Abstract
An innovative plan for integrating science and social studies at the first and second grades of elementary schools in Japan is now in progress. The name of the new school subject is “Life Study”.
There are many countries in Europe in which science is not a single school subject at lower grades of elementary schools. On the contrary, it should be recognized as an epoch-making decision that science has been a single school subject at the first and second grades of elementary schools in Japan since the Second World War.
For developing the new school subject of “Life Study”, the problems must be quickly discussed and solved how scientific contents should be introduced, and how scientific topics should be integrated with social phenomena surrounding children’s real life.
In this paper, the opinions and philosophies of nature study by L. H. Bailey, Lebensgemeinschaft by F. Junge, and heuristic method by H. E. Armstrong that had contributed to the establishment of philosophy and teaching method at elementary schools and elementary school science are reconsidered to get the ideas for developing the new integrated school subject of “Life Study”.
