Discusses the apparent chaos of two student activities in a seventh-grade reading and writing workshop in the light of physicists' recent theories of time. Show how time is thought to be organic and evolving, with the past active in the present, and with students using time not in a linear way but as a whole. (SR)

Discusses conceptual knowledge and communication, focusing on differences between talk and text. Describes a study of Swedish seventh graders that compared knowledge and achievement in problems from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and concludes that it is doubtful if the items test knowledge of science concepts to…

Finds positive correlations between metacognition (awareness and self-management) and success on reading comprehension tasks for a group of seventh-grade students (n=27). Also finds that 22 weeks of schooling with explicit reading strategy instruction significantly enhances students' metacognition and their abilities to comprehend science text…

Low-achieving seventh-grade students were assigned to two science intervention groups, a read-and-discuss teacher-directed method group and a group in which a model of concept mapping that connected major and minor concepts followed the lesson. Results indicate that using graphic representations was more effective than the traditional approach.…

Describes a study of students' (n=106) written questions about topics they considered extremely interesting and not very interesting. Finds that there were significant positive relationships for questions written for high and low interest levels, and also significant positive relationships between question level and achievement in reading,…

Given the current state of science education Cultural Historical theory appears promising in clarifying how students' social context advances the understanding of science concepts and shapes their attitude toward science. The purpose of the study was to focus on how children's development in science is assisted by both home and school interactions…

A study investigated whether presenting scientific information about seasonal change in a narrative which is also a refutation text will promote learning of the information more than presenting it in an expository text which is either a considerate refutation text or an inconsiderate non-refutation text. Subjects, 123 seventh grade students and…

Trying to change the predictive rule for the sinking and floating phenomena, students have a great difficulty in understanding density and they are insensitive to empirical counter-examples designed to challenge their own rule. The purpose of this study is to examine the process whereby students from sixth and seventh grades relinquish their…

Proposes having students write about what they learned from science films as a method of evaluating the effectiveness of the film. Supplies examples of students' writing on films and techniques for exploiting the results. (MDH)

This guide is one of a set of 10 science guides, each covering a separate grade in Manitoba, together covering kindergarten through grade 9. The guides have been designed to provide a framework for building scientific concepts and developing the learning of process skills. They replace an earlier set of guides dated 1979. Each guide is essentially…

This report describes a program for improving the retention of science concepts and motivation through the use of technology. The targeted population consisted of seventh grade students in a suburb of a large Midwestern city. The problem, due to lack of access to technology, was documented through student surveys, teacher observation, previous…

One hundred and forty students in grades 6 and 7 were asked to process 32 science statements. Half of the statements were consistent with their prior knowledge, whereas the remaining facts were inconsistent with it. Half of the students were instructed to read the sentences for understanding (reading controls). The remaining students were…

A set of supplemental materials for teaching grade 7 life sciences to beginning and intermediate students of English as a second language (ESL) includes an introductory section on teaching the ESL student and six instructional units. The introductory section discusses the special classroom needs and characteristics of the ESL student and provides…