Supporting elementary student understandings of ideas related to Earth's Place in the Universe (ESS1) can be challenging, especially given the large time and distance scales involved with many of the concepts. However, with effective use of crosscutting concepts and science and engineering practices, important concepts within this content domain…

How can science instructors prepare students for the statistics needed in authentic inquiry labs? We designed and assessed four instructional modules with the goals of increasing student confidence, appreciation, and performance in both experimental design and data analysis. Using extensions from a just-in-time teaching approach, we introduced…

One way to integrate indigenous perspectives in junior science is through links between indigenous stories of the local area and science concepts. Using local indigenous stories about landforms, a teacher of Year 8 students designed a unit on geology that catered for the diverse student population in his class. This paper reports on the…

The present paper aims at investigating the structure and the content of the written explanations produced by primary school pupils' aged 11-12) during teaching sequences focused on the didactic elaboration of obstacles regarding temperature and heat. At first, teaching sequences targeted at the pupils' destabilising, restructuring, and…

Suggests a proper sequencing of learning activities in science teaching with the textbook used after child's completion of inquiry and acquisition of big ideas.'' (CC)