Abstract
Five sets of science textbooks for elementary schools and lower secondary schools in Japan were surveyed to determine their coverage of algae with reference to diatoms. The textbooks were first published in the early 1950s and thereafter revised almost every 10 years, in conformity with the national science curriculum revision. In textbooks for elementary schools, the number of algal species was largest in the 1962 version and thereafter decreased considerably. The most frequent genus among diatoms was Pinnularia. However, no algal name appeared in the last (2002) version, though the term diatom still appeared in the textbooks. In textbooks for lower secondary schools, the number of algal species was largest in the 1972 version and thereafter decreased, but not so much as in the elementary school textbooks. For the last ten years algae have been taught only from morphological and ecological viewpoints and even there only briefly. Pinnularia was also the most frequent genus among diatoms in lower secondary school science textbooks. According to the newly revised science curriculum, which is being enacted in 2011 for elementary schools and in 2012 for lower secondary schools, diatoms will possibly be taught as organisms living in fresh water, as fish food and as producers in aquatic ecosystems in elementary schools more frequently, but in lower secondary schools they will continue to be taught in line with the status quo.
