There are two conflicting theories on the cause of downstream grain-size decrease in fluvial sediments. One is that the dominant factor is the breaking and abrasion of the flowing sand and gravel, and the other is that the dominant factor is the selective transport of sand and gravel by flowing water. In this study, we surveyed how elementary school students, junior high school students, university students, and elementary school teachers understand the downstream grain-size decrease of fluvial sediments. More than 80% of elementary school and junior high school students supported breaking and abrasion as the primary factor. In addition, 57.1% of the elementary school teachers listed breaking and abrasion as the primary factor, while 36.7% of the teachers supported selective transport. We also found that there was a discrepancy between teachers’ and children’s perceptions of the primary factor.

A web application has been developed to easily create and display Rose Diagrams from directional data such as strike and dip. This web application is now available on the author’s homepage. Rose Diagrams can be created simply by uploading a CSV file from a Web browser. There are few restrictions on the user’s terminal environment, such as a specific OS or platform. This web application can be used to summarize the end of the field training or to display trends in real time during the field survey.

I developed a lesson for students to estimate the behavior of the paleontological organisms that formed the Ophiomorpha by using the trace fossil Ophiomorpha and a candidate for its trace-makers, the Callianassa japonica, as teaching materials. Students observed these and estimated the behavior of the trace-makers that formed the Ophiomorpha. As a result of the class practice, 5 of 8 students could estimate the rotational behavior of the trace-makers that formed the Ophiomorpha. In addition to studying the combination of Ophiomorpha and Callianassa japonica, the use of three types of teaching materials—fossil trace morphology, the behavior of the present organism, and trace morphology of the present organism—can be used to estimate the behavior of trace-makers.