In nearly every elementary school, plants are an important part of the science curriculum. Understanding basic ideas about plants prepares children to study more complicated scientific concepts including cell biology, genetics and heredity, complex ecosystem interactions, and evolution. It is especially important that teachers of children at the…

The author explores how using a child-centered approach to learning and a familiar context can help develop understanding. The placement school referenced in this article had an ethos that emphasized a child-centred approach, the importance of children being involved in every aspect of their learning. The author also shows that the school set a…

Shifting the focus from words to concepts--does it work? The author shares his findings from such a project with three primary schools in the UK. Many children aged 7-10 find mastering the language of science difficult and do not make the progress that they could. Encountering complex terminology in the science language causes students to become…

In this second installment of a two-part article, the author draws from coaching and research into children's learning in science to present a model for building pupils' scientific ideas quickly and effectively. In the first article, the author outlined how pupils' reading improves when they are more engaged in finding scientific…

Bellocchi, Ritchie, Tobin, Sandhu and Sandhu's (2013) study highlights the crucial role that emotions play in learning at the university level in a preservice secondary science teacher education class. They examine the classroom structures that tended to lead to both a positive valence and a high level of intensity of the emotional climate…

A class activity has been designed to help fourth grade students to identify basic insect features as a means of promoting student creativity while making an imaginary insect model. The 5Es (Engage, Explore, Explain, Extend [or Elaborate], and Evaluate) learning cycle teaching model is used. The 5Es approach allows students to work in small…

We would like to share with you our ongoing experiences with "hands-on statistics" lessons we have recently carried out. We have developed a new experimental path for teaching young students using fundamental concepts of "statistics": uncertainty of the measurement, the uncertainty of the mean, the mean itself, etc. The methods…

As part of "The Blue Marble" project, the Universities of Leicester and Nottingham, UK, have developed day-long, interdisciplinary, hands-on workshops for primary schools to introduce space technology and the role of the research scientist. The workshop activities introduce 5-11 year olds to the role of the UK space industry, show the…

With the completion of new standards intended to reshape science education, the real heavy lifting now begins. First, states must decide whether to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards developed by a coalition of 26 states and several national organizations. Already, though, considerable focus is turning to laying the groundwork for the…

Background: Internationally, there is a growing concern for developing STEM education to prepare students for a scientifically and technologically advanced society. Despite educational bodies lobbying for an increased focus on STEM, there is limited research on how engineering might be incorporated especially in the elementary school curriculum. A…

The study was conducted to assess the influence of Primary Teacher Training College (PTTC) principal's competency in ICT on the teacher's integration of ICT in teaching science in PTTC's in Nyanza region in Kenya. The one research question and one research hypothesis guided the study. The population comprised of 21 principals and 159 tutors. Data…

All writing begins with ideas, but young students often need visual cues to help them organize their thoughts before beginning to write. For this reason, many elementary teachers use graphic organizers or thinking maps to help students visualize patterns and organize their ideas within the different genres of writing. Graphic organizers such as…

This study aimed to investigate the successes and difficulties that teachers perceived as they enacted an argument-based inquiry approach; and instructional strategies that teachers used within an argument-based inquiry approach. Nineteen elementary teachers from 14 Midwestern elementary schools were enrolled in an intensive 2-week professional…

This research studied a group of three preservice elementary teachers creating a narrated stop-motion animation (Slowmation) from start to finish in 3?hours to explain the challenging concept of "phases of the moon" to elementary school children. The research questions investigated the preservice teachers' learning before and after the…

This case study examined planning decisions made and challenges faced by an elementary teacher in a high-poverty urban district to promote students' adoption of social norms of interaction for scientific discourse. Through interviews, document analyses, and observations during a science unit, the findings indicated that the teacher's planning…