The purpose of this study is to examine how and in what ways the dimensions of the nature of science are included in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade science textbooks taught between 1926 and 2018 and to determine how these dimensions are represented in textbooks based on curricula shifts. In this study, a total of 24 textbooks allowed by the Ministry…

This study employed a mixed-methods design to investigate the impact of activities developed by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) on the scientific creativity and scientist perceptions of gifted 5th-grade students. The research used a one-group pretest-posttest design with a sample of 22 students from a Science and Art Education Centre in…

Effective teaching and learning of Nature of Science (NOS) has been a curriculum goal for decades and its inclusion into the science education from K-12 is becoming commonplace worldwide, regardless of the differences in the adapted science curricula. However, less attention, if any, has been paid to the holistic representation of NOS at…

The present study aims to investigate the views of secondary school students on an entrepreneurship-assisted science course. The study was carried out with the case study method, one of the qualitative research methods. The study data were collected with qualitative research techniques such as focus group interviews and diaries. The study group…

When educational leaders supervise the implementation of standards-based curricula, they should understand the forces acting on classroom teachers during that implementation process. This study investigated the lived experience of 20 elementary teachers who developed, piloted, and implemented an elementary science curriculum (ESC). Using DiMaggio…

The COVID-19 health crisis brought about transformations in education systems. In Chile, the ministerial authorities prioritized the school curriculum, stressing certain learning objectives over others. This paper seeks to uncover the social functions underlying curriculum prioritization for the subject of natural sciences. To do this, the…

Mechanistic reasoning about an artifact or system involves thinking about its underlying entities and the properties, activities, and cause-effect relationships of those entities. Previous studies of children's mechanistic reasoning about engineering solutions have mostly focused on specific mechanical systems such as gear trains. Yet there is…

The purpose of this teacher-practitioner research study was to examine how elementary teacher candidates engaged in sensemaking about the learning process within the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and to further examine how they engaged in sensemaking about NGSS teaching and curriculum development. Interviews and course artifacts from 14…

Including systems thinking in science education helps students understand the complex global problems of the present era. The study aimed to trace and evaluate the system thinking (ST) skills in K-8 science curricula, with a focus on sustainability-related subjects and units. Firstly, the authors reviewed the related literature on the systems…

The construction of a concept can be developed from the students' prior knowledge. Regarding deaf students, it is considered their conceptions conceived through vision. Given this, the present research was conducted with a group of deaf students in the 7th year of elementary school with the aim of verifying what ideas these students had about…

Topics associated with the biological sciences form a significant fraction of the curriculum in science at primary school level in the U.K. In this methodology paper we demonstrate how a wide range of research articles associated with the biological sciences can be disseminated to a primary school audience and how children can carry out…

In previous work, we described how three teachers differentially create opportunities for students to act as epistemic agents and to engage in collective knowledge-building work (Alzen et al., 2020). The descriptive nature of this previous research provided information about what variability can look like in classrooms attempting these…

Student participation in the science practices is more than following directions to conduct pre-determined experiments and analyze data with expected solutions. This requires classroom shifts that increase the epistemic agency of students: increase student involvement and authority in developing science knowledge and practices, rather than the…

This mixed methods study explored how elementary teachers reported using a commercially published instructional unit to plan and deliver science instruction in their elementary classrooms. Of particular focus is what elements of the program teachers eliminated during planning and instruction, what outside materials teachers added to instruction,…

Integrated science-and-literacy programs have proven to positively affect both language proficiency and science knowledge. Because making connections is important in both text comprehension and understanding the disciplinary core ideas taught in science, it seems worthwhile to explore the potential of integrating text structure instruction in…