Many studies into learners' ideas in science have reported that aspects of learners' thinking can be represented in terms of entities described in such terms as alternative conceptions or conceptual frameworks, which are considered to describe relatively stable aspects of conceptual knowledge that are represented in the learner's memory and…

During the last decades, an increasing awareness has developed that humankind will have to make important decisions about the environment which will demand substantive knowledge of critical ecological phenomena such as the production and decomposition of biomass (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). As a biology teacher the…

This newsletter describes an ongoing empirical field study involving a description and analysis of practical teaching situations aimed at describing the content and structure of pupils' frames of reference. The project takes the form of a series of case studies in classes of the 3-year lines of upper secondary schools in Sweden. The study seeks to…

This paper describes the BUD project which surveyed childrens' conceptions of division, and of fractions and decimals. The lack of connection between counting skills and conceptual understanding is discussed. The expectations for new algorithms and the basic idea in planning the BUD project are summarized. Some previous studies on counting, the…