Teachers in Dorset and East Devon have the benefit of the Jurassic Coast on their doorstep to help them bring the 'rocks and fossils' content of the curriculum alive. Not only is the area breathtakingly beautiful, but it is also rich in educational resources. If schools are not in an area close enough to make a class visit possible, how can…

Burlington Junior School in the East Riding of Yorkshire decided to highlight some excellent role models to its pupils during British Science Week 2021, who were not the stereotypical male, white, old or dead scientist. The intention was to make learning more relevant, more accessible and therefore more engaging and informative. It was hoped that…

When any object, such as a glass of water, a greenhouse or the Earth's atmosphere, stays at a steady temperature, the amount of energy entering the object is equal to the amount of energy leaving it. This is considered in equilibrium. This equilibrium changes when the amount of energy entering does not equal the amount of energy leaving.…

In response to primary students' pleas to learn more about the environment during the current climate crisis, St. Bernadette's Catholic Primary School in Birmingham has helped children investigate issues related to climate change and address ways each person can help to heal the imbalance between humans and the natural world. In this article,…

The "working scientifically" strand of the new primary science curriculum for England has re-emphasised the importance of children having opportunities to carry out different types of enquiries to answer their scientific questions. To promote this as an ongoing aim of primary science education, it is equally important for trainee primary…

In this article, the author considers ecosystems in a much more holistic way and encourages children to consider how all the interactions within that ecosystem affect the balance of it. There is hardly an ecosystem on Earth that has not been somehow affected by human interaction. Humans are the ultimate ecosystem engineers, and it is important to…

Forces and motion are at the heart of physics and children start learning from the moment they are able to interact with the world. Children as young as one year show surprise when a ball does not behave as expected. This is a tremendous bonus to learning physics, but it has hidden dangers: they only learn how things move on the Earth, where we…

This is the third special issue of "Primary Science," and it is one that offers primary school teachers an insight into an initiative that does wonders for primary science leadership, learning, and teaching -- the Primary Science Quality Mark (PSQM). In this article, Paul Tyler and Jo McGregor highlight the journey that they and their…