In this article, Helen Spring explains how a 'wow' activity is a great place to start learning outside the classroom. It will enthuse both children and staff. Teachers new to outdoor learning can start with something simple like having students use double-sided sticky tape to collect as many colours as they can from the school grounds. Then look…

Computational thinking has been taught in elementary classrooms in other countries for many years, but in the United States this has only been a focus recently due to the drastic shortage of computer scientists. Early exposure to computational thinking has been shown to motivate students to pursue STEM careers, especially computer science (Jin,…

Science involves children in exploring and gaining understanding about the world they live in. Use of a creative and imaginative approach to science can enhance this learning in many ways (Coates and Wilson, 2003). When presented with the challenge of teaching a series of science lessons on food and nutrition to a mixed class of years 4 and 5…

The paper explores the ways girls appropriate gender through actions, gesture and talk to achieve things in primary school science classrooms. It draws on socio-cultural approaches to show that when everyday classroom practices are viewed from multiple planes of analysis, historical, institutional and in the micro dynamics of classroom…

The setting: the science classroom. The characters: you and your students. The scene: Your students acting out scientific discoveries, modeling a frog's life cycle, mimicking the transition from liquid to solid. This is "dramatic science", a teaching approach that uses acting techniques to explore and develop young children's ideas about…

The recently fashionable theories of positive psychology have educational ramifications at virtually every level of engagement, culminating in the model of positive education. In this critical review, I scrutinize positive education as a potential theory in educational psychology. Special attention is given to conceptual controversies and…

Primary school pupils in the UK today may be less familiar with natural objects, less exposed to formal natural history teaching and have less time given to school-based observation and discussion of natural objects. This study of children's responses to a "Nature Table" of displayed natural objects was designed to assess pupils'…

The original project, the foundation for all subsequent work, was set up in 1981 by Michael Shayer, with Philip Adey and Carolyn Yates, and became known as CASE @ KS3 (Adey and Shayer, 1994). CASE stands for Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education. The original CASE project drew on Piaget's work on the stage theory of cognitive…

The authors use digital photographs to help children recall "key events" in a practical activity--those moments that provide rich learning opportunities. The captured images of particular events helped the children to recall what they were doing at a particular time and prevented confusion over which event was being discussed. They also…