Background: In the field of science education, adults often set up practical-based activities with the idea of stimulating children's reasoning and approaching science in a playful way. Although the potential role of objects in stimulating social practices has been considered in the literature, how teachers work on semiotic aspects of…

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…

Science teachers face an incredible challenging task of combining research on how students learn best, the three-dimensions of the Science Education Frameworks that in themselves are complicated to understand, and instructional sequences that lead to deeper learning. "Activating Students' Ideas: Linking Formative Assessment Probes to…

This study examined pre-service science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) about seasons. The framework of this study was based on the Refined Consensus Model (RCM), and pre-service teachers' topic-specific PCK was also discussed in two dimensions: personal PCK (pPCK) and enacted PCK (ePCK), which are included in this model. The pPCK of…

The present work refers to a study of 10-12-year-old students' ideas on the self- or hetero-luminosity of the Moon. To check the validity of students' reasoning on this question, we also examined their ideas on the lunar phases and how we see hetero-luminous objects. Students supported their ideas on the self- or hetero-luminosity of the Moon by…

This study qualitatively explored the process of student environmental identity development (sEID) within the highly social and structured context of elementary school science. Social practice theory was used as the lens to distinguish the dimensions of sEID that were visible during a curriculum-based, in-school program focused on the issue of…

Background: With a growing new materialism paradigm and research on multimodality, there is an increasing attention on the role of material objects in science teaching and learning. However, there is currently no available framework, coding scheme, or method of inquiry to specifically analyze the use of material objects in science meaning-making.…

This qualitative practice-based study explores the efficacy of reformed-based science teaching approaches in fostering meaningful student engagement within elementary science classrooms, framed within the science-as-practice paradigm. Utilizing three theoretical frameworks, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Ambitious Science…

Since the development of the notion of the teacher-researcher, a range of published action research studies have focused on school-based pedagogy. Scholars agree that action research is an essential tool for teachers to improve their practice, but there is little known about the process underpinning teachers' choice of particular action research…

A drama model can be helpful to support children's understanding of some of the more abstract parts of the science curriculum. The drama models can usefully enhance children's understanding of scientific processes and concepts. They can help to link the practical activities with the conceptual understanding. The use of more than one way of…

Although teachers have opportunities to learn about many things through teaching experience, we know little about how they develop science subject matter knowledge in this setting. With both limited opportunities to learn science subject matter knowledge before becoming teachers and minimal science professional development available while working…

Calls to bring more equity into science education research (McWayne and Melzi, 2023) are most notable for early childhood. We know very little about the teaching of science to infants and toddlers, yet this is where science education begins. To address the dearth in research, we undertook an in-depth intervention study in an Australian early…

The COVID-19 health crisis brought about transformations in education systems. In Chile, the ministerial authorities prioritized the school curriculum, stressing certain learning objectives over others. This paper seeks to uncover the social functions underlying curriculum prioritization for the subject of natural sciences. To do this, the…

A student's socioeconomic status (SES) has a significant relation to their academic achievement. Much of this work has explored this in math and reading, but less is known about how SES relates to science achievement, particularly in the early grades. Using quantile regression with nationally representative data, we explored this relation in…

This study reports on a case study about multimodal work in a primary physics classroom focusing on forces. Previous research reports that students benefit from multimodal work in science classrooms. Yet, few systematic studies have been performed to reveal how students represent their experiences and ideas of science phenomena over time within…