Despite the growing influence of the "material" turn within childhood studies and education, scholarship related to teaching and learning within the early childhood classroom remains a largely humanistic endeavour. By applying relational and multispecies onto-epistomologies to both children's classroom relations "and" our own…

Evolution is the integrative framework of the life sciences. Even though the topic is often not formally introduced before high school, young children already have various ideas about evolutionary principles (variation, inheritance, and selection) and their underlying key concepts (e.g., differential fitness, reproduction, and speciation).…

Children worldwide are increasingly deprived of direct nature experiences (DNE). Often rooted in restrictions of urbanization and modernization, this loss may hamper biodiversity conservation through erosion of biodiversity knowledge. Yet, the extent of this phenomenon in small cities, particularly in rapidly developing islands, remains…

Nearly 14 million species are estimated to exist on Earth, of which 1.8 million have been identified, and new species are being added to the world of science every day. Therefore, scientists are aware that there are still unidentified species living globally. Biodiversity is a wide concept encompassing all living things in our living space. This…

This research aimed to compare the effect of teaching science through-creative-drama activities and student-centred inquiry-based teaching on the cognitive structures of primary school pupils about the classification of living things. It was designed as an exploratory action research case study and the contribution of both interventions on the…

Children's experiences with nature may develop ecological literacy and enhance their psychological well-being. However, a limited understanding of how the village landscape has functional impacts on the children's play behaviour and perceptual performances can influence ecological literacy. This study investigated children's preferences in the…

Environmental conceptions justify the way we understand the 'environment', as well as the way we connect with it. Therefore, it is important to study the way environmental conceptions are shaped, especially during the various experiences of childhood, which is the time that a person's identity is shaped. In the present study we focus on 8-9 years…

Teachers are highly reliant on textbooks for teaching. In the Republic of Korea, science textbooks help students to understand scientific terms through inquiry activities. However, there is a lack of analysis on whether the inquiry activities suggested in these textbooks appropriately cover the terms included in the main text. Therefore, this…

Visual data--or visual sources of information--are a crucial part of helping students understand STEM concepts, improve their reading skills, and engage in science and engineering practices (Finson and Pedersen 2011). Indeed, many science and engineering practices require students to make meaning from visual data. When students are developing and…

The world is changing: both a conventional and a vaccine passport are now needed to travel internationally. Mask mandates, and social distancing are the new norm in a rapidly changing society. These measures were put in place to control the spread of the highly infectious and often fatal COVID-19, caused by a viral agent, a microorganism, a…

This study asked 241 primary children and their 13 teachers in the Canton of Berne, Switzerland, to identify 136 local plant and animal species, which were shown to them as pictures. Children's age, gender, and experiences with nature were recorded to test for associations with species knowledge. Teachers identified 52% of the plants and 61% of…

Herbivores are important to ecosystems because they transfer energy stored in plant matter to other organisms. However, when herbivores occur in high abundances, they can become pests and harm the plants that form the basis of food webs. Mangroves are saltwater tolerant trees found along most tropical and subtropical shorelines. Because mangroves…

Children's conceptions of plants as living things are thoroughly analysed during the last decades. Additionally, many researchers showed interest in 'Plant Blindness', the people's tendency to ignore plants and underestimate them comparing to animals. Aim of this research is to validate plant blindness' intensity among Greek primary school…

This study aimed to present a project-based STEM activity titled "Let's Build a Mini Farm on Our Schoolyard." The activity was implemented in science and science applications courses during the 2018-2019 academic year with 28 seventh grade students attending a state school in Giresun/Turkey. At the beginning of the study, the students…

In the digital age we live in, electronic teaching materials can effectively increase students' participation in the learning and teaching process. In addition, it is known that using visual materials in science education has a positive effect on learning in this direction. The study aims to determine the effect of digital concept cartoons in the…