This study addresses how to help elementary science teachers explore the uncertainty inherent in scientific activity and support elementary students to engage in more complex and authentic investigations. We describe a district partnership focused on understanding how to support elementary teachers to adapt curricula to promote science practices.…

Educators and researchers often suggest that participation in "real" science may help students "think like" or "see themselves as" scientists because students participate in and contribute to the broader scientific community. However, bringing citizen science (CS) activities into the classroom does not necessarily…

The authors investigated the effects of differing question-stem designs (detailed stem, simple stem, and no stem) on elementary students regarding the quality of the posed questions by students, as well as their science reports, science achievements, and critical thinking ability. A quasi-experimental design was adopted. One hundred fifth-grade…

Science education could be made more accessible to students with visual impairments through collaboration and specific adaptation in both the science classrooms and laboratories. For example, by providing simple adaptations or doing some essential modifications, students can gain experience with measuring, balancing, and weighing a variety of…

In this article, second graders learn the basics of engineering through an exploration of magnetic levitation (maglev) technology. The author designed and taught the lessons to a class of 26 students enrolled in a month-long summer science program. The maglev lessons took place over three mornings (15 minutes for the first lesson and 40 minutes…

STEM education is becoming more common in schools and provides a range of exciting real-world contexts in which students can engage. However, a gap in most approaches to STEM remains the collection and use of data that can be used concurrently to develop statistical literacy and science literacy. This paper describes a STEM activity carried out…

There is a long tradition of teaching science through inquiry, with broad agreement about the form it should take. Students should investigate researchable questions; gather and analyse data; and develop and represent evidence-based claims. Authoritative teacher or textbook representations are generally used to guide this learning (Buckley &…

Background: New technology and increased collaboration have revolutionized how scientists work with data. This creates a need to identify new aspects of working with scientific data that are important for K-12 students to learn. Purpose: To address this need, we conducted a study with practicing scientists and K-12 science teachers. The purpose of…

The aim of the research is to examine the contribution of mobile application using in botanical fieldwork to the quality and durability of knowledge of the subject Nature and society compared to multimedia teaching in the fourth grade of primary school. The study involved 120 students, divided into two groups: control group, which taught on the…

Relevant literature has an unexplored question on how prediction-observation-explanation (POE) worksheets affect science process skills of students with mild intellectual disabilities (SMID). Therefore, this research aimed to examine the effect of POE worksheets developed for the "matter and its nature" subject on SMID's science process…

This study aims to contribute knowledge about obstacles and opportunities for pedagogical continuity in science across early childhood education. We use activity theory to analyse individual interviews and group meetings with teachers from preschool (age 1-5), preschool class (age 6) and grade 1-3 (age 7-9) in three Swedish school units. The…

As the need for a STEM-literate workforce grows, educators must prepare to develop STEM-literate thinkers. American educators must modernize teaching practices and utilize the best research-based STEM pedagogy. STEM education can no longer be a novelty or supplement to classroom instruction, and this is especially true in elementary classrooms.…

This paper aims to present findings from a doctoral study on the underexplored practice of outdoor education in the Middle Eastern country of Lebanon. I first propose a working definition for outdoor education before introducing the study's findings that sought the perspectives of 30 Lebanese public and private primary school educators toward…

The purpose of the study is to investigate how pre-service elementary teachers' orientation about science inquiry impacts their implementation of inquiry-based instruction. Teaching orientation is one of the levels of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) which impacts on teachers' instructional practice. With thirty-one pre-service teachers, data…

This paper addresses two methodological issues related to the assessment of teachers' views of science. The first concerns the distinction between the "nature of science" (NOS) and the nature of "scientific inquiry" (SI): should the points related to NOS and those related to SI be analyzed independently? The second concerns the…