The purpose of this study was to determine an effective method of teaching measurement before experimental manipulation. To achieve this purpose, during a lesson on “Burning Substances in Air” in a 6th grade science class, 152 pupils were divided into three experimental groups. Different teaching methods were used to teach each of these groups. Empirical verification indicated that the teaching method that prompts pupils to discuss experimental design and instructions afterwards is more effective in improving both skill and cognition, which are the two aspects of understanding. Moreover, it became clear that while using the teaching method that merely involves instruction, pupils’ understanding tends to be shallower. These results clearly favor organizing activities to enable pupils to design experiments proactively in school science classes.

The purpose of this study is to improve the teaching method in order to enhance students’ understanding of the need for water in seed germination. In a survey on the knowledge of 162 sixth-grade students and 136 fifth-grade students about the germination needs of kidney beans, we identified a group of students who failed to recognize the vital role of water in seed germination. In addition to the experiment from textbooks, those 136 fifth-grade students had the opportunity to test how alternative substances (e.g., olive oil and methanol) function in seed germination compared to water in the improved teaching method. The result indicated that the experiment using alternative substance improved students’ understanding of the need for water in seed germination.

Science education in Japan has a big problem: that the level of students’ attitudes toward school science and science in general is low. In this study, we designed a science unit based on the idea of authentic learning that focuses on relevance to society and everyday life. Following deployment of our newly designed science units, improvements in students’ attitudes toward both school science and science in general were demonstrated in the model lower secondary school science classes. The participants in the study were 132 lower secondary school students (8^th grade). The students participated in the science classes from the unit “Electric currents and magnetic fields.” To verify the effects, we conducted before-and-after surveys with questionnaires about students’ attitudes toward their science classes at school and science in general, i.e. its relevance and usefulness in daily life. Moreover, the comments of the students after the unit was completed were analyzed. Consequently, the data, such as evaluation scales of “general value of science” and “personal value of science,” illustrated statistically significant differences between the before-and-after surveys. Then, the comments of the students were coded by quantitative text analysis. Jaccard coefficients between the codes were computed and showed high relativity between “contents of science” and “everyday life,” and between “everyday life” and “usefulness.” The results from this survey suggested that lower secondary school students’ attitudes to science and school science were improved through authentic learning that focuses on science’s relevance to society and everyday life.

In this study, we introduce an instructional method that fosters the development of pupils’ critical thinking ability in science education. The method consists of critical evaluations, both of the information sources used for the prediction of the experimental results, and of the students’ discussions on their experimental results. To verify the effect of the method, it was applied to a series of lessons taught to 6th-grade students of an elementary school on “the air and burning.” In the classroom practices, the students first made a table of reliability using the information based on students’ predictions of the experiments. Next, we developed a worksheet to examine the validity of the experimental results and the contents of the students’ discussions. After each experiment, the students reconsidered both the experimental results and the discussions of the experimental groups, filling the worksheet. As a result of the questionnaire survey and a descriptive analysis of the worksheet writings, we found that the students’ performances on critical thinking were raised through the successive three experiment activities. Also, the development of the attitude aspect of the students’ critical thinking abilities was found to be enhanced.

This research, as a means of fostering interactive learning, aims to clarify the way children collaboratively construct reasonable ideas, decide upon them within the culture of a class, and similarly and respectively utilize those ideas. We applied the collaborative knowledge building model of Stahl (2000) to practice in elementary science education. The model of Stahl’s “Collaborative Knowledge-Building” is a cyclical process consisting of two distinct phases, namely, the understanding of individuals and collaborative knowledge building. According to this model, the scenes and activities are shown to be divided into 11 phases. The lesson that we investigated is the unit of third-grade elementary school science, “shade and the sun”. As a result of analyzing the classes that adopted this model, children built collaborative knowledge, created “cultural artifacts” as a class, and utilized their new knowledge to update previously acquired “cultural artifacts”. In addition, it was revealed that a collaborative knowledge building model was established while encouraging the transition of each phase with the support of the teacher and going back and forth between individual understanding and collaborative knowledge building process.

This study’s first aim was to organize and analyze the contents of “The moon and the sun” from the 6^th Grade Science textbook. It was then clarified that a field observation period by children was only 2 to 3 days, which was not sufficient for the model examination, and additionally, the model experiment was carried out ambiguously without consistent data basis. This caused different interpretations from the model experiment in the text and obstructed conducting an inductive class. Therefore, the class was improved by using simulated observation using a tablet PC. The purpose of this study was to set the simulated observation by using tablet PC after the actual field observation. Then the model experiment was performed in a series to verify the effectiveness based on the observation activities and pupils’ understanding. The following 2 points were clarified after the investigation and analysis. 1. An inductive class was difficult to be carried out with field observation only, but the model experiment was successfully executed based on the simulated observation results using the tablet PC method. 2. The understanding of children was shown to be increased by the simulated observation using a tablet PC in the model experiment.

Quine showed that our cumulative experiences could only be deployed to judge a system of theories as a network of theories, never judging each theory individually (Tanji, 2009). So, the contents of teaching units also depends on this network, and it is necessary to determine the reach of the network of teaching contents. In this study, “Photosynthesis” and “Respiration” were taught as a set of theories and shown as a continuous network for junior high students, although these contents are taught in different grades, i.e. the first and second grade junior high school curricula. Concept Maps were used as knowledge networks in the classroom lesson. As a result of utilizing concept maps, the students understood not only the role of starch for living organisms, but also the substances cycle, changes from solar energy for use in our lives, environmental protection, and ESD problems. The Concept Maps were thus demonstrated to enhance the students’ learning across their acquired knowledge networks.

For this research study, which aims to clarify the actual situation and problems of science teaching, we developed a questionnaire related to the National Assessment of Academic Ability and conducted an attitude consciousness survey of lower secondary school science teachers. The results of the attitude survey showed that the instruction on “planning observations and experiments appropriately”, “finding a problem from natural things and phenomena and solving it appropriately”, “multifaceted comprehensive thinking”, and “meteorological learning” was not effective enough in terms of attitude consciousness. This result was common regardless of the area where the survey was conducted. In addition, although these results were common regardless of the number of years of teacher experience, it was found that teachers with less than 10 years of experience had less adequacy than teachers with more than 10 years.

This study aims to clarify the elements and structure necessary for promoting competence and ability through self-assessment. It focuses on self-assessment because, in order to validly improve learning and teaching, both teacher and learner need to become aware of their own problems in class. Without self-assessment, it is impossible to truly improve the class. Further, unless the learner and the teacher observe in detail where and what the problem is, it is impossible to implement self-assessment in every-day practice. Based on earlier work, we discuss three points: the teacher’s notion of evaluation for appropriate self-assessment; the capacity of teachers to do their own self-assessment while guiding the learners’ self-assessment, which appears difficult to develop; finally, the idea of developing competence through educational assessment in general. We examine One Page Portfolio Assessment (OPPA), a method suggested by Tetsuo Hori, which heavily uses self-assessment in evaluating the success of concept formation. We extract four elements: first, the questions used in self-assessment to promote metacognition, which previously have been rarely discussed; second, the effect of the teacher’s feedback regarding the answers to these questions; third, as a required premise, the notion that assessment enhances learning and teaching; fourth, the importance, for improving learning and teaching, of self-awareness in concept formation and thinking development. The structure can be described as follows: as learners become aware of the process of transformation of their concepts and thoughts through inquiry, their qualifications and abilities, such as metacognition, are promoted. Now, as the teacher confirms the learners’ self-assessments and gives feedback, he/she can observe problems of the class in detail. The teacher thereby improves the class and simultaneously promotes the transformation of his/her own ideas about education. The learners’ self-assessments and the teacher’s self-assessment can be combined under the unifying viewpoint of self-awareness in concept formation.

In this study, the inelastic collision of a sphere against a wall, a familiar collision type, was focused on as a study subject, and the extraction and the correction strategy of the common misconception was attempted. After grasping the misconception via a misconception survey test, meta-cognitive supports were carried out through identification of the misconception and identification of its acquisition process. For the identification of the misconception, an experimental measurement was performed in the same way described in the misconception survey test, while for the identification of its acquisition process, group discussions were held to reflect upon and discuss cause events of the misconception. After these meta-cognitive supports were concluded, post and delayed misconception survey tests were conducted. As a result, the common misconception that the collision-angle and rebound-angle are equal was revealed. As for the cause events of the misconception, it was implied that these causes can be roughly divided into 3 factors; a schooling factor, an observation factor, and a digital factor. It was also implied that the meta-cognitive supports are effective to help students evolve a common misconception toward the correct, scientific conception.

In a unit of high school chemistry, fibroin is treated as an example of a natural polymer compound. However, practical examples of chemistry experiments related to the chemical properties of silk fibroin have not been reported. In this research, we devised a chemistry experiment to be completed in a class assumed to be 50 minutes long. It was recognized that the fibroin solution obtained by dissolving raw cocoons could be applied to experimental teaching materials as a standard protein in protein detection experiments. In the experiment, dyeing, which is a method of discriminating the fibers of the polymer compound, the insolubilized regenerated fibroin film showed a coloration peculiar to the animal fiber. Fibroin chemically treated as recycled fiber has properties of natural fiber, which is suitable as a teaching material for experiments compared with chemically synthesized fiber. Experiments using fibroin at dissolution, dialysis and membrane production suggested that it is suitable for students’ basic chemical experiments without requiring special laboratory instruments, toxicant substances, or effluent treatment work.

We designed a science lesson based on Alexander’s “principle of dialogue teaching” utilizing Vygotsky’s function of the Zone of Proximal Development for the purpose of fostering pupils’ constructions of scientific concepts via collaborative problem solving. To promote the dialogic teaching of this lesson, we utilized formative assessment. The results of in-class practice indicated that: (1) Our science lesson design based on Alexander’s “principle of dialogue teaching” worked effectively to foster students’ construction of scientific concepts. (2) The formative assessment to promote dialogue teaching was revealed to reflect the five principles of dialogue teaching. The dialogical science lesson design derived in this study and deployed in its practice clarified that it effectively contributes to the pupils’ construction of scientific concepts.

There are few reports of testing organic chemistry reactions via heating operations in microscale experiments in upper secondary school chemistry lessons. This is because safe heating methods for microscale chemical experiments have not been established in the field. Furthermore, it is difficult to deploy expensive microscale experimental instruments (small glass labware and heating tools) to science laboratories due to economical constraints. For these reasons, I conducted research on the development of inexpensive simple heating tools to safely heat small commercial glassware which teachers can easily prepare using scissors and pliers. I considered the following three points in my research to develop the simple heating tools in this study. ① With these simple heating tools, heating operation is safe and the production costs less. ② The simple heating tools are versatile; they can support the shape of a wide variety of commercial small glass labware. ③ The manufacturing process for these simple heating tools is easy. As a result, I developed a method that could manufacture simple heating tools which enable the use of commercial small glassware in organic chemistry reactions with heating microscale experiments at inexpensive production costs.

Recently, it has been pointed out that students lack awareness of the significance and usefulness of learning science. At the same time, the importance of career education has come to our attention. Furthermore, “the guide of the course of study on science (MEXT, 2008)” has directed that students learn about the relationships between science and daily life, and between science and society in science classes. Under this guideline, career education has come to be introduced into science classes in conjunction with the contents of science education. However, although students’ awareness about ‘relationships with daily life’ has improved, these revelations have not been able to make students understand the usefulness of science education. In order for students to realize the usefulness of learning science, it was proposed that, with collaboration of universities, researchers could directly carry out classes related to learning content of units on the curriculum, as well as introduce topics such as how their research contributes to society, and various opportunities for career paths, encouraging students to dream while carrying out career education incorporated into the subject’s study. Such classes can also deepen the contents of students’ learning and expand their possibilities for future occupation selection. Therefore, we planned and conducted some lessons and verified the effects of those lessons. It was found that these classes can influence the following aspects of science learning: the improvement of understanding its usefulness to professional lives and to students’ daily lives, enhancing their willingness to learn science.

On the basis of the Ministry of Education’s Elementary School Course of Study (5th grade) published in 2008, learning the method of using the “control condition of an experiment” is proscribed in five learning items. However, with regard to one of the five learning items, the “Function of running water”, it has been pointed out that it is difficult to control the experiment of flowing water in the waterway of the small heap of soil, because it does not always yield consistent results and therefore lacks objectivity. In order to solve the problems, we have developed a “straight water channel type of device” for the running water experiment. The purpose of our study is to demonstrate a teaching material that makes it possible for students to learn the method using the “control condition of an experiment” in the “Function of running water” by using the “straight water channel type of device”. After the class on the “Function of running water” utilizing this new device, we asked the children whether or not it is useful for their learning. Also, we checked the teaching material via the Four Question Strategy (4QS), examining the relationship between the class and 4QS. We thereby confirmed the effectiveness of the new teaching material with the topic of the “Function of running water” for students to learn how to design experiments using the control condition.

The horizon of the Planisphere is different in shape depending on the latitude. Early research into this topic looked for numerical values such as the azimuth of the horizon at arbitrary latitudes. However, they had to tie the resulting numbers together by freehand, with lines. So, my research objective was to “demonstrate the document in which I can graph the trajectory of the planisphere’s horizon accurately for each latitude by utilizing spreadsheet software.” In this paper, I describe the process of drawing the trajectory of the horizon from the previous research.