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This work details the ramifications of online learning using a novel, personalized learning system regarding high-school students' experiences, attitudes, self-efficacy, and achievements during the 2020-2021 school year. Although research has explored the implications of remote and online learning on education worldwide, little attention was dedicated to high-school students' experience with, and their inclination towards, learning with such systems. The research was conducted on high-school chemistry students in a mixed-method approach. We found a significant rise in students' attitude towards the use of technology in chemistry classrooms, and their self-efficacy to learn chemistry using technology, whereas no significant change was found regarding students' attitudes towards the personalization of chemistry and chemistry as a subject. Students who learned using the system's personalization capabilities had a significant rise in their grades, compared with students who did not receive the full treatment. Qualitative analysis of students' responses to open-ended questions revealed the changes in students' experiences with the online, remote learning process, derived from their interfaces with the learning process, as they grew more accustomed to the system, understood it better, and saw its benefits to their chemistry learning. The reasons for the misalignment of the findings in this work, along with global trends in online learning are discussed, and future directions for research are proposed.

Diversity and differences between students are the reality that teachers deal with daily. To address this reality, developments in education aim to provide teachers with the knowledge and requisite skills needed for differentiated instruction (DI). DI is a pedagogical-didactic approach that enables teachers to systematically address students’ diverse learning needs. However, no validated instruments currently exist to measure or evaluate teachers’ and students’ beliefs toward DI in chemistry. Hence, there is a need to develop such questionnaires to examine students’ and teachers’ sense of self-efficacy (SE) and attitudes (AT). We describe the development and validation processes of such questionnaire that have been developed based on relevant literature on DI and on teachers’ experience with DI in a heterogeneous classroom. The items were validated by experts’ panel, a readability test, and a field test. A confirmatory factor analysis was undertaken to investigate the factor structure of the teachers and students’ questionnaires based on pilot test reliability, Cronbach’s alpha revisions, and rerun alpha. As a result, the SE and AT of students towards DI instrument entailed 38 items with a five-factor structure indicating a high reliability. Three factors of attitudes, (α) = 0.98, and two factors of self-efficacy, (α) = 0.91. The SE and AT of teachers entailed 55 items with a five-factor structure indicating a high reliability of self-efficacy, (α) = 0.95 and of attitudes towards DI in heterogeneous chemistry classrooms, (α) = 0.93.

One of the primary objectives of an education system is to prepare students for their adult lives by imparting them with the requisite knowledge, qualifications, and skills that will enable them to confront future challenges effectively. A whitepaper published by the Israeli Ministry of Education titled “The Graduate’s Image” stresses the importance of incorporating specific skills into the school curriculum. However, there is a lack of educational programs that can transform teaching skills into actual practice. In light of this conclusion, we developed the program “Chemistry, Climate & the Numbers in Between” to foster these skills and produce graduates with the ability to adopt a critical approach and a well-informed perspective toward the world. In this paper, we delineated the cognitive skills developed in the program. The results indicate that innovative program can be utilized to integrate several important skills into a chemistry lesson. The program has the potential to equip and empower future citizens to address and tackle global challenges while utilizing cognitive skills using chemistry knowledge. However, it is important to note that learning in this way requires much more time than a regular lesson does and requires a significant commitment and investment from the teacher.

Professional development courses help teachers integrate new content knowledge into the high-school curriculum. Designing practical online courses for this purpose is challenging, particularly in emerging fields such as nanotechnology. In this study, we evaluated such a course in three complementary dimensions: (1) knowledge, (2) the complexity of learners' understanding, and (3) learners' difficulties during the course. We evaluated the first aspect using a pre--post-knowledge test, the second using the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) taxonomy applied to the course's assignments, and the third by analyzing online activity reports and semi-structured interviews. Three cohorts comprising 95 teachers participated in this course from 2016 to 2019. Our multi-dimensional analysis revealed that teachers' knowledge of nanotechnology concepts improved. They were able to connect the advanced content they learned to the high-school chemistry curriculum at different levels of complexity. The evaluation process also enabled us to identify difficult sections of the course. These findings can contribute to designing the curriculum of future professional development online science courses in terms of the intended learning outcomes.

Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, all teachers' training courses scheduled for summer 2020 had to transition to online formats. For the arts-integrating course "Teaching Chemistry by a Creative Approach", this shift jeopardized the course's essence, since learning by this approach is based on creative, hands-on, and active learning. Here we describe how the course format and contents evolved from a planned face-to-face format to an adapted, successful online learning experience. Two main goals were considered during the adaptation process: (1) making available to teachers the theoretical and practical backgrounds necessary to internalize the arts-integrating approach through creative, active learning strategies, and (2) providing teachers with actual tools through which they can rethink and develop their own teaching materials to suit remote teaching by incorporating supporting neuropedagogical aspects. Evaluating the immediate and follow-up questionnaires, as well as the assessment of teachers' course assignments, suggests that the online course successfully preserved the essence and the main objectives of the original course, that the course was useful for remote teaching, and that it seems to have had an impact on teachers' practices. We attribute this impact to the well-thought-out process of adapting the course to promote creative, active online teaching and learning. In addition to modifying the course's format, this process expanded the arts-integrating approach to acknowledge the inherent difficulties in learning chemistry, existing also while learning online. We propose this process as a model to be used by educators to rethink and adapt their own practices to improve distance chemistry teaching and learning.

Using three-dimensional models in chemistry is a common teaching practice aimed at elevating the level of understanding of abstract concepts. However, the experience of using chemical models is still quite passive in terms of students' input, requiring the students to utilize mainly visual, auditory, and some tactile information processing pathways. We present here a sequence of four short activities, which together constitute a change in the traditional teaching practice regarding molecular geometry. The goal is to offer a more active approach to working with models, one that involves multiple content processing pathways and exposes the learner to varied modes of learning. This set of activities was developed in line with the neuropedagogical literature while keeping in mind the brain mechanisms expected to affect learning and memory consolidation. We kept the activities simple so that implementation requires only minor adjustments to the routine practice, thus making this neuropedagogical approach accessible to chemistry teachers. A positive contribution of this kind of approach was evident from the scores of 10th grade chemistry students during consequent pilots.

Research based on educational data mining conducted at academic institutions is often limited by the institutional policy with regard to the type of learning management system and the detail level of its activity reports. Often, researchers deal with only raw data. Such data normally contain numerous fictitious user activities that can create a bias in the activity trends, consequently leading to inaccurate conclusions unless careful strategies for data cleaning, filtering, and indexing are applied. In addition, pre-processing phases are not always reported in detail in the scientific literature. As educational data mining and learning analytics methodologies become increasingly popular in educational research, it is important to promote researchers and educational policymakers' awareness of the pre-processing phase, which is essential to create a reliable database prior to any analysis. This phase can be divided into four consecutive pre-processing stages: data gathering, data interpretation, database creation, and data organization. Taken together, these stages stress the technical and cooperative nature of this type of research, and the need for careful interpretation of the studied parameters. To illustrate these aspects, we applied these stages to online educational data collected from several chemistry courses conducted at two academic institutions. Our results show that adequate pre-processing of the data can prevent major inaccuracies in the research findings, and significantly increase the authenticity and reliability of the conclusions.

In this communication paper we describe how a research-based approach was applied in Israel to support high-school chemistry teachers, who continued to teach using technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Within the TPACK (technological pedagogical content knowledge) framework for teachers' knowledge in technological environments, we developed a questionnaire for chemistry teachers, with the goal to reveal the difficulties they encountered, their needs, and their means for sharing their knowledge, materials, and teaching strategies for online teaching. On the basis of the analysis of the collected data, we provided a research-based response that focused on the teachers' needs when using technology to teach chemistry. Teachers' needs, in terms of their knowledge, skills, and means of support, which were identified in the research and the activities that were developed in order to address them, are presented. We emphasized the research-based process that was applied to address teachers' needs during the pandemic.

A one-hour guided discourse was designed to support developing the outreach communication skills of physics experts with middle school students. The participants consisted of 12 physics researchers who conduct research in the field of nanoscale science and technology (NST). The guided discourse consisted of a professional development task for preparing the researchers to communicate their NST research. Each scientist was presented with two sets of concepts (NST essential concepts and middle school physics concepts) using a visual board and was asked to find connections between them. Before and after linking the two sets of concepts, the scientists were invited to describe their research. The findings showed that a change had taken place in the concepts the scientists used to describe their research: an increased use of concepts from middle school physics and a decreased use of complex scientific jargon. A qualitative examination of the results revealed different types of participants, based on the way the scientists were influenced by the task. Each of the three types of science communicators is presented as a case study. We suggest that this task can be applied to prepare scientists to communicate with middle school students.

The goal of this research is to provide a rich set of connections between two fields: (i) Nanoscale science and technology (NST) and (ii) topics from a common middle school physics curriculum. NST is emerging as one of the most promising new fields of the 21st century, which is one of the many arguments for including NST topics in secondary science education. A specially designed guided discourse with NST scientists was used to produce a map of connections between the two fields. During the discourse, the scientists were presented with two sets of concepts using a visual board and were asked to find connections between them. All suggested connections and the corresponding context offered by the scientists were arranged and presented as a rich set of connections. For example, (i) the NST concept of characterization methods is connected to mechanical forces and can be explained using the example of an atomic force microscope; (ii) the NST concept of size-dependent properties was connected to 7th grade inquiry skills by explaining the size dependence of accuracy, errors, and defects. This set of connections was validated by an experienced middle school science teacher in an open discussion regarding teachers adopting and implementing the resulting insertion points for the curriculum. This resulting set of connections can be used to enrich the curriculum within the NST field. It also provides a perspective on scientists' views regarding insertion of contemporary NST topics into physics middle school education.

In this paper, we describe the structure, development, and validation process of customized pedagogical kits (CPKs) for differentiated instruction (DI) in chemistry. The CPKs rely on the DI approach, comprising varied pedagogical activities (e.g., games, inquiry activities, puzzles, simulations, models) designed as treatments, to help chemistry teachers personalize their teaching according to students’ misconceptions. The kits are based on the response to intervention (RTI) model, where the teacher applies an ongoing evaluation to meet the individual student’s needs within an evolutionary flexible process of learning. Each kit includes a diagnostic task, its characterization, pedagogical treatments for diagnosed misconceptions, and an assessment task, to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatments implemented in the classroom. The kits are developed along relevant literature criteria for using DI strategies and are based on constant validation and ongoing assessment, as demonstrated in the Redox-reaction CPK development. The validation and impact of the CPK on students’ achievements are supported by 25 chemistry teachers that implemented the full kit in their classrooms. Furthermore, the CPKs developed in the present research have succeeded in resolving many of the difficulties and challenges mentioned in the literature as obstructing the implementation of DI.

The Maker movement has started to influence the field of science education. However, a tension exists between the movement's informal grassroots learning emphasis on open-ended personalized projects and the requirements of the formal and standardized science education curriculum. This study explores how high school chemistry teachers in Israel experienced a 32-h professional development (PD) course on "Chemistry Teachers as Makers" as a vehicle to suggest specific recommendations that might productively introduce the Maker approach into high school chemistry education. By analyzing the course syllabus, in-depth interviews of four participating teachers, teacher projects, and reflections of the two course instructors, the study explores how the teachers experienced the PD Maker course, i.e., what interested them, how they compared themselves to Makers, how they navigated their open-ended projects, and what they perceived as the pros and cons for introducing Makers into chemistry education. The findings present five overarching themes that emerged from the data analysis, which provide the background to the study's four interconnected recommendations. The study contributes to the research literature on bridging the gap between the informal learning emphasis of the Maker movement with the formal educational emphasis of high school science, with a focus on the professional development of teachers.

Although understandings of scientific inquiry (as opposed to conducting inquiry) are included in science education reform documents around the world, little is known about what students have learned about inquiry during their elementary school years. This is partially due to the lack of any assessment instrument to measure understandings about scientific inquiry. However, a valid and reliable assessment has recently been developed and published, Views About Scientific Inquiry (VASI; Lederman et al. [2014], Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 65-83). The purpose of this large-scale international project was to collect the first baseline data on what beginning middle school students have learned about scientific inquiry during their elementary school years. Eighteen countries/regions spanning six continents including 2,634 students participated in the study. The participating countries/regions were: Australia, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Mainland China, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States. In many countries, science is not formally taught until middle school, which is the rationale for choosing seventh grade students for this investigation. This baseline data will simultaneously provide information on what, if anything, students learn about inquiry in elementary school, as well as their beginning knowledge as they enter secondary school. It is important to note that collecting data from all of the approximately 200 countries globally was not humanly possible, and it was also not possible to collect data from every region of each country. The results overwhelmingly show that students around the world at the beginning of grade seven have very little understandings about scientific inquiry. Some countries do show reasonable understandings in certain aspects but the overall picture of understandings of scientific inquiry is not what is hoped for after completing 6 years of elementary education in any country.

Regular high-school chemistry teachers view gifted students as one of several types of students in a regular (mixed-ability) classroom. Gifted students have a range of unique abilities that characterize their learning process: mostly they differ in three key learning aspects: their faster learning pace, increased depth of understanding, and special interests. If gifted students are to develop their abilities and potential, and learn optimally in a regular classroom, the teaching must be adjusted to meet their special needs. Chemistry high-school curricula have built-in potential to cater to the special needs of gifted students. Chemistry learning entails laboratory work and comprehension of abstract concepts. In the classroom, the interactions between teachers and students are core events that trigger other class events. In the present study the interactions between teachers and gifted students in a regular classroom, which are specific for chemistry teaching, were studied. Two general categories of interactions with gifted students were found to be unique to the chemistry classroom: (1) interactions involving laboratory work and (2) interactions involving the challenge of teaching chemistry content. We found that since gifted students master abstract chemistry concepts quickly and with minimum scaffolding, no interactions regarding this aspect were reported. Gifted students do not need all the instruction time teachers usually devote to explaining abstract concepts in chemistry, concepts that are considered difficult for other students. The present study indicates the essential need of enhancing chemistry teachers' knowledge regarding teaching gifted students in the chemistry classroom. This includes knowledge about how gifted students learn in general, and its adaptation to the chemistry classroom and the chemistry laboratory according to academic and curricular needs of the gifted students.

The study describes the process of adopting new curriculum materials, which had been developed in the PARSEL project in several European countries, into the local educational science classroom of another country. The goal of the PARSEL project was to raise the popularity and relevance of science teaching by enhancing students scientific and technological literacy and by identifying suitable teaching/learning materials, based on relevant context-based educational approaches. All PARSEL materials are organized in a website and are freely accessible by science teachers around the world. In order to increase the teachers ownership towards the new materials, a "bottom-up" approach that included a teacher workshop for modifying the PARSEL modules for the needs of teachers was implemented. The teachers used the modified modules in their classes and reflect upon the whole process, after it was completed. Data have been collected using various research tools, such as, teachers questionnaires, teachers interviews and teachers focus group interviews. The results indicate that the "bottom-up" process increased teacher ownership towards the PARSEL modules and helped the teachers to align their teaching with the philosophy and the teaching style of the PARSEL project. It was also indicated that the students found the modules to be popular and interesting. (Contains 1 figure and 3 footnotes.)

Two different approaches for chemistry education are presented in this paper: teaching and learning chemistry through contemporary research and using a historical approach. Essential dimensions in science education are used to study the differences between the two approaches. This includes the rationale of each approach, the scientific content, as well as students’ and teachers’ perspectives. At first glance, the two approaches look different and even contradict each other. However, a deeper investigation shows that there are common themes that connect the two approaches. Chemistry education is used to represent the historical approach and Nanoscale Science and Teachnology (NST) in chemistry education is used as the context for learning science through a contemporary research approach. The paper can be used by chemistry teachers as a preliminary guide for consideration of adapting one of these approaches in their class.

The high-school chemistry curriculum is loaded with many important chemical concepts that are taught at the high-school level and it is therefore very difficult to add modern contents to the existing curriculum. However, many studies have underscored the importance of integrating modern chemistry contents such as nanotechnology into a high-school curriculum. When students are exposed to nanotechnology, they perceive chemistry as more relevant to their life, and more modern than the chemistry they usually study at school, and consequently, their continuous motivation to study chemistry and related subjects increases. In the current study we identified topics in the high-school chemistry curriculum in Israel into which the essential nano-scale science and technology (NST) concepts can be integrated. Insertion points for all 8 NST essential concepts were found. We discuss the importance of ways in which chemistry educators can implement the results for updating the chemistry curriculum, thus making it more modern and relevant to the actual chemistry research that is conducted.

Recent efforts in the science education community have highlighted the need to integrate research and theory from science communication research into more general science education scholarship. These synthesized research perspectives are relatively novel but serve an important need to better understand the impacts that the advent of rapidly emerging technologies will have on a new generation of scientists and engineers including their formal communication with engaged citizenry. This cross-national study examined postsecondary science and engineering students' (n = 254 from five countries: Austria, Finland, France, Israel, and USA) perspectives on the role of science communication in their own formal science and engineering education. More broadly, we examined participants' understanding of their perceived responsibilities of communicating science and engineering to the general public when an issue contains complex social and ethical implications (SEI). The study is contextualized in the emergent technology of nanotechnology for which SEI are of particular concern and for which the general public often perceives conflicting risks and benefits. Findings indicate that student participants' hold similar views on the need for their own training in communication as future scientists and engineers. When asked about the role that ethics and risk perception plays in research, development, and public communication of nanotechnology, participants demonstrate similar trajectories of perspectives that are, however, often anchored in very different levels of beginning concern. Results are discussed in the context of considerations for science communication training within formal science education curricula globally.

The goal of this research was to examine how Israeli chemistry teachers at high school level use Facebook groups to facilitate learning. Two perspectives were used: Teachers' TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) and the self-efficacy beliefs of chemistry teachers for using CLFG (chemistry learning Facebook groups). Three different case studies were chosen and qualitative and quantitative research tools were used to learn about the teachers' self-efficacy beliefs and knowledge. More specifically, a validated questionnaire for measuring teachers' self-efficacy beliefs for using Facebook and for integrating Facebook into teaching was developed. We show that the initial beliefs (not based on a real acquaintance of Facebook) were replaced by more realistic efficacy-beliefs after the teachers started to work with the CLFG and that the technological support provided to each teacher, together with their mastery experience, supported the development of strong self-efficacy beliefs regarding the use of CLFG. Teachers' TPACK was investigated by analyzing their interviews and the interactions in their CLFG. We found that the notion regarding what constitutes learning in the CLFG had not changed during the experiment but rather, the teachers knew better how they can facilitate this leaning. In addition they better integrated links to videos and visualizations that supported understanding abstract chemistry concepts. Interestingly, the intervention that was conducted did not influence teachers' perceptions of learning; however, it was found to serve as an additional tool for supporting their self-efficacy beliefs by providing vicarious experience for the teachers. We therefore recommend performing a longer intervention in the future.

If we wish to integrate modern science such as nanotechnology into the school science curriculum, we need to find the natural insertion point of modern science with the science, technology, engineering and math curriculum. However, integrating nanoscale science and technology (NST) essential concepts into the middle school science curriculum is challenging. The current study was designed to identify the insertion points of the eight NST essential concepts in the middle school science and technology curriculum. Middle school science and technology teachers underwent a course that included all eight NST essential concepts, aiming to help them understand the NST essential concepts in depth. Then, they were asked to identify a natural insertion point in the existing science and technology curriculum for each of the NST essential concepts. To support research validation, two different groups of teachers participated in two sequential stages of the study (the identification stage and the validation stage). The teachers in the identification stage identified the insertion points of all eight NST essential concepts in the subjects of the science and technology curriculum, which reflects the relevance of the NST concepts from the teachers’ perspective in terms of pedagogical level. The majority of the identified insertion points were validated in the second stage. Forty-two insertion points of the NST essential concepts were suggested to be integrated in middle school science and technology curriculum. All the insertion points that were suggested in the identification stage were confirmed in the validation stage. Another 11 new insertion points were added at the validation stage. The connections to the different scientific subjects in the curriculum are as follows: 19 insertion points were suggested by the teachers in the chemistry part of the chemistry curriculum, 12 in the life science, four in the physics-energy, and seven in technology-systems and products. The results present the opportunity to expose middle school students to contemporary science using the existing science and technology curriculum. The study serves as an example of integrating NST concepts into a middle school science curriculum in Israel, but it can be applied in other science curricula worldwide, taking into consideration the topics included in each curriculum.

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) stands at the center of several EU projects and represents a contemporary view of the connection between science and society. The goal of RRI is to create a shared understanding of the appropriate behaviors of governments, business and NGOs which are central to building trust and confidence of the public and other stakeholders in research and innovation. In this paper we describe a 4.5 hour lesson, "The Story of Lead," which was developed for teaching RRI to high school chemistry students, based on the historical story of lead. The lesson is part of a larger module. The lesson connects the chemistry curriculum, related to the scientific aspects of lead, to the 6 RRI dimensions. We describe the progression of the lesson, provide relevant links and teaching materials, and present responses of teachers, after they tried out the lesson. The RRI dimensions are compared to prior work done in the field of Socioscientific Issues (SSI). Based on this evidence, we suggest that the lesson can be a good introduction to the topic of RRI in chemistry classrooms.

This study focused on teachers' transfer of a variety of teaching methods from a teaching module on nanotechnology, which is an example of a topic outside the science curriculum, to teaching topics that are part of the chemistry curriculum. Nanotechnology is outside the science curriculum, but it was used in this study as a means to carry out a change in the way chemistry teachers teach. The participants in the study included nine high school in-service chemistry teachers. Three research tools were used: (1) semistructured interviews that were conducted with the teachers, after they had finished teaching their nanotechnology module, and follow-up semistructured interviews that were conducted 2 years after the teachers had taught the nanotechnology module , and teachers' assessment and evaluation of their own teaching method, determining how the nanotechnology modules influenced the students who learned according to this program. The data collection process continued for 5 years. Most of the teachers indicated that they continued teaching the nanotechnology module that they designed and all of them stated that they integrated the unique teaching methods into their teaching of chemistry. High efficacy beliefs were built based on the self-evaluation process that was part of the teachers' professional development program. Teaching self-efficacy beliefs and organization efficacy beliefs was found to contribute to teachers' sustainable changes. The findings in the current research are only limited to the topic of nanotechnology; however, we believe that similar results can be obtained for any modern scientific topic that is outside the high school science curriculum. We suggest that more research should be done to determine whether the same findings emerge by using the same approach but on another topic.

We examined how social network (SN) groups contribute to the learning of chemistry. The main goal was to determine whether chemistry learning could occur in the group discourse. The emphasis was on groups of students in the 11th and 12th grades who learn chemistry in preparation for their final external examination. A total of 1118 discourse events were tallied in the different groups. We analyzed the different events that were found in chemistry learning Facebook groups (CLFGs). The analysis revealed that seven types of interactions were observed in the CLFGs: The most common interaction (47%) dealt with organizing learning (e.g., announcements regarding homework, the location of the next class); learning interactions were observed in 22% of the posts, and links to learning materials and social interactions constituted about 20% each. The learning events that were ascertained underwent a deeper examination and three different types of chemistry learning interactions were identified. This examination was based on the theoretical framework of the commognitive approach to learning (Sfard in "Thinking as communicating." Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008), which will be explained. The identified learning interactions that were observed in the Facebook groups illustrate the potential of SNs to serve as an additional tool for teachers to advance their students' learning of chemistry.

The goals of this study are to map applications of nanotechnology that are recommended to be taught in high-school science and to identify the "need-to-know" essential nanoscale science and technology (NST) concepts for each of the selected nanotechnology applications. A Delphi study using a community of experts was used to address these goals. Five nanotechnology applications that should be taught in high-school science were found to be important and reached a consensus by the Delphi-study experts: (1) nanomedicine, (2) nanoelectronics, (3) photovoltaic cells, (4) nanobots, and (5) self-cleaning. It was found that teaching these five nanotechnology applications should be based on all seven NST concepts, and therefore, these applications can be used as an appealing context for teaching the essential NST concepts. The different recommendations between the two communities of experts emphasize the importance of involving teachers and scientists in the process of designing a scientific curriculum. Identifying the applications of nanotechnology that should be taught in high-school science and identifying the connections between the applications and the essential NST concepts constitute an important step that supports designing a context-based nanotechnology program before it is integrated into a high-school science curriculum.

The present research is part of a longitude research study regarding the questioning behavior of students in the inquiry chemistry laboratory in Israel. We found that students who were involved in learning chemistry by the inquiry method ask more and higher-level questions. However, throughout the years, we have observed that differences between the two groups of students, control and the inquiry, have been reduced. The results of our study indicated that the gap between the Jewish and Arab students regarding their questioning ability is minor and inconsistent. If we assume that the source of this difference lies in the culture and different standards for teachers' qualifications in the two sectors, our current results suggested that the differences between chemistry teachers in the two sectors are now diminished. Teachers from both sectors utilized the inquiry program as part of their teaching repertoire, and the students in the two sectors learned the inquiry skill of asking questions.

Nanoscale science and technology (NST) is an important new field in modern science. In the current study, we seek to answer the question: "What are the essential concepts of NST that should be taught in high school"? A 3-round Delphi study methodology was applied based on 2 communities of experts in nanotechnology research and science education. Eight essential concepts in NST were identified. Each concept is accompanied by its explanation, definition, importance and includes subcategories that compose it. Three concepts emerged in the Delphi study, which were not identified before: functionality, classification of nanomaterials, and the making of nanotechnology. Differences between the concepts suggested by the 2 communities of experts were found. The results of this study serve as a tool to examine different nanotechnology programs that were reported thus far and to make recommendations for designing a NST program for high school students that includes the essential concepts.