National science reform documents recommend several nature of science (NOS) elements to introduce to children early in the science curriculum. A researcher developed questionnaire was used to gather information from a random, national sample about early elementary teachers' perceptions of the developmental appropriateness of 12 NOS aspects for the…

Climate change instruction (CCI) is not a consistent component of the science curriculum in American primary education. When it is taught, students may experience stress during instruction as a result of learning about the historical and future harm to humanity and the earth as a result of climate change. Students may also have direct experience…

This study aims to introduce inquiry-based play activities and to examine their effectiveness on young children's conceptual understanding of the shape of the Earth and the day-night cycle. The inquiry-based play activities for preschool children were designed to support children to learn the concepts of the shape of the Earth and the day-night…

The topic 'Animals including humans' runs through the primary science National Curriculum in England (DfE, 2013). Ideally, topics such as inheritance will lead onto adaptation, natural selection and evolution across key stages 1 to 2 (ages 5-11). This article provides nine engaging activities to support the teaching of adaptation and improve…

There are many challenges associated with Inquiry-Based Practical Work (IBPW), scattered in the school and post-school natural sciences education research literature. The goal of the systematic review presented in this paper, was to gather the contextual teaching challenges in the said literature, and then to create a detailed multi-perspective…