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This paper describes the analysis of teacher pedagogical content knowledge for the topics of heat, energy, and temperature. The results of the study of these (n=6) 7th and 8th grade teachers indicate that teachers may be weak in this type of knowledge despite their experience and pedagogical expertise. Specific information is provided about existing and desired pedagogical content knowledge for this topic area, thereby identifying knowledge that can help teachers be more effective at facilitating the development of scientific knowledge, and alerting teacher educators to possible areas of weakness. In addition, the conceptual schemes that were used to identify teacher pedagogical content knowledge provides information that can be useful for conceptually framing analyses of this type of knowledge for other areas which is of immediate advantage to researchers, and of eventual benefit to teachers and teacher educators as this type of knowledge is catalogued and shared. Teacher reports of their instruction indicate that the knowledge evident in their interview was not necessarily employed in their teaching. This discrepancy indicates that the complexity of how teacher knowledge translates into instructional actions and points to the need for investigation of teacher knowledge and decision-making in all phases of teaching. (Author/MKR)

A Youth Career Centre in South Alberta has been proposed to fulfill the career development needs of youth. The center should be based on the tenets of career development theory that suggest that five basic processes are necessary to facilitate the career development of youth: initiation, exploration, decision making, preparation, and implementation. Results of a survey of community services for the career development of youth in Calgary showed no single service providing assistance in all basic career planning processes. The following gaps in the service network have been identified: lack of interagency collaboration; need for collaboration between business, schools, and agencies; need for services with mandates to help youth in specific age parameters; lack of consistency in program delivery; service delivery hindered by inadequate funding; service deliverers and educators overwhelmed by the enormous needs of youth in the city; services spread throughout the city and difficult for some youth to access them; career development with an occupational and not a life-planning and life-roles focus; over emphasis on skills development; inadequacy of the system's capacity to deal with dropouts; reactive rather than proactive services; and poorly marketed services. Interviews with Calgary practitioners regarding these gaps and needs resulted in overwhelming support for a centralized, specialized youth career center. The complexities of the problems suggest that services need to be multifaceted. (Contains 32 references.) (YLB)

In answer to a question about the inclusion of multiply handicapped children into the scope of the Council for Exceptional Children's Division on Physically Handicapped and Homebound, the author reviews the confusion over the term severely handicapped, describes the complimentary role of the American Association for the Education of the Severely/Profoundly Handicapped, and notes that cerebral palsied individuals (the majority of whom are multiply handicapped) have for a long time been considered as a subgroup of the orthopedically handicapped. (CL)

The conference paper "A qualitative model of evaluation of computer usage by persons with Aphasia " is presented. The paper will be presented at the 12th Biennial Conference of the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication in Dusseldorf, Germany from July 29 to August 5, 2006. It discusses technology usage by people with aphasia.

The article focuses on a study which seeks to examine a mathematic lesson on measurement using two theoretical approaches, such as Learning Activity theory and Variation Theory which state that the multiplicity of human is determined by social practice. Information related to students' learning actions in a learning task is presented.