5 Editorial

6 Letters


7 Writing workshop


9 Science notes

9 A day in the life ... of a mycologist David Moore
11 A model of the ear's central canal Phil Grant
12 Some misconceptions surrounding greenhouse gases Wilson Flood
14 Be more explosive to engage pupils in chemistry Gwil Mason
17 The risk of meeting a hazard Richard J. C. Brown
18 Class practical on spinning coloured discs Alan Trusler
19 Simple 35 mm novelties Frank Harris
21 Measuring the half-life of radon-220 using a few thoriated gas mantles
Ralph Whitcher


29 Supporting student teachers' subject knowledge and approaches to teaching and learning the physical sciences
Roger Lock and Allan Soares
A novel, 'point of need', approach, to help student teachers teach the physical sciences


37 What contribution can residential field courses make to the education of 11-14 year-olds?
Ruth Amos and Michael Reiss
Residential fieldwork can have a number of benefits for science education but teachers need to plan how to maximise these


45 Authentic alternatives to practical work
Katrina Fox
How authentic learning activities can be used as alternatives to practical work to improve pupil engagement in the science classroom


53 Performance and worship: understanding the liturgy of teaching and learning physics
John Wallace and Jennifer Donovan
What lessons can we learn for teaching and learning physics from the practices of church liturgy?


61 TCSS: a new computer system for developing formative assessments
Derek Cheung
How can computer technology assist implementation of formative assessment in school? This article describes the use of a new assessment tool.


71 Children's ideas about micro-organisms
Jenny Byrne and John Sharp
Children's ideas about micro-organisms are poorly documented. This small-scale survey provides some up-to-date information and ideas for teaching.


81 What the papers say: science coverage by UK national newspapers
Fiona Hyden and Chris King
Newspaper science stories focus mainly on medicine and biology, with some earth science, technology and astronomy and very little physics and chemistry. How might this affect our science teaching in the future?


87 The DNA double helix - a story with some strange twists and turns
Anthony C. T. North
How do we know that the Watson-Crick model is right?


93 Pupils' knowledge of birds: how good is it and where does it come from?
Stewart Evans, Sarah Dixon and Justina Heslop
The ability of UK school pupils to name bird species is poor and seems to reflect a decline in field-ecology teaching. This needs to be reversed if the public are to become more environmentally literate.


99 Testing weather lore in school
Peter Freeland
Rhymes and sayings used to predict weather conditions were once relied on by farmers, but how accurate are they?


113 Do we deal in knowledge in science lessons?
Seán Moran
As science educators, we assume that a major part of our role involves dealing with knowledge, but this is often not the case in school science lessons


119 How science works: what do we do now?
Martin Monk
Changes to the key stage 4 programme of study provide a new challenge for science teachers in England in terms of their planning of schemes of work and activities for learning


123 Using a digital camera to study motion
Andrew J. McNeil and Steven Daniel
A digital camera is an excellent device for recording a range of motions and interactions of objects - SHM, free-fall, and elastic and inelastic collisions - so they can subsequently be analysed

128 Book reviews

138 ICT reviews

142 Science websearch

144 Notes for contributors