This book has been written to help teachers develop the background knowledge and understanding needed to teach science effectively at primary level. It is intended principally as a resource in attempting to set out facts, develop concepts, and explain theories which primary teachers may find it useful to know and understand in order to plan their own programmes of work effectively and answer children's questions with confidence. The aim of this book is to establish a knowledge-base for primary teachers which will enable them to exploit more fully the learning potential of the activities they and their pupils undertake. A principal concern throughout this book is to ensure that the scientific concepts, theories and explanations are linked to objects, systems, events and changes which teachers and children are likely to have experienced at first hand. Numerous practical examples are given in the text as illustrations of the concepts or theories under discussion, and it is hoped that teachers will, wherever possible, try these out for themselves as an integral part of using this book as a resource. Since the publication of the first edition nearly ten years ago there have been numerous changes both in the primary classroom and in teacher education. In the UK the content of science education at Key Stages 1 and 2 has been reduced, but at the same time the requirements for science knowledge among student teachers have become much more extensive and detailed. Preparing a second edition has given the author the opportunity not only to amplify and rearrange parts of the text (especially Chapter 14), but also to correct some minor errors and ambiguities and to incorporate new material. Contents of the book include: Preface to the First Edition; Preface to the Second Edition; Introduction ("Improving Primary Science Teaching" by Lynn D. Newton) and eighteen chapters. These include: (1) Science: Investigation, Invention and Experiment; (2) Life and Living Processes; (3) Humans and Other Animals; (4) Plants; (5) Variety, Adaptation and Interdependence; (6) States of Matter and Physical Change; (7) Mechanical Properties of Materials and Objects; (8) Explaining Physical Changes; (9) Chemical Changes; (10) Obtaining and Making Materials; (11) Earth Science: Weather, Rocks and Soils; (12) Energy; (13) Electricity; (14) Forces and their Effects; (15) Gravity and Magnetism; (16) Sound; (17) Light; and (18) The Earth in Space. An index is also included.