ABSTRACT
Despite being the most technologically advanced nation in the world, the United States fights a continual problem in educating the broad spectrum of students about science. There is rampant confusion over basic distinctions between science and pseudoscience, so much so that surveys find that the average person believes Intelligent Design to be a theory with the same standing as evolutionary theory (Rennie, 2002). Even though the adjective scientific is very widely used in our culture, an NSF survey found that nearly 70% of Americans (NSF, 2002) could not adequately explain what it means to study something scientifically. This general lack of scientific literacy can be fought in the classroom, but it is fought best in the laboratory where students are given the opportunity to simulate the activities of research scientists by posing a question, collecting data, analyzing the data, and then forming an answer to the original question using the data and their analysis as empirical support.
