Previous articles in "Primary Science" have presented a range of ways to teach electricity in engaging and informative ways (e.g. Buckley and Harvey, 2014; Chapman, 2014; Norman, 2014; CLEAPSS, 2016) and Frank Harris provides an interesting historical account of the development and use of batteries in "School Science Review"…

It can be a continual struggle to develop interesting and engaging experiments for use in primary schools, especially when related to electrical phenomena. Most people are familiar with the phenomenon of charged objects picking up paper or attracting hair, but there are number of simple and highly engaging activities within this area that are…

When any object, such as a glass of water, a greenhouse or the Earth's atmosphere, stays at a steady temperature, the amount of energy entering the object is equal to the amount of energy leaving it. This is considered in equilibrium. This equilibrium changes when the amount of energy entering does not equal the amount of energy leaving.…

Primary school topics involving abstract concepts are challenging to teach. Electric circuits can be simply constructed but complex to explain. New approaches in teaching students for understanding are needed to advance practice in primary science. This paper combines the strengths of multimodality research perspectives with variation theory to…

This research aimed to determine the effectiveness of applying instructive simulation experiments (SE) to the development of deeper conceptual understanding, retention of static electricity contents, and engagement of 4th-grade students. The correlation between student achievements and engagement was examined. 76 4th graders (10-11 years) were…

The Next Generation Science Standards lay out a model of energy that locates energy within objects and fields, and tracks energy as it transfers between these objects and transforms between forms of energy while always being conserved. This model of energy pervades much of modern science and represents a foundational, cross-cutting concept for…

At the time of the current global energy crisis energy awareness education in school is increasingly important. Textbooks directly helping and influencing learning play an important role in this, especially in the case of natural sciences. Thus, the aim of this research was to show how science textbooks help to educate energy awareness (EA).…

Electricity is an integral part of daily life. Children, like adults, infer the effects of electrical conductivity. They see the illumination of a lightbulb or feel the emission of warmth from an electric stovetop but may not understand the role electrical circuits play. Focusing on the concrete aspects of electrical energy transfer helps improve…

The research that studies the improvement of elementary school students' science knowledge and the development of elementary students' abilities to use the scientific and engineering practices is restricted. The purpose of this research is to study the effects of an instructional intervention on the knowledge of the students of elementary school…

We describe the development, design, implementation, and preliminary classroom results of an innovative curriculum, "Focus on Energy," that supports learning about energy in Grades 4-5. The curriculum is grounded in the concepts of science as practice, model-based reasoning, and learning progressions, and builds on students' pre-existing…

The role of virtual simulations in the evolution of primary school students' mental models about electrostatics is investigated by analysing the answers of two groups of 9-10 years old pupils inside instructional sequences that combine two hands-on activities using balloons and jackets with the same activities using PhET simulations: one group…

In this research, the effects of STEM (Science-Technology-Mathematics-Engineering) activities on academic achievement of prospective teachers were researched, their opinions on STEM activities were sought. The research was based on a semi-experimental model with pre-test and post-test control group. During the application phase, the topic of…

This article reports on the effect of using a diagram to develop primary students' conceptual understanding about electric circuits. Diagrammatic representations of electric circuits are used for teaching and assessment despite the absence of research on their pedagogical effectiveness with young learners. Individual interviews were used to…

Educators expect that students be able to make informed decisions about science-related problems in their everyday lives. Engaging science in such problems often entails evaluating available evidence for given arguments. This study explores how students use inscriptions as evidence to argue about socioscientific issues. Fifth- and sixth-grade…

This research aims to reveal the misconceptions of prospective primary school teachers on the fundamental physics concepts such as force, frictional force, work, conservation of energy, mechanical energy, kinetic energy, potential energy, energy stored in springs on the topic of "Force and Motion" and to assess the misconceptions based…