The subject "Nature" in China corresponds to "Science (Rika) " in Japan. There are many similarites and difference in the elementary school science curricula in China and Japan. We compared the TEACHING GENERAL OUTLUNE (of China) and THE COURSE OF STUDY (of Japan) on the following three points of view: (1) School Hours of Teaching Science The school hours alloted to teaching Science in Japan are much larger than those of China. (2) Aims of Teaching There are many common elements in both of the curricula. (3) Contents of Teaching There are many different items in content. The number of content items of China is larger than of Japan.

The purpose of this study was to find a method to progress students' ablity to write chemical equations. The subjects were lower secondary school students. The results of this investigation revealed the following points: Completion of chemical equations require the ability to write fundamental chemical formulas.The ability to represent a matter in a model diagram is very important in order to be able to imagine the combinations of atoms in the structure of a matter. It was made clear that there are a number of students who can't write chemical equations with models, even though they have acquired necessary knowledge on chemical formulas and model usage. The reason is that when completing chemical equations, the students make mistakes, for example, in adjusting coefficients, thus writing formulas which do not exist. If the students are taught by the procedure given below as (1) to (4), we should think that they can comprehend more correctly the method for writing chemical equations for chemical reactions. (1) To make the students comprehend chemical formulas correctly. (2) To make the students imagine the combinations of atoms in the structures of matters. (3) To make the students comprehend by means of models the chemical reaction process in which the association of atoms in molecules break down to create new chemical compounds. (4) To make the students express chemical formulas in accord with the model which the students imagine for the structures of matters in chemical reactions.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the developmental change of understanding and cognition about pendulum motion and its effects on school science. The subjects were 659 people ranging from kindergartners up to graduate students, Kindergartners weve interviewed, and other subiects were asked to fill out multiple-choice questionnaires.The results were as follows: (1) Even the kindergartners have already developed their ideas about some aspects of the motion of pendulums. These ideas, mostly non-scientific, make a marked developmental change by the time they reach K4. (2) The scientific ideas of pendulum motion become predominant presumably due to the educational intervention in school science as evidenced in the subject groups from K6 to sciencerelated graduate students. There is a difference, however, in the effects on school science between the conceptions of speed and period: students show higher performance in the latter. Formal instructions of pendulum motion start at K5. (3) The effects of educational intervention in school science on the student's cognition of pendulum motion are evident among the subjects from K6 to graduate school. The data obtained in this study strongly suggest that although most of their students apply scientifically accepted answer to the period, their views on pendulum motion are non-scientific. In the final section, the implications of these results for science education are briefly discussed.

Various impact phenomena occur in unbounded space . Some experiments were carried out on such impact phenomena as a teaching material of science . An accelerator of flyers was produced , which can be operated easily by upper secondary school students. Flyers were accelerated by the pressure of compressed air . The characteristic of compressed air is taught at elementary school . It was found that the apparatus can be operated easily and that the velocity of flyers can be controlled in good reproducibillity by varying the pressure of compressed air . The velocities of several to ca . one hundred meters per second were obtained . Some tests were carried out concerning the impact of plastic flyers on plaster disks , and interesting phenomena were observed. It is thus considered that the apparatus is useful for scientific experiments on sticking and crater forming by impact .