Background: The theory of embodied cognition claims that body interaction with the environment change how we think and constitute cognition. Accordingly, active learning enriches learning experiences which in turn lead to better learning. Purpose: Although learning by moving one's body is often regarded as active learning, not all body movements…

Citizen science has proven to be a useful paradigm both to contribute to science and to increase the public understanding of science. Thus the connection between citizen science and schools offers an interesting approach to explore. However, a lot of questions and challenges remain unclear, such as the balance between scientific and educational…

Science education is an important component of a full education beginning in primary grades. In recent decades, research has identified young learners' rich knowledge of the natural world and their potential to connect with sophisticated science ideas. Elementary teachers face many challenges to implementing reform-based science instruction in…

This study introduces a Comprehensive Scientific Creativity Assessment (C-SCA) instrument and empirically tests its reliability and validity. While existing instruments to measure scientific creativity generally focus on a single dimension, such as divergent thinking, the C-SCA incorporates scientific knowledge, motivation in scientific creativity…

As a hallmark of authentic science practices, students need to enact epistemic agency to shape/reshape the key aspects of their inquiry work as a collaborative community. This study elaborates an emergent temporal mechanism for engaging students' epistemic agency: "reflective structuration" by which members of a classroom community…

The research compares teachers' and their pupils' performance on plant nutrition. The misconceptions of 89 primary school children from one state school have been compared with those of their four teachers. A questionnaire and a drawing task were used for data collection. The results evidence that children and teachers have serious shortcomings…

Throughout the country, there are many bodies of fresh water affected by algal blooms. By focusing on a water source near their school, students can become scientists, too. Situating science content in real and meaningful learning experiences encourages students to be invested in their own learning, construct deeper understandings, and apply those…

The climate emergency is a source of anxiety for many young people. Images of drought, heat waves, wildfires, storms and flooding are increasingly appearing in the media. Today's children stand to be the recipients of our legacy of climate change, while not feeling empowered to do anything about it, so perhaps it is no wonder they are anxious.…

In this article, the author champions the benefits for everyone of a more inclusive approach to primary science. She relates some of her experiences based on 35 years of teaching science to people with special educational needs and disabilities/additional support needs (SEND/ASN) and offers some tips to enhance inclusion.

In this article, the author recounts how giving pupils access to diverse role models not only benefits those from underrepresented groups, but ensures all children see that science is a subject for everyone. Teachers need to be aware of the culture of their pupils and ask how that can be used to engage and extend scientific understanding.

This study aims to evaluate the impact of STEM education on the creative design skills of trainee teachers. The sample for the study was made up of third-year prospective teachers studying at the Department of Science Education and Department of Elementary Mathematics Education in the 2020-2021 school year. Embedded mixed design, which is a type…

Background: To contribute to smart, inclusive, sustainable, and multisensory practices in science education, this paper presents research that studied the use of electronic sensors by children to address a sound pollution problem in their school. A didactic sequence was specifically designed and implemented to that purpose. Participants: The…

The purpose of this study is to describe the conditions under which diffracting noticing becomes both a process and product in dynamic relations to re-imagine preservice science teachers' becoming as ethical mattering, a concept rooted in a relational ontology of change and emergence. Drawing on theories of posthumanism, this study theorized…

Several researchers and scientific institutions argue that evolution should be explored from the first school years. However, few studies have analysed primary school students' understanding of evolutionary processes or evaluated the impact of educational activities on such knowledge. The available data: (1) suggest that primary school students…

Visual images are widely used in science textbooks to facilitate the understanding of abstract concept of light. This study aims to compare and analyze elementary school textbooks from Korea, the United States, and Japan, focusing on how visual images are utilized to effectively convey light-related content. The findings reveal that all three…