachers experience during student teaching. For this, we collected 131 dilemma journals that 34 pre-service science teachers wrote during a four-week period of student teaching. Results show that first, there are five categories of dilemmas, they are, 'Which science teacher should I be?', 'What is good science teaching?', 'How should I build relationships with the people around me at school?', and 'Who am I as a student teacher?'. Second, pre-service science teachers' status as a students-teachers made them cope with dilemmas passively. Third, when they cope with the dilemmas, student-teachers considered the dilemmas as conflicts of irreconcilable alternatives rather than opportunities of conciliation and compromise, therefore, most pre-service science teachers choose just one alternative and only 20% of dilemmas are resolved by compromise choice. Finally, dilemmas which showed the features of science teaching are the dilemmas related to scientific inquiry teaching and science teaching-learning model. Based on the results, we discussed the implications for teacher education.