Formative assessments serve to engage students in active sense-making, making them critical tools for both teachers and students. Though formative assessments may be an informal mode of assessing, they are one of the most important, especially when teaching science. As a subject, teaching science does not have the same kind of beginning-middle-end…

This research project aimed to identify and analyze Mexican primary school students' ideas about the components of the solar system. In particular, this study focused on conceptions of the solar system and representations of the dynamics of the solar system based on the functional and structural models that students make in school. Using a…

Students can learn subjects more meaningfully through integrated education, as it helps them to link school education with their real lives. There is a strong need to develop an alternative integration method to promote effective implementation of integrated education at a classroom level. The purpose of this study was to develop a model for…

Studies of children's knowledge of the Earth have led to very different conclusions: some appear to show that children construct their own, non-scientific "theories" (mental models) of the flat, hollow or dual Earth. Others indicate that many young children have some understanding of the spherical (scientific) Earth, and that their…

Visual representations play an important role in science teaching. The way in which visual representations may help children to acquire scientific concepts is a crucial test in the debate between constructivist and socio-cultural oriented researchers. In this paper, the question is addressed as a problem of how to contextualize conceptions and…