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Nanoscience and nanotechnology (NST) focus on the creation and the exploration of materials' properties at the nanoscale. The estimations about the impact of the field on our daily life, the industrial demands for ensuring skilled workforce, and the need to form a nano-literate citizenry have triggered the incorporation of aspects of this cutting-edge field into school curricula on behalf of education researchers. Teachers play a vital role in the success of this endeavor. However, only a few studies up to date examine teachers' ideas of this field. In addition, there is not any analysis tool that would provide insights about how teachers' ideas are related to the key concepts and principles of NST. Concerning this gap, we describe in detail a deductive content analysis method, having been conducted to examine the meanings that 419 Greek primary school teachers give to NST. Results reveal the insufficient content knowledge of primary school teachers regarding NST.

The natural sciences, by their very nature, are based on the exploration of the physical world, and digital mobile devices are considered appropriate to support this exploration (Suárez et al., 2018) since they offer the tools that make this investigation more accessible but also ubiquitous (Crompton et al., 2017). Inquiry-based learning is a process in which students propose questions or discover causal relations, formulate hypotheses, investigate and test experiments or observations (Pedaste et al., 2015). Mobile inquiry-based learning (m-IBL) aims to employ mobile technologies so as to facilitate the inquiry process and motivate learners to build and share their knowledge (Looi, 1998). Several researchers studied the application of m-IBL in the Sciences (m-IBSL), for example using the smartphones' sensors and relevant software in a laboratory environment without necessarily including their interventions within a specific theoretical framework (Kapucu, 2018; Pambayun et al., 2019). This article presents a case study of the integration of such an application (Phyphox) that utilises the smartphones' integrated sensors in hands-on physics experiments, in an inquiry framework.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the contribution of mobile devices to ninth-grade students' Critical thinking & Problem solving skills in laboratory settings. Students participated in a sequence of Microcomputer-based and mobile supported Laboratories, covering four different cognitive topics in Physics. Research instruments such as a reflective questionnaire, students' messages in a Viber group and a set of open-ended questions seem to enlighten the students' progress. Students' development of Critical thinking and Problem solving skills, over time in the Laboratory sequence, turns out by their way of manipulating, analysing, evaluating the experimental data and reflecting on the experimental procedures in the Viber group. Also, students' written responses to open-ended questions before and after the mobile-supported Labs revealed interesting data about their improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: The aim of this study was to explore the effect of investigative activities with manipulations in a virtual laboratory on students' ability to design experiments. Sample: Fourteen students in a lower secondary school in Greece attended a teaching sequence on thermal phenomena based on the use of information and communication technology, and specifically of the simulated virtual laboratory "ThermoLab". Design and methods: A pre-post comparison was applied. Students' design of experiments was rated in eight dimensions; namely, hypothesis forming and verification, selection of variables, initial conditions, device settings, materials and devices used, process and phenomena description. A three-level ranking scheme was employed for the evaluation of students' answers in each dimension. Results: A Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed a statistically significant difference between the students' pre- and post-test scores. Additional analysis by comparing the pre- and post-test scores using the Hake gain showed high gains in all but one dimension, which suggests that this improvement was almost inclusive. Conclusions: We consider that our findings support the statement that there was an improvement in students' ability to design experiments. (Contains 2 notes, 1 table and 4 figures.)

The charge transport properties of the low-dimensional thermoelectric materials K2Bi8-xSbxSe13 (0

The charge transport properties of the low-dimensional thermoelectric materials K2Bi8-xSbxSe13 (02Bi8-xSbxSe13 was analyzed on the basis of the classical semiconductor theory and discussed in the context of recent band calculations. The results suggest that the K2Bi8-xSbxSe13 materials possess coexisting domains with semimetallic and semiconducting characters whose ratio is influenced by the value of x and by local defects. The extent and relative distribution of these domains control the charge transport properties. Electron diffraction experiments performed on samples of K2Bi8-xSbxSe13 with x=1.6 show evidence for such domains by indicating regions with long range ordering of K+/Bi3+ atoms and regions with increased disorder. The semiconducting behavior is enhanced with increasing x (i.e., Sb/Bi ratio) in the composition through a decrease of the semimetallic fraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The charge transport properties of the low-dimensional thermoelectric materials [K.sub.2][Bi.sub.[8.x]][Sb.sub.x][Se.sub.13] (0