By some estimates, over 1.2 billion tons of soil was blown across the Great Plains during the height of the Dust Bowl. The so-called "black blizzards" these massive dust storms caused suffocated cattle, sickened children, and destroyed thousands of family farms. Formerly prosperous farmers, unsure why they had such bad luck, wondered if…

The revised Australian curriculum presents a new emphasis in primary schools on the process of Mathematical Modelling. A modelling focus brings close attention to confidence and capability with a potentially new problem-solving process, associated language, and pedagogical processes. This paper presents a Year 4 classroom modelling experience that…

Many empirical studies about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) curriculum present problems for students to solve. This paper draws upon the data collected from the enactment of an integrated STEM curriculum to discuss problems as constitutive of problem spaces where four Grade 5 Singapore students engage with the…

This article explores the usefulness of detective role-play as a research method to facilitate young children's critical thinking. The study examines four specifically designed detective play experiences, adopting an ethical rights-based approach to research with children. This qualitative multiple-case study is grounded in play-based pedagogy…

Each student's individual experience in learning is very important. Lower secondary school students are engaged in activities that focus on inquiry rather than the acquisition of scientific knowledge in science classrooms. Therefore, the experiences and thoughts of lower secondary school students in the stage of scientific inquiry need to be…

Although existing literature suggests that teachers perceive, mobilize, and leverage resources to support ambitious instruction, less is known about how teachers and students jointly take up resources for co-constructing scientific knowledge. This study examines how teachers and students utilize aspects of practice-oriented curriculum materials…

Several reforms in national and international curricula have been implemented to introduce inquiry-based activities to promote different science process skills. Science skills require high cognitive effort for students and, thus, they need supports to develop them in an inquiry process. Among these supports, video-worked examples demonstrate how…

This article is based upon Peter Sullivan's (2021) structured inquiry approach to teaching mathematics, in which the authors take a deep dive into the technique of "Spotlighting" in the "Explore" phase of this model to assist in optimal learning experiences for students. Working from the premise that students are best placed to…

With the critical nature of socio-ecological challenges, the need to empower young people to generatively grapple with these science-related issues is crucial for developing their agentic citizenship. This paper reports on a primary science project that adopted a Socratic Seminar pedagogical strategy to enable student voice and collaborative…

This study aims to examine the effect of the P4C curriculum on 5-6-year-old children's critical thinking through philosophical inquiry and their problem-solving skills. The study group included a total of 40 children learning in kindergartens at an elementary school in Çanakkale, Turkey. The study used a quasi-experimental model with the…

Considering problem-solving ability as an important qualification in the 21st century that could be developed by instructional methods that allow learners to construct their knowledge via questioning through cooperative learning activities, we conducted action research with the purpose of investigating the effectiveness of inquiry-based and…

Balancing disciplinary knowledge and practical reasoning in problem solving is needed for meaningful learning. In STEM problem solving, science subject matter with associated practices often appears distant to learners due to its abstract nature. Consequently, learners experience difficulties making meaningful connections between science and their…

This paper introduces a model built upon the Method of Varying Inquiry, offering a didactical approach to problem posing and solving activities that stimulates inquiry-based learning in mathematics classrooms. The model combines the inquiry-based framework with the variation theory and with specific didactical and theoretical elements (the…

This paper describes and compares primary school students' perceptions of science learning skills in a teacher-centered approach (TCA) and in inquiry-based science fieldwork (IBSF). This comparison was prompted by primary school students' perceptions of science learning skills, which has recently gained momentum, and the Namibian primary schools'…

This paper illustrates how years 1 and 2 students were guided to engage in data modelling and statistical reasoning through interdisciplinary mathematics and science investigations drawn from an Australian 3-year longitudinal study: "Interdisciplinary Mathematics and Science Learning" (https://imslearning.org/). The project developed…