Where does our food come from? Such a question may be difficult for some children to answer, especially those living in a city apartment devoid of a backyard with a vegie patch or fruit trees. This article describes a learning experience designed to encourage Year 1 children to think about the foods that humans obtain from plants. The learning…

The aim of this study was to examine the role of aesthetic practice in elementary school and the consequences for children's meaning-making in science. More specifically, we intended to scrutinise what science learning emerges within the process, to target the consequences of adopting art practice in science class and to explore these two…

Research related to the teaching and learning of the lunar phases reveals a low level of understanding of this astronomical phenomenon by most students of all educational levels. Therefore, there is a need to develop didactic materials to promote adequate comprehension of this phenomenon and which have been tried out in the classroom. Presented…

Although incorporating engineering into science instruction seems straightforward, adding more content into an already busy school day may be overwhelming for some teachers. To address this challenge, the authors created a unit that integrates engineering and literacy instruction. This article demonstrates how young students can learn…

Embodied interaction with tangible interactive objects can be beneficial for introducing abstract scientific concepts, especially for young learners. Nevertheless, there is limited comparative evaluation of alternative interaction modalities with contemporary educational technology, such as tablets and robots. In this study, we explore the effects…

The present study provides an illustration of how m-learning may be applied in school science contexts while simultaneously evaluating the accuracy and reliability of mobile phone functionality relating to the measurement of sound. The aim of this study is to report on the use of mobile phones as data collection tools in the context of a science…

The Regulations of the Commissioner of Education provide that an elementary-level science test is to be administered in Grade 4 to serve as a basis for determining students' needs for academic intervention services in science. The New York State Grade 4 Elementary-Level Science Test consists of two required components: a Written Test and a…

This study uncovered more about the views of science education faculty in relation to multicultural science education through a qualitative research design. Science education in this study included the science courses required of students (pre-service) teacher preparation. More specifically, participants were faculty who taught pre-service…

Co-teaching is a progressive approach to teaching using an inclusive model where all students experience the same lesson while receiving individualized resources to meet personal learning needs. The purpose of this case study was to examine one school district's transition from resource rooms to inclusion using the co-teaching model. The middle…

In many schools following the National Curriculum for England the teaching of science has been overshadowed by the demands of literacy and numeracy, with the focus on statutory testing (SATs) and emphasis on national targets. This has often led to increasing concerns around teachers' subject knowledge, the sapping of teacher confidence and…

In this paper, we present and discuss the results of a systematic review of concept mapping-based interventions in primary and secondary science education. We identified the following recommendations for science educators on how to successfully apply concept mapping as a method for formative assessment: firstly, concept mapping should be…

Research has shown that visual literacy is an important element to use within a classroom (Tillmann 2012). One way to incorporate visual literacy into the science classroom is with the use of advertisements. In this article, Tiffany Pace describes how she and her students began their visual literacy quest while studying mixtures and solutions,…

Teaching ethics in elementary science may seem abstract or simply another topic to add to an already rigorous curriculum. However, it is an integral part of science and engineering instruction and a natural extension of what elementary educators do every day. Teachers help students develop ethical practices or "habits of mind" when they:…

The author created a project aimed to develop and implement the assessment of working scientifically (WS) skills at Victoria Park Primary School. The author had previously identified a gap in the curriculum coverage and assessment of WS skills and his goal was to address the lack of provision for assessing children's WS skills and raise the…

This article outlines a study of praxis. Inspired by my reading of Jacques Rancière's ("The ignorant schoolmaster: Five lessons in intellectual emancipation", trans. K. Ross, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1991) influential text, "The Ignorant School Master", I explore the practical applications of his work for teaching…