This article addresses the issue of the level of complexity of practical work in science curricula and is focused on the discipline of Biology and Geology at high school. The level of complexity is seen in terms of the emphasis on and types of practical work and, most importantly, in terms of its level of conceptual demand as given by the…

Science communication competence (SCC) is an important educational goal in the school science curricula of several countries. However, there is a lack of research about the structure and the assessment of SCC. This paper specifies the theoretical framework of SCC by a competence model. We developed a qualitative assessment method for SCC that is…

This mixed-methods case study examined the notebook entries of one class of 22 second graders as a way of examining how teacher identity shaped the way students experienced their science curriculum. These notebook entries were created during lessons with three different teachers over the course of one school year, using similar kit-based materials…

Given worldwide concern about a decline in student engagement in school science and an increasing call for science for citizenship in New Zealand Curriculum, this study focused on a butterfly unit that investigated how students in a year-4 primary classroom learnt about New Zealand butterflies through thinking, talking, and acting as citizen…

When students collaboratively design and build artifacts that require relevant understanding and application of science, many aspects of scientific literacy are developed. Design-based inquiry (DBI) is one such pedagogy that can serve these desired goals of science education well. Focusing on a Projectile Science curriculum previously found to be…

The research is an investigation of teachers' experience of working with socio-scientific issues (SSI). A large group of teachers (55) chose one of six cases with the characteristics of SSI and were free to organize the work as they found appropriate. The research focuses on how teachers chose content, organized their work and experienced the…

In Ireland, new science curricula were introduced at primary and early post-primary levels in 2003, in an effort to reverse declining interest and enrolment in science. This paper reports on a national study that explored first year post-primary students' experiences of and attitudes towards school science under these new curricula. Data were…

This study investigated the self-reported instructional assessment practices of a selected sample of secondary school science teachers in Barbados. The study sought to determine if there were statistically significant differences in the instructional assessment practices of teachers based on their sex and teacher quality (teaching experience,…

Living in an unpredictable and ever changing society demands from its' citizens the development of complex competencies that challenges school, education and curriculum. PARSEL, a pan-European Project related to science education, emerges as a contribution to curricular development as it proposes a set of teaching-learning materials (modules) in…

This paper reports on an attempt to investigate Turkish primary school students' interest in science by using their self-generated questions. We investigated students' interest in science by analyzing 1704 self-generated science-related questions. Among them, 826 questions were submitted to a popular science magazine called Science and Children.…

The purpose of the study was to measure the effects of higher level, inquiry-based science curricula on students at primary level in Title I schools. Approximately 3,300 K-3 students from six schools were assigned to experimental or control classes (N = 115 total) on a random basis according to class. Experimental students were exposed to…

This preliminary ethnographic investigation focused on how Indigenous traditional wisdom can be incorporated into school science and what students learned as a result. Participants included community elders and knowledge keepers, as well as 4th grade (10-year-old) students, all of Amis ancestry, an Indigenous tribe in Taiwan. The students'…

This study explored the effects that the incorporation of nature of science (NoS) activities in the primary science classroom had on children's perceptions and understanding of science. We compared children's ideas in four classes by inviting them to talk, draw and write about what science meant to them: two of the classes were taught by "NoS"…

New Zealand has had a national school science curriculum for more than 80 years. In the past the evolution content of this document has varied, and has at times been strongly influenced by creationist lobby groups. The "new" science curriculum, to be fully implemented in 2010, places much greater emphasis than before on understanding evolution,…

PARSEL Project emerged from the urgent need to overcome the problem of lack of scientific literacy in the population, which should be a priority in a society where science occupies a central place. Indeed, nowadays for any citizen to participate in a responsible and informed way in society he has to be scientifically acknowledgeable. Nevertheless,…