This exploratory study investigates the potential of a tablet-based note-taking application (TbNA) to serve as a digital notebook in support of students' classroom science practices. An elementary teacher (Grades 4-5) from a public charter school integrated a TbNA into her science class for one semester while participating in professional…

Tutoring systems are a common tool for delivering educational content and recent advances in this field include the detection of and reaction to learners' motivation. A data set derived from interactions in a tutoring system and its motivationally-aware variant provided opportunities to discover patterns of behavior in connection with motivational…

This article focuses on the role of the Association for Science Education (ASE) in supporting and developing policy and practice in primary school science. It first sets the events after the formation of ASE in 1963 in the context of what went before. It then takes a mainly chronological view of some, but by no means all, of ASE's activities…

This study examined the influence of a professional development program based around commercially available inquiry science curricula on the teaching practices of 27 beginning elementary school teachers and their teacher mentors over a 2 year period. A quantitative rubric used to score inquiry elements and use of data in videotaped lessons…

The teaching of science is important, both to meet the need for future workers in fields requiring scientific capability and to equip students for full participation in modern societies where many decisions depend upon knowledge of science. However, many teachers in Australian primary schools do not allocate science education sufficient amounts of…

This article describes a special third-grade classroom unit based on the reality show "Survivor." The goal of this engaging and interactive unit was to teach students about physical and behavioral adaptations that help animals survive in various desert biomes. The activity combines research, argument, and puppet play over one week of…

Great science activities don't just happen; they are orchestrated by highly skilled teachers who are creative, caring, and innovative. Effective classroom teachers possess a deep understanding of the developmental characteristics of their students and are adept at translating this understanding into opportunities for individual students to…

Teachers learn a lot about learning and teaching from dialogue with each other. Association for Science Education (ASE) meetings and other science conferences are ideal ways of coming into contact with other professionals to engage in dialogue. One special dimension of that contact is encountering overseas colleagues. Authors Brenda Keogh and…

This article describes how a third grade class (ages 8-9) conducted a temperature-related science experiment. The goal of the experiment was to build on the following question: What would happen if you took three different thermometers, all reading the same temperature, wrapped them in three different socks, one woollen, one silk, and one cotton,…

Interconnectedness changes lives. It can even save lives. Recently the author got to witness and be part of something in his role as a teacher of primary science that has changed lives: it may even have saved lives. It involved primary science teaching--and the climate. Robert Collins describes how it is all interconnected. The "Toilet…

The Met Office has a long history of weather forecasting, creating tailored weather forecasts for customers across the world. Based in Exeter, the Met Office is also home to the Met Office Hadley Centre, a world-leading centre for the study of climate change and its potential impacts. Climate information from the Met Office Hadley Centre is used…

In a remarkably brief period of time, humans have developed technology that allows space travel to become a reality. Rockets have been built, energy systems designed, and planetary forces understood. In the activities described in this article, students investigate space travel by designing their own rockets and manipulating variables to determine…

The author describes a model designed to "improve science learning in 30 minutes" using an alternative perspective on a language-based kinaesthetic approach to teaching science. Identification of pupils' learning styles is commonplace throughout the education system, using the simple model of establishing whether the learners are…

The aim of this study is to reveal the students' and pre-service teachers' understanding of light, sight and related concepts at different educational levels, from primary to higher education. A cross-sectional approach was used since the participants were of different age and educational level. The sample of this study consisted of 30 eighth…

Many science educators emphasize the need for meaningful science learning experiences and promote the idea of social constructivism in their methods classes, usually with inquiry-based activities that include physical manipulatives. However, the proliferation of technology in the nation's schools suggests the need to incorporate this trend…