In order to examine the materials of the heat conduction in a metal rods which have been taught in the elementary school science, the author investigated the variables that affect to the heat conduction. When one end of a metal rod was heated and the heat conducted stationary, the temperature difference between the surface and the surroundings of the rod descended exponentially as the distance from the heat source become further. These results completely agree with the the theoretical expectation. It was also found that, the ratios of descendings of the temperature differences were affected by such variables as the cross section, the circle, the heat conductivity, the heat transfer coeffient from the surface of a rod. From the Newton's low of cooling, it was concluded that the heat transfer coefficient from the surface of a rod did not depend on the rod's shape, size, and the kind of the metal but only on the surface condition of the rod. In an experiment of the heat conduction written in the science textbooks, there metal rods (Cu, Al, Fe) of the same diameter are usually adopted. Although the comparative magnitudes of the temperasure conductivity of the metals are Cu>AI>Fe, as expected from the calculation, the experimental results are Cu≒AI>Fe. These phenomena due to the difference of the surface conditions of the rods. In this experiment one should keep the conditions of the rod's surfaces as same as possible by covering the surfaces with the metalic paint or by using the metal rods which have nearly the same surface condition. An experiment of the heat conduction in which one side end or a metal rod is heated and the other side end is put into water in a beaker, show very well that the ascendings of the water temperature are propotional to the heat conductivities of the rods. In any way one should recognize the distinction between the heat conductivity, and the temperature conductivity when he plans an experiment to show how the heat conducts in a metal rod.

Continuously from elementary school to lower secondary school in Japan, the teaching materials of "rust" and "oxidation" are adopted by textbooks for the formation of the skill on atom and molecule in substances. But the good result has not been obtained quantitatively by the experimental method that is stated in text-books. For example, when one gram of magnesium powder is burned in a pocelain cruicible, the weight of obtained magnesium oxide is about 30% lighter than calculated theoretical value. The method of pyrolysis of metal nitrate obtains a suffieient quantitative results, but this method takes very long time and generated poisonous nitrogen dioxide. Therefore, this method is difficult to use to lower secondary school. In this teaching materials, the most important skil is the low of conservation of mass and the low of constant proportion, and these skills should be obtained by the experiment of metal oxidation. The mass of oxygen which oxidizes metal must be measured directly and the result should be quantitatively sufficient to all students. To satisfy this purpose, a closed system of the equipment is used. In this equipment, when oxygen is used for the oxidation, the consumed volume of oxygen is measured and supplemented from a small spray can. The consumed mass of oxygen can be measured by the weight change of a small spray can. When using 0.5 gram of grated copper, the mass of obtained cupric oxide and the mass of used oxygen are very close to the calculated theoretical values. According to these results, this equipment is very useful for the purpose to training the skill of atom and molecule in substances.

A new experiment and its interpretation are presented to the fifth grade pupils, explaining that sound waves propagate in the air. It is hard to listen to sounds of a ringing bell in an evacuated jar, which effect is always interpeted as the sound waves cannot be propagated without air. This interpretation, however, needs some corrections because it is almost impossible to evacuate the air from the jar to the extent that thesound waves cannot propagate. It is naturally admitted that the sound waves can propagate even in the evacuated jar in the new interpretation, which is a help to make the pupils understand how the sound waves propagate in the air.

In the present work, fading of triphenylmethane-type dye is performed with a view to investigating the development of the teaching materials available for an undergraduate chemical kinetics experiment. Fading reactions of Fuchine and Bromophenol Blue are examined in the aqueous alkali-solution. In each run, the extent of the reaction is continuously measured by the spectrophotometric techniques and is recorded on the chart paper. The reactions are run at the definite temperatures of 20~30℃. In the case of hydroxylation of Fuchsine, the accurate data are easily obtained. The initial rate of the reaction is found to obey the following equation: r₀=k₀〔Fuchsine〕₀〔OH^-〕₀ The value of an apparent activation energy is 16~18Kcal/mole. In the case of hydroxylation of Bromophenol Blue, there is a considerable change in the hydroxide ion concentration with the lapse of time. The accurate kinetics data are, therefore, obtained with difficulty. The initial rate of the reaction is presented by the following equation: r₀=k₀〔Bromophenol Blue〕₀〔OH^-〕₀ The activation energy is 31 Kcal/mole. The both rate equations are consistent with the stoichiometrical over-all chemical equation, respectively. By summarizing the results obtained, it seems reasonable to suppose that the reaction of Fuchsine is available for an undergraduate chemical kinetics experiment, while that of Bromophenol Blue is unsuitable.

In case of scientific studies, good feeling, curiosity and expectation for science will urge us to come to grips with hard questions. From this view, impression for science of college students in faculty of education was investigated. As a result of it, it was found that science was most disliked in the main subjects (language, mathematics, social study, science and English) and biology is favored in natural science by most students, but physics is disliked. It was also found that dislike for science was due to deficiency of time for understanding of scientific knowledges and it's abstraction. In addition to it, it was found that the students felt that they didn't have so much confidence in instructing physical and astronomical teaching materials in the primary school.

It has been a very long time since the urgent need for a scientific view of nature was brought forward in biology education in Japan. It is no doubt that our daily life has been made incomparably affluent by the general development of modern industry and technology; but it is certain, on the other hand, that a slow but steady step toward the destruction of nature has also been made with it. The first step must have been taken through the misunderstanding of a view of nature. When the history of biology education in Japan is traced back, it can be said that biology education should have been much more forcussed on the preservation of nature. Of how nature has been appreciated and what kind of nature has been taken in Japanese school textbooks, it is necessary to get some knowledge for biology education in future. During the early years of the Meiji Era (1868-1912), biology education appeared to be not more than natural history: to be more the imitation of the western view of nature of the day than the introduction of new ideas. It was rather in the nature of the Christian view of nature and eventually appeared, more or less, to have the aim of teaching the greatness of God, the creator of all nature. Next in the Mid-Meiji period, there appeared in biology education the views of relationships between nature and living things, and a proper balance of all nature. These new steps had long been kept on and adopted in the school textbooks of biology at that time, but they were treated of as rather minor subjects and did not produce any appreciable result in education. The study and understanding of relationships of all living things to the natural world and also to human beings was one of the main objectives of biological science. But the classification and naming of living things had been a major subject in biology in Japan up to the time before World War II. State texbooks of biology at school were somewhat on a charge of nature; they must have been resulted from a false idea of the possible utilization of all living things and nature. In the Taisho Era (1912-1926), the ecological point of view of nature came to appear in biology education, but it was not so evaluated because at that time the descriptive biology and the memorization of natural history were dominant over all the other biological studies. This biology education in the nature of natural history was to bring about another non-scientific view of "the superior power of human beings over all living things and nature." It is an unreasonable view of nature that natural resources are boundless, and all living things are always regenerating. In the course of classfying and naming all living things, living things themselves had been looked upon as "the dead." Just with the beginning of World War II, a new and real attampt to cultivate a 'scientific’ view was beginning to be made. Since nature had been apt to be felt in Japan too sentimental or too practical to nourish any scientific understanding of nature even in biology education. This must eventually have led to the destruction of nature just through the hands of human beings. Biology education now in Japan should be, in the first place, largely responsible for the immediate study of relationships of living things to each other and to their environment. Biology itself is the science of living things. Through more deeper interest in and more careful and direct observation of all living things and nature as they are, the traditional view of nature must be developed into the one much more "scientific." With the establishment of such a new scientific view of nature in biology education, one more distinct step in advance will be surely made toward the fruitful preservation of nature in Japan.

(Purpose of the study) The study aimed to survey the elementary school children's ability to classify the different kinds of metals. (Methodology) The researchers administerd a pre-test to determine the children's levels of understandings of the different physical attributes of metals. Responses to the questions given were checked, tabulated and analyzed. Experimental lessons were prepared and administerd to the children to help them have a better understanding of the physical attributes of metals, moreover, to help them classify the metals correctly. After administering all the experimental lessons, a post-test was given to children to evaluate their mastery of the concepts developed. Finaly, the researchers compared the ratio between the pre test an-d the obtained post-test. (Description of subjects) The research population was represented by a sample of 107 pupils (the 4th-6th grades) of the public elementary school in Kawasaki city for the school year 1980~1981. (Findings) In the above mentioned study, the following findings were obtained : 1) The results of the pre-test revealed that only 20% of each grade level (4~6) could identify correctly some of the physical attributes of metals. Further they showed that none of the subjects could identify all the physical attributes. 2) The frequency of errors showed that the electroconductivity and the malleability were the least identified as physical attributes. 3) The subjects misconstrued hardness, specific gravity and magnetism as physical attributes of metals. The percentages of incorrect response were more than the percentages of correct attributes identified. The researchers inferred that the higher percentages of incorrect attributes given could be due to their past knowledges of the physical attributes of iron. 4) Presented some experimental lessons on predicting physical attributes of metals (iron, copper and aluminium in various shapes) showed that electroconductivity of coins were the least mentioned attributes. The 20~30% of the subjects indicated that a copper wire posseses magnetism. The researchers inferred that this could be due to the subjects knowledges of electromagnet and detecting of an electric current by magnetic needle. 5) The ratio between the obtained pre-test and post-test scores revealed that there is a difference of 50%．This indicated that 70% of the subjects could now, after the experimental lessons, correctly recognized the physical attributes of metals.

In order to know the extent of the understandings of the basic concepts of the mechanic which had been taught in the lower secondary schools in Japan, the author investigated into the students from 7th to 9th grades who had already learned the mechanics, by asking them to answer the questionnaires that were consisted of very fundamental problems concerning the force. The investigation revealed the following much important information useful for the science teachers to construct the teaching plan and the teaching strategy about the topic. (1) Over 90% of the students had understood how to express the force by the vector's arrow, but they could not solve the problems presented in some complicated situations. (2) Only half of them in each grade had understood the concept of the ballance of two forces. (3) The number of the students who could find a resultant force of two forces and resolve one force into two components using the parallerogram method, was very small, in the 9th grade students it was about 20% and in the 7th grade zero. (4) The number of the students who could obtain the resultant force of two forces which act on the same line, was also very small, in the 9th grade students it was about 30%, in the 7th grade about 10%. (5) The point of application of the force had not been well unberstood, especially in the case of the gravity and the reaction of a force. (6) The number of the students who had understood fully the concept of action and reaction of the force, was only 20~25% in each grade.

To explain the present status of development of atomic and molecular concepts of students as related to the understanding of the nature of matter, inquiries by paper were applied in 1979 to about 2300 students of secondary schools levels and of college level. The followings are found by analyzing the results. (1) The understanding of solid state properties of matter with atomic concepts is reasonably developed along the course of study of science in schools. (2) The atomic and molecular concepts are grown mainly in the periods of late secondary schools. (3) The understanding of entities of element of matter, distinguishing elements from compounds and the quantitative grip of the nature of atoms are less developed by the present science education in schools. It seems necessary to improve it by using more actual teaching materials and by making it more systematic and consistent, especially in relation to mathematics education.