A paper was published in JBE in 2001 which examined the background of the education reform launched in 2000 in Hong Kong, and reviewed existing practices as well as beliefs in science and biology assessment among secondary teachers in Hong Kong. The direction of the reform was to take the emphasis away from public examinations as the sole…

The study and utilisation of pendulum motion has had immense scientific, cultural, horological, philosophical, and educational impact. The International Pendulum Project (IPP) is a collaborative research effort examining this impact, and demonstrating how historical studies of pendulum motion can assist teachers to improve science education by…

This study reviews allied literature and specific teacher educator behaviors that promote preservice teachers' development of a personalized, research-based elementary science teaching rationale (STR). Declaring absolutes is not the goal of the rationale. Rather, the goal is to initiate, among preservice teachers, the lifelong professional…

Assistive Technology (AT) helps a person with a physical, cognitive, learning, or speech disability perform tasks that would otherwise be difficult or impossible. There are hundreds of specialized AT devices on the market, but their price tags often prevent their use in elementary science classrooms. Fortunately, affordable technologies "are"…

What types of instructional experiences help K-8 students learn science with understanding? What do science educators, teachers, teacher leaders, science specialists, professional development staff, curriculum designers, and school administrators need to know to create and support such experiences? "Ready, Set, Science!" guides the way with an…

Prior research in both education and cognitive science has identified analogy making as a powerful tool for explanation as well as a fundamental mechanism for facilitating an individual's construction of knowledge. While a considerable body of research exists focusing on the role analogy plays in learning science concepts, relatively little is…

This study describes an elementary science model of professional development through mentoring by university science education professors working with teachers at a private elementary school in a regional city in Queensland, Australia. A cross-cultural collaboration involving professors from the United States and Australia resulted in the socially…

This document provides a research study of a 10-year elementary school teacher science staff development project, "The Science in Rural California Teacher Enhancement Project." The study investigated the long term effects on teacher participants 3 to 5 years after project contact: beliefs about science, confidence levels about teaching…

This guide is one of a set of 10 science guides, each covering a separate grade in Manitoba, together covering kindergarten through grade 9. The guides have been designed to provide a framework for building scientific concepts and developing the learning of process skills. They replace an earlier set of guides dated 1979. Each guide is essentially…

This guide is intended to assist in the evaluation of elementary science curriculum materials for use with high ability learners, in the light of calls for a "new science" which stresses depth of conceptual understanding. It presents a curriculum review process and two evaluation instruments. The process is intended to balance sound practices of…

It is the purpose of this paper to describe and analyze the "moral content" of six preservice science "methods" textbooks. Six recently published textbooks, including both elementary and secondary levels, were examined by way of a method which attempted to identify those text segments with "explicit moral guidance." The paper reports on the…

A comprehensive reform of the science curriculum and the methods of teaching and assessing science instruction is underway. This booklet shares ideas drawn from research and promising practices in science education. These ideas are addressed specifically to educators, but are important to anybody concerned with science education in elementary,…

Wildlife is often described as one of Alaska's most important and valuable resources. Helping wildlife can take many forms. In this educational packet, a variety of activities are included to help primary students understand which human activities help wildlife and which harm wildlife. The activities included in this packet represent adaptations…

Wildlife is often described as one of Alaska's most important and valuable resources. Helping wildlife can take many forms. In this educational packet, a variety of activities are included to help intermediate students understand which human activities help wildlife and which harm wildlife. In addition, suggestions on planning hands-on projects to…

This paper is based on a portion of the curriculum analysis of elementary science textbooks that was conducted as part of a larger Elementary Subjects Center study of curriculum materials used in literature, mathematics, science, social studies, and the arts. A commonly used elementary science curriculum series, Silver Burdett and Ginn's…