This is a follow-up study reported in the previous report concerning the students' concepts of weight and volume and the processes of their differentiation between both concepts. The materials for the experiments used in the previous study were two balls having the same volume but the different weight from each other. In this second study, two balls having the different volume and the different weight from each other are selected for the first time. A survey procedure taken this time is the same as the previous one, namely, the students' problem solving by experiments. The survey procedure is as follows: predicting of the results before an experiment, hypothesising based on predicting followed by individual experimenting and observing the results followed by reasoning and concluding. As the result of the survey, the following findings are gained: (1) As regards students'differentiation of the two concepts between weight and volume, the number of students who arrive at the correct conclusion in case of the two balls having the different volume and the different weight from each other is much less small than the number of students who arrived at the correct conclusion in the previous study where two balls having the same volume but the different weight from each other were used. (2) In the processes of differentiation of the two concepts, a partial state of differentiation is observed among students. (3) Study effects due to the experiment are found among 30%-40% of elementary school pupils and 10%-30% oflower secondary school students. (4) Even the fmal year students of lower secondary school, namely, not a small number of grade 9, reason that water raising by dropping a ball into the beaker is caused by the weight of ball.

In this paper, we discuss and investigate the relations between the goal and the curriculum of science education, especially those in the first and second graders at an elementary school, in the state of New South Wales (N.S.W.) in Australia. The analytical method of the goal of science education is the same as that in the previous paper. Concerning the lower graders of an elementary school, we analyse them from different points of view, such as phychology, pedagogy and philology, which are related with science. From the viewpoint of the three dimensional axes, we did analyse as in the previous paper. The new results are found as follows: 1. The goal of science education includes the three domains: cognitive, pedagogic and philologic domains. (1) cognitive domain: biological environment (living things around their houses), humanistic environment (use of tools and machines), and material environment (materials and energy) (2) sentimental domain: Emphasis is placed on the inquiry into the positive facts, the wide scope and the creative mind that should be acquired. (3) mental domain: It is emphatically important from the skill to increase by the employment of the five senses. In summary, the child's positive deeds are made much of, viewed from the points of attention, consideration and concern. 2. The contents of the science textbooks abound in the items of observation, exploration and organization, for the improvement in the scientific activities. The contents of the textbooks include the items of the system of measurement and the skill of easy experiments. The first graders begin to study the area of thinking. The sphere of the child's activities ranges from the environment around its house to its neighboring regions. The main objects of inquiring are biology and material domains, while the minor objects are humanity, the earth and cosmos. 3. Science textbooks contain a number of words, mainly related with nature and the child's activities. The words of social activities are few in number. Many words of the names concerning nature are easy to understand, but the words concerning the facts of social behavior are hard to understand. Generally speaking, it can be said that the words used in the textbooks are difficult to understand. 4. The model of the three dimensional structure could be adopted to analyse this case.

This paper attempts to see in the Piagetian perspective the possible contributions of child's play activities to the learning of science. Consisting of four sections, the first two sections of this paper describe the outline of Piagetian play paradigm under the titles of Piagetian concepts of play and The types and development of child's play. The third section, Play and learning, focuses on the Piaget's view concerning the relationship between child's play and the cognitive learning of external reality. From these bases, in the last section titled Play in the learning of science, the possible functions of play activities in the learning of science are discussed. In the Piagetian paradigm, play is a kind of behavior which represents the primacy of assimilation over accommodation, a cognitive state which by itself hardly brings about adaptive learning. However, Piaget suggests, though fragmenally, a variety of situations in which children's play activites may initiate, facilitate, or stabilize adaptive learning of children. Accordingly, there is a possibility that children profit in the learning of science by the introduction of a wider variety of play activities into science lessons.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the advance organizers on teaching the structure of flowers in regular classrooms of an elementary school. Subjects were 177 fifth grade children ( 10-11 years old) of an elementary school. They were divided into two groups on the scores of science exams: high score groups and low score ones. Forty subjects were assigned to each group. Prior to learning the structure of flowers, the subjects in one half of high score groups and one half of low score groups were given the advance organizers about the evolution of flowers for five minutes. After having been taught biological science, the subjects were given an immediate test about the contents of the biological science lesson. One week later, the subjects in each group received two types of tests, a retention test and a transfer test. The retention test was the same as the immediate one. Results showed that the subjects given the advance organizers performed better on any test than those of the control group. The interaction between the advance organizers and the score of science exams was significant on the retention test. Both educational implications about the advance organizers and the effects of the advance organizers in the elementary school children were discussed.

The research for this report is based on the reference books and documents, and on some evidences of people who worked in the Japanese Ministry of Education and local science education authorities. The fact is as follows: 1) "Science for the Elementary School Students" was compiled and published like the plan, which Mr. Genjiro OKA (Science specialist and Ministry of Education official) described to Dr. V. EDMISTON (Chemistry graduate and C.I.E. Science Education chief) on April 1947. 2) The "Science for the Elementary School Students" was the collaboration of the Central Science Committee including the Ministry of Education and nine local District Science Committees, as the model for coming authorized textbooks. 3) Reference materials from American sources for the "Science for the Elementary School Students" are as follows: 1 "Science in General Education": Progressive Education Association 2 "Row-Peterson Unitext: The Basic Science Education Series" (1941-1946), Bertha Morris Parker 3 "Science for the Elementary School Teacher" (1940), G.S. Craig 4 "Science Education for the Elementary School of OHIO" (1946) 5 "New York City Education Guidebook" 6 "Course of Study for Virginia Elementary Schools Grade I~VII" (1943), A.T. Jersild and G.J. Oliver et al.

In the course of physics of upper secondary schools, the diffraction and the interference of light are taught. Wave properties,the conditions of interference and so on are studied. A set of a personal computer and a printer can be utilized to make the original figures of many kinds of diffraction gratings. I took the pictures of these figures on minicopy films and made two dimensional diffraction gratings. Fraunhofer diffraction patterns of He-Ne laser light were observed. Students were very interested in the patterns when I showed them in the classes. In this paper,. I report on the observation of Fraunhofer diffraction patterns of He-Ne laser light by two dimensional diffraction gratings: four fundamental lattice arrangements with five kinds of figures(■●▲◆★). By measuring the distances between bright or dark lines of patterns, the lattice constants and the size of figures can be known. This experiment could be a model of X-ray diffraction and electron beam diffraction. In the last section, I show the computer-made diffraction patterns. They are much like the real ones. It will show that physical phenomena can be expressed well by mathematics.