The fifth grade pupils using a ringing bell in an evacuated flask study that the sound can be propagated in the air and cannot be propagated without air. Pupils can only say “can be heard” or “cannot be heard” according to this apparatus. The extent of audibility by the pupils depends greatly upon the individuality of each pupil. The authors studied the audibility by the pupils and the characteristic frequency of the bell. They also develop an effective apparatus instead of the usual methods. The findings of this study and the apparatus developed are as follows: 1. The frequency below 500 Hz shows high audibility to the fifth grade pupils. Dispersion of audibility is low below this frequency. Therefore, the desirable frequency of the sound source is below 500 Hz. 2. The characteristic frequency of the bell of which diameter is 2 cm shows about 1600 Hz, and which is not desirable for the source of the sound. 3. The apparatus developed consists of manual exhaust pump of an enema syringe with one reed, the busser .and the reagent bottle (500 ml). They found out that when the class used this apparatus it was effective for studying sound propagation. Most of pupils found out that the sound becomes feeble as the air is removed.

Primarily, in constructing an educational curriculum, the learning contents and their levels of understanding are based in line with the advancement of grades in school. However, it had previously been studied on the topic of electricity that the phenomenon of understanding of electricity decreased with the advancement of grades. In this study, with the respondents from the upper secondary school pupils, the changes in understanding of the topic of electricity in various aspects were obtained as follows: 1. In this survey, for twelve of the 18 concepts of electricity, all the three grades in upper secondary school gave lower than 50% of the correct response. 2. As in the case of the previous studies had pointed out, this study also found that the understanding of electricity decreased With the advancement of grades. 3. The understanding of the concepts of electricity was generally low. On the average, six or seven of the 18 concepts could not be understood by the pupils. It was supported in this study that the mean value, variance corresponding to the advancement of grades had a tendency to decrease.

The author studied the thoughts of Banzan Kumazawa (1619 - 1691, Japanese) who was a scholar and a practical manager of Bizen Ikeda Han (present Okayama Prefecture) and the thoughts of Shoeki Ando (1701 - 1762, Japanese) who was a doctor at Nanbu Han (present Aomori Prefecture). They both established unique theories about man and nature. The author intended to introduce their thoughts into science education because their thoughts and theories about forest and soil were very rational to instructive, plain and beneficial today’s science education. Their thoughts have biosocial and bioethical characteristics, so the author thinks their thoughts are to be studied as original ideas, about “value education” in science education. They established their theories on the basis of deep understanding of Japanese climate and ecosystem. Especially Banzan’s theory about forest conservation is correct and worth studying throughout hundreds years. But, since Meiji Restoration their thoughts have been neglected in the school textbooks. The author regrets these facts, and thinks that we must respect their thoughts and reflect them on todays science education. So he made some propositions.

The purpose of the learning on the specific heat in the Science I course is to have the students understand the basic concept of the heat energy. At present, the procedure for measuring the specific heat in the most science textbooks for Science I employ the so-called mixed method, though this has some defects. In other words, as this is employed, the students cannot directly measure the temperature of samples. Therefore, in this paper, the author has intended to alter this procedure so that the students can directly measure the temperature of them. To solve this problem, he has developed the following instrument. It is the cylindrical metal bar (d = 3 cm, h = 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 cm) that has one hole to insert the glass tube (d = 1 cm, h = 15 cm). Through this tube, thermometer can directly contact with the metal. Then, the temperature of it are directly measured. As the result of using this, the obtained specific heat values have corresponded to the theoretical values.

The author has detailed the taxonomy of cognitive skills developed by CSMS PROJECT which was used to evaluate the science curriculum. Basing on it, he has analysed the reason why the Japanese lower secondary school students had failed to master some scientific concepts. Result of this analysis, it has been clarified that they had not understand the logical relationships that had made up the concepts, therefore, they had failed. To solve this and to help them better understand the concepts, it is necessary for teachers to identify the way how they learn the concepts using the logical relationships in each developmental stage. In applying this strategy to design the science curriculum, it will be possible to enhance their achievement on these concepts.

The author made the soil testing equipment which can maintain soil biotope in natural condition. This equipment has made possible to study the soil microbes in natural condition. It makes possible for you to set up teaching plans putting emphasis on the function of decomposers using the equipment, such as soil respiration, the decomposition of fallen leaves and filter paper in net bags, and the decomposition of organic compounds.

In order to find out the level of the student’s reasoning ability in deductive explanation, the following investigation was carried out. Hypothesis: Which influences on the rate of correct responses in the above reasoning, the content of laws or the order of them? Sample: The sample were composed of two groups: the one, 83 students; the other, 89 students. Method: Subjects were given two different laws on P-wave and S-wave of an earthquake in two separate instructions. The order of the two instructions differ in two groups. Free answer method was used. Result: The following are the results of the present investigation. 1) The rate of correct responses depends on the content of the laws rather than the order of them. 2) 52-65% of the students gave the correct responses.

The concept of conservation of electric current that the intensity of a current is maintained equally at any point in a closed circuit is one of the most fundamental concepts. The purpose of the present study is to investigate children's conception of the intensity of the current and its changes with age. The subjects were children from fifth to ninth grade. The closed circuit used for this investigation was composed of one dry cell and one or two flashlight bulbs. As to the intensity of the current at several points in the circuit, the children answered by choosing one out of several items described in words and by writing the numerical value. The results showed that the two types of children's answers had a good agreement with each other irrespective of the correctness of the answer and that children held various conceptions as to the intensity of the current. It was also found that the concept of conservation of electric current gradually developed with children's learning and was completely established in the eighth grade.

It is well known that Piaget, J. made the experiments about the child's conception of "Acceleration" from a psycological point of view. This paper is a study concerning the child's conception of "Acceleration" from Piaget's experiment and its improved study on the basis his idea using a new apparatus. Piaget studied the child's cenception of "Acceleration" using the falling body on an inclined plane. The author studied it through not only the Piaget's experiment above mentioned, but also two new experimental equipments. One of them is the Atwood apparatus, using falling body along a vertical line. The other one is the apparatus using the moving body on a horizontal line. The findings from the result of the experiment are as follows; (1) In the experiments with the movement of both an inclined line, a vertical line and a horizontal line, the way of the child's conception of "Acceleration" is almost the same as the result of Piaget's experiment. (2) Each of the directions of the movement is not influenced to the child's judgement of "Acceleration". (3) some children, a few infants in particular, understand the meaning of "Acceleration", and it seems that some of them perceptionally judge it as if by the conception "Instantaneous Speed". (4) It is possible to let the children judge "Acceleration" more effectively when they observe the phenomenon of ball rebound and operate it under the "Instructions (means observation of phenomena or operation of apparatus)".

We examine blind students' interest in science by the methods of paired comparisons, and compare their interest with sighted students' it. The summary as the results is shown below. 1. Blind students are interested in science most, but mathematics least. 2. Blind students are more interested in physics or chemistry than earth science. 3. Although boys are interested in earth science, girls are interested in biology.

This work is to study the clock-reaction for establishing an expression of its reaction rate through a simple procedure. We tried to define the average reaction rate as a valid expression of the reaction rate in the clock-reaction system. The average reaction rate, Va, in potassium iodate-sodium sulfite-sulfuric acid system is expressed as follows; Va=－[SO₃^2－]₀ / Δt, where [SO₃^2－]₀ and Δt are the initial concentration of sulfite ion and the induction time of this reaction, respectively. According to this definition of the rate of reaction, the rate equation of the above mentioned reaction system is derived from its experimental results as follows; Va = K [IO₃^－]² [SO₃^2－] [H^＋]², where K is the rate constant. The assumption that proton catalyzes this reaction in the form of [H^＋]² leads us to the following successive reaction path which consists of only the chemical species already identified by the various studies of this reaction system; 2IO₃^－ + HSO₃^－　∧→　IO^－ + IO₂^－ + SO₄^2－ + H⁺　IO^－ + HSO₃^－　→　I^－ + H⁺ + SO₄^2－　IO₂^－ + 2HSO₃^－　―　I^－ + 2H⁺ + 2SO₄^2－