Students learn more than science knowledge in a science classroom; they also acquire important messages about the purposes and contexts of science. Roberts (2011) calls these messages a companion story. In this article, we present a case study of high-profile Australian contemporary scientists to argue that there is a need to broaden the range of…

It takes a special kind of teacher to enlist in a Bush Blitz TeachLive expedition: camping; long days hiking or wading through marshland; catching arachnids, lizards and insects; and all the while managing to remotely teach students back in the classroom. The latest instalment of Bush Blitz TeachLive sent five Northern Territorian teachers to…

The issue of student disengagement in school science continues to pose a threat to lifting the participation rates of students undertaking STEM courses and careers in Australia and other countries globally. In Australia, several science initiatives to reverse the problem have been funded over the last two decades. Many of these initiatives involve…

Low participation rates of students studying science at the secondary level are of international concern. One of the under-researched factors influencing low participation rates in the sciences in Australia is primary school student stereotypes concerning science and scientists. We explore how Year 4 (9-10-year-olds) students perceive science,…

We report on findings from a qualitative study of Australian scientists whose work brings them into contact with the public. This research sought to understand how a school science curriculum could better represent the work of scientists today. We discuss the views expressed by our participant scientists about the importance of openness and…

Students' action competence must be taught and developed, particularly for prospective science teachers, to have a pedagogical perspective as environmental educators. As indicated by publications in respected journals, researchers' focus and alignment on the issue of action competence are highly expected. This systematic literature review aims to…

Young children love to draw, and should be encouraged to explore drawing as a communication tool. Drawing is a means by which children can express their thoughts, interests and feelings, long before they learn to write. We know that: "children's drawings are vehicles for expression and communication" (Chang, 2012, p. 187). This form of…

Being a soil scientist is a fascinating and certainly diverse career, which can indeed involve working in a laboratory or diagnosing sick orange trees. However it often involves much, much more. In 2015, as part of the United Nations' "International Year of Soils," Soil Science Australia's (SSA) "Soils in Schools" program…

The national curriculum for chemistry includes topics that have not previously been taught at secondary level. In response to requests for teacher professional learning (PL) covering these topics, a course called "Divide and Analyse" was developed. Investigations into the PL needs of chemistry teachers were carried out in conjunction…

There is a concern in many countries with participation rates in science. One response to this has been a proliferation of university run science outreach programs that aim to both engage and retain students in science. Previous studies of outreach programs have tended to take into account the perspectives of just a few stakeholders in the…

Over the last two to three decades, many universities around the world have seen an increase in both organizational autonomy and performance-based accountability. While these developments have attracted considerable attention, relatively little remains known about how, within this transformed governance context, academics themselves practice their…

Faculties of Education and Science at Monash University have designed a Masters unit to assist pre-service and in-service science teachers in exploring the practices of contemporary science and examine how varied understandings can influence science communication. Teachers are encouraged to explore their current understandings of the Nature of…

In July 2015, the Bush Blitz TeachLive expedition took place on the Olkola people's traditional lands on Cape York Peninsula in Queensland. Five teachers joined more than a dozen scientists and the Olkola Indigenous rangers to act as research assistants, as part of the eight-day Bush Blitz TeachLive experience. As a team, they discovered new…

This study adapted the Draw-A-Science-Teacher Test to compare 22 pre-service teachers' perceptions of their own strengths as science teachers against their perceived strengths of expert science teachers. The drawings identified a disconnection between theory and practice that we revisit in the literature. Our findings from this pilot study are…

The aim of the study is to better understand teacher agency in the provision of science education to elementary school students. This article takes a specific focus on an elementary school teacher, who positioned herself as agentic in science. The study employs grammar of agency for the operationalisation of human agency in discursive…