This article explores how creative visual imagination and creative thinking can help children to construct mental models of space. A mixed-method study, integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches and involving 98 five-year-old children (54 girls and 44 boys) demonstrated that creative visual imagination, rather than creative thinking, is…

This article focuses on the impacts of a program designed to prepare elementary classroom teachers to mentor preservice teachers for effective science instruction. The mentor preparation program was grounded in research on effective science instruction and learning-focused mentoring. The goals of the mentoring professional development were to (a)…

Teachers may have students with a range of difficulties, including autism spectrum disorder, moderate and severe learning disabilities, visual impairment, sensory needs and profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD). This article outlines some of the ways in which the author has tried to engage learners in the science curriculum, focusing…

Sam Kenny is a teacher in a Tier 4 psychiatric hospital where individual pupils' needs are too diverse. Since his pupils' stays at the hospital can vary from a few weeks to months, science is difficult to teach as a whole-class subject. At times he feels very deskilled and thought he could do more to support engagement. So, when Sheffield Hallam…

After 25 years of being a Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) Lead, Maxine Roberts was asked to be the Science Coordinator at her school. Having no science background whatsoever, she laughed at the idea. Now that she has been the coordinator for awhile, she completely understands the value of having science and why it is essential for primary teachers…

In 2019, the U.S. is still facing a shortage of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce that is capable of solving social and economic challenges in 21st century worldwide. Numerous studies have explored the influence of integrative STEM approaches on developing student interest and career aspiration in STEM. Building on…

The City of Kitchener is the largest city in Waterloo Region in the province of Ontario, the third fasting growing region in Canada, yet it has only one air quality monitoring station. Our research group launched a pilot project in September 2020 to install a network of AQMesh multisensor mini air quality monitoring stations (pods) near elementary…

Using previously collected data from a multi-site, mixed methods longitudinal study, we operationalize a conceptual frame of invisibility to describe and understand the phenomenon of erasure that some Boys of Color experienced by teachers in science learning environments where most others were hyper-visible (and subsequently hyper-criminalized).…

Due to the limitation of social economic conditions, the teaching effect of science in rural elementary schools remains unsatisfactory and poorly studied. This research integrates STEM education into rural elementary school science courses to explore whether STEM courses are effective in improving students' knowledge and ability, asking: Are STEM…

In this article, the author, a teacher at Cookridge Primary School in Leeds, West Yorkshire, reflects on the teaching of science from reception across the year groups. To really compare and understand the differences of teaching science in early years, the author looks at its place in the progression of science throughout primary school. The…

This paper examines the roles of multimodality and thematic patterns in the teaching of the particle model of matter. Although the particle model is a fundamental topic in science education, there is no consensus on (1) whether or not the model should be introduced in early grades and (2) how to introduce the model to students for the very first…

Scholarly calls to reform science education for all students emphasize scientific sense-making. Despite the importance of sense-making, few strategies exist to help novice teachers learn to notice and respond equitably to students' scientific sense-making in elementary science. In this article, we report on a qualitative case study in which we…

This article describes a self-guided, story-like game with creative drawing for grades 3-5 that teaches the evolution concepts of adaptation, natural selection, ecosystem dynamics, inheritance, and mutation following the "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS"). Drawing reinforces concepts through emphasis on students'…

In this study, the relationship between the levels of 5th grade science course exam questions and the 5th class learning outcomes of the science curriculum in the revised Bloom taxonomy was examined. The research was carried out using document analysis method. Since the revised Bloom taxonomy categories were used for the analysis, the data…

The purpose of the study is to explore the effect of writing to learn activities including letter, summary, and poster on academic achievement in the fourth grade science course called introduction to matter unit. The study was carried out via pre-test post-test control group design, one of the quasi experimental research designs. The achievement…