We focus on the concept of matter and explore how young children in urban schools bridge their spontaneous concepts and everyday experiences with scientific concepts introduced to them by children's literature information books and their teacher. The study shows how material artifacts used in a sorting activity became ideational tools--semiotic…

We analyse two narratives of teacher-facilitator teams producing elementary science curricula and disseminating them to their peers. We draw on these stories to interpret how teacher-facilitators position themselves with respect to other educators (e.g. peer teachers and development-team members), to real and imagined students and parents, to…

The main objective of this study was to explore the experiences of two novice elementary school teachers for factors related to self-efficacy and motivation to teach science. The experiences were analyzed for evidence of: (1) successful performance, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and emotional arousal as contributors to the development…

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 9-week curriculum unit on trees is designed for gifted students in grades 1-5. The lessons are designed for 40-minute classes meeting two or three times a week and stress the development of creative thinking skills, creative problem solving and decision making skills, and critical and logical thinking skills. Each of the 12 lesson plans…

The document claims that American Indians are the least represented culturally different population in science-related fields of study. In American Indian community schools, science is still taught using outdated conformity-and-assimilation strategies, which neglect consideration of Native American cultural views. The report describes a study…

This paper addresses two distinctive issues concerning animistic and anthropomorphic thought in the context of constructivist science education. The first concerns the extent of such ways of thinking, both within science itself and within school science. The second concerns the implications of this for theories of instruction in science education.…

This supplement to the Chicago public schools' science curriculum, for use with Lao-speaking students in grades K-8, is designed to help students make the transition to learning science in English. English-Lao vocabulary lists, independent learning activities and teaching aids (in both languages), and study questions (in Lao) are included to…

Findings generated from past classroom observation and individual interviews indicate that certain framework conceptions can be identified by which students explain special transformations of substances and which are activated in view of new experiences made in the course of chemistry instruction. This study investigated these framework…

Describes a variety of water erosion situations which can be shown with the use of a streamtable. Individual and group experiments are suggested and photographs of some situations which may be created are provided. (CP)

Compares twenty-one research papers and theses on individualized teaching, draws conclusions about its usefulness and makes suggestions concerning research design in the evaluation of teaching methods. (LS)

Provides annotated list of 15 curriculum project newsletters currently being published. (PB)

The Mathematics and Science Center serving five school districts in Richmond, Virginia, has developed devices and materials that teachers can borrow to produce mini-gardens in the classroom. Article gives directions for construction of a soil mixer and root-view box. (BR)

This elementary school teaching unit was developed as a part of a series of teaching units that deal with Lake Erie. This unit was developed to enable children to: (1) name the different parts of a fish; (2) assemble a fish using overlapping overheads to reinforce fish parts; (3) build a fish to scale using jumbo fish puzzle parts; (4) classify…

A glossary of 50 astronimical terms is presented. Among terms included are: Asteroid; Big Bang; Binary Star; Black Hole; Comet; Constellation; Eclipse; Equinox; Galaxy; Globular Cluster; Local Group; Magellanic Clouds; Nebula; Neutron Star; Nova; Parsec; Quasar; Radio Astronomy; Red Giant; Red Shift; S.E.T.I.; Solstice; Supernova; and White Dwarf.…