Lack of time for teaching science in traditional classroom placements in the United States has led some science teacher educators to provide practice teaching time for elementary education students in informal science settings. The purposes of this study were to describe the culture of one science methods course taught in conjunction with a K-7…

Elementary science standards emphasize that students should develop conceptual understanding of the characteristics and life cycles of plants (National Research Council, 2012), yet few studies have focused on early learners' reasoning about seed structure and function. The purpose of this study is twofold: to (a) examine third-grade…

Effectively designed science learning environments revolve around students' sensemaking through the use of evidence to ground explanations about natural phenomena. However, little research has been conducted to investigate elementary teachers' learning to promote students' sensemaking in elementary (K-5) classrooms. The purpose of this…

Although young children display various types of interests, little is known regarding the potential impact of these interests on subsequent learning and development. Of particular importance is the question of whether or not children's early interests are instrumental in their later academic achievement. The current study fills this gap in…

The aim of this study was to assess whether and how a sustained instructional focus on argumentation might improve children's understanding and application of key epistemic criteria for scientific arguments. These criteria include the articulation of clear, coherent causal claims, and the explicit justification of such claims with appropriate…

Despite a recent focus on engaging students in epistemic practices, there is relatively little research on how learning environments can support the simultaneous, coordinated development of both practice and the knowledge that emerges from and supports scientific activity. This study reports on the co-construction of modeling practice and…

This study investigated children's judgments of the epistemic status of justifications for causal claims. Twenty-six children (14 boys, 12 girls) between the ages of 8 and 10 were asked to help two story characters choose the "best reason" for believing a claim. The reasons included appeals to an authority, to a plausible causal mechanism, or to…

Understanding what children know is paramount to planning effective science instruction; however, in any classroom, the students hold a variety of ideas. Representing these differences in ways that also acknowledge the common trends among students might facilitate the process of differentiation. To exemplify one such possible process of…

As part of a 5-year professional development intervention aimed at improving science and literacy achievement of English language learning (ELL) students in urban elementary schools, this study examined fourth-grade students' science achievement across a 3-year (2005-2008) implementation of our professional development intervention consisting of…

We focused on young, low-income, African American children in first- to third-grade classrooms where they experienced varied forms of interactive, participatory, and dialogic pedagogy in the context of yearlong, integrated science-literacy instruction. Using conversations that started around children's own science journals, which were an important…

As part of becoming scientifically literate, students should come to appreciate epistemic aspects of science. Little research has been conducted on elementary students' epistemological beliefs specific to science education. This study offers insights into third-grade students' epistemological beliefs while paying attention to the intersection of…

The big idea of "celestial motion", observational astronomy phenomena explained by the relative position and motion of objects in the solar system and beyond, is central to astronomy in primary and secondary education. In this paper, I argue that students' progress in developing productive, scientific explanations for this class of…

Pupils' qualitative understanding of DC-circuit phenomena is reported to be weak. In numerous research reports lists of problems in understanding the functioning of simple DC-circuits have been presented. So-called mental model surveys have uncovered difficulties in different age groups, and in different phases of instruction. In this study, the…

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…

Korean students have shown relatively little interest and confidence in learning science, despite being ranked in the top percentile in international evaluations of academic achievement in science such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. Although research indicates a positive relationship between student perceptions of…