Administered a questionnaire containing common earth/space science alternative conceptions to preservice elementary teachers (n=122). Suggests that many misconceptions originate in the classroom and that preservice elementary education teachers have many of the same misconceptions that their future students will have. (35 references) (Author/JRH)

This paper presents a literature review related to the time spent teaching science and a study designed to test the hypothesis that student achievement in science is related to classroom hours devoted to science instruction. The study involved testing two groups of eighth grade earth science students (N=200) over instructional material presented…

Summarizes the results of three related studies whose overall purpose was to determine elementary students' conceptions about earthquakes at two widely separated locations in the United States. Certain topics, such as the cause of earthquakes, seemed to cause difficulty for students. New definitional responses emerged in the studies that took…

The Learning in Science Project has adopted the view that science teaching might be improved if teachers can be given some appreciation of students' views of the world and the beliefs, expectations, and language that learners bring to new learning situations. This investigation compares and contrasts views that children and scientists have on…

The Learning in Science Project has adopted the view that science teaching might be improved if teachers can be given some appreciation of students' views of the world and the beliefs, expectations, and language that learners bring to new learning situations. This investigation compares and contrasts views that children and scientists have on…

The Learning in Science Project has adopted the view that science teaching might be improved if teachers can be given some appreciation of students' views of the world and the beliefs, expectations, and language that learners bring to new learning situations. This investigation focuses on the views that children (N=34) may have about rocks and…

The Learning in Science Project has adopted the view that science teaching might be improved if teachers can be given some appreciation of students' views of the world and the beliefs, expectations, and language that learners bring to new learning situations. This investigation looks at the topic of soil, one of the basic resources of New Zealand…

Thirty teachers and 718 students in grades 4, 5, and 6 in Edmonton, Alberta participated in a study to determine the value of simultaneous one-way television and group telephone conferencing (compared to conventional instruction) for teaching LANDSAT imagery. Results indicate that: (1) a 5-hour instruction period is sufficient to train elementary…

Collaborating closely with a 10th-grade science teacher, we designed a Web-based learning environment (Web-LE) to improve student motivation to learn science. Factors believed to enhance intrinsic motivation (challenge, control, curiosity, and fantasy) were integrated into the instructional design of the Web-based learning tool. The Web-LE was…

Reports on a study to determine the use of outdoor resources in the teaching of natural science in secondary schools, and to obtain suggestions from science teachers for increasing and improving the use of outdoor resources. Results indicated 16 percent of classes do not study science outdoors. (TW)

This paper describes a joint research project between science educators and computer science software engineers. A computer software system based on cognitive learning theory was designed that was intended to be relevant to teaching, learning, curriculum development, and research in science education. The generic prototype software system was…

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the effect of a middle school inservice course emphasizing science process skills on the development of integrated process skills and on logical thinking. Twenty-two middle-school science teachers from the Detroit Public Schools participated in this project. A "Resourcebook of Science Process…