The natural science has been making great progress, but the science education is facing some difficulties. For, it must be reformed as to keep pace with its advance. Now, the general education in the territory of physics, chemistry and phisiology has been attaining to each purpose to some extent. Standing on the other viewpoint, the author feels necessity to teach the scientific thought in the fields and to come in contact with variable natures. If man looks at nature, he finds many sorts of landscape, unless he lives in the center of the great city. The students also have many chances to converse with nature, specially when they attend at their open air school or sea side school. Many students, however, used to see land scape as the fine or bad scenery, and they never saw it as the object researching by the scientific methods. Judging from some examinations for the senior high school students (tenth grade), they seem to have less interests in the field biology than in the earth science. This paper is described the biological education under the natural conditions. In the methods of field biology must be on the basis of ecology. In some foreign biology textbooks and other teaching materials show the progressive thoughts on the view of ecology, so we must make our efforts for the science education of our country. With the consideration of educational standpoint, the author classifies them into three processes. One of them is achieved through the work that the student hypothesizes himself for some remarked phenomena observed freely in the fields, to explain its causual relation. This process may be effective for the development of the student's thought, because after this work he will make his efforts to prove his hypothesis. The second process is achieved by discovering the example near the basic pattern in the field and study its specific character, comparing with the typical pattern. This method serves the student well in his understanding the elation of structure and function in the ecosystem. The third 1s the work that the students devise to improve some experimental equipments to set on the field conditions and examine the physiological characters of the plants and animals living in their own environments. This method can not offer the exact data as in the laboratory, but on the field conditions they will have some effects to know the environmental factors which are influencing to the organisms. After these classifications, the author planned to adopt them to teach his students in his various lessons, and reported on this paper. The educational improvement for the field science should be further investigated, reformed and systematized, in relatives to the advance of ecology and the fundamental science education

Classifying the various opinions on the purpose of science education, we can reduce them to two distinct categories: the one is the insistence on the teaching of the fundamental contents of natural science and the other is on both the teaching of the scientific methods and the cultivation of the spirit of inquiry. We should not take these two opinions as alternatives, and it is desirable to accomplish the effective teaching of the fundamental contents while giving preference to the methods and spirit. It is reasonably maintained that we should attach importance to the latter in the early stages of learning science, and to add the former gradually with the progress of learning. In fact, the attempt to achieve these two aims at the same time, results in the laying stress on the teaching the contents of science alone, and then it is no better than the conventional science teaching. Therefore, the author holds that the purpose of science teaching in the early stages, i. e., in elementary schools should be to give our pupils the scientific methods and spirit. He analyses the minimum teaching items ―necessary and sufficient― required from the standpoint of holding the above purpose. They are as follows: (1) the first steps of the technical terms and signs on natural science (as our common understandings) (2) the exact directions for the use of the fundamental implements for science (3) the methods and processes of inquiring into the nature and the natural phenomena (―the methods of science―) He has also investigated to what extent the teaching of these items has been achieved, through testing his subjects―150 students of his university― about their acquisition of the items, and pointed out the insufficiency of these trainings. From these investigations, he points out the following open questions. (1) What technical terms and signs are to be chosen for science teaching in the elementary stages? Of these selected items, which are to be taught simply as previously defined items, and which are to be taught through operational processes or work relevant to the definitions? (2) What are the fundamental implements, and the ways to teach the acculate directions for their use, according to the advancement of pupils' learning grades? (3) What are the suitable plans and methods for training the pupils' to acquire the scientific methods and inquiring spirit?

One of the most important innovations of the Nuffield Science Teaching Project is the use of a new type of examination which is designed to test understanding of the experiments and principles in science and to reduce the need for rote memorization. It is no exaggeration to say that the adoption of this new Nuffield type examinations is vital to the success of the Project. The Project emphasize s - 32 -that the new examination should actively encourage the teaching method which the Project fosters, as well as measure achievement in the objectives of the Project, and should reflect the spirit of the Project. The use of the multiple-choice type of questions has given rise to some discussion. The 0-level physics organizer felt some doubt as to whether objective tests really test under standing and for this reason did not adopt an objective format. In chemistry and biology, the objective type questions were positively introduced. It seems that the adoption of the odjective test is under the influence of U.S.A. But the Nuffield Project recognizes that the objective test must always be used in conjunction with more conventional subjective examinations. The setting of satisfactory Nuffield type questions is by no means easy. But without the constant efforts to produce good Nuffield type questions, everything will ran counter to the intention of the Project.

In the reform of science education in U.S.A., Phenix's key concepts theory and Bruner's structure theory play an important role. But in practices and studies of the new science program development there are a great diversity of contents and organizations. ESS, SCIS, and AAAS projects are discussed comparatively in light of the theories.

It has been often pointed out that the existing syllabuses of science education are far below the modern level of science in the U. S.S.R. In order to remove the above-mentioned shortcoming and form new syllabuses, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. and Academy of Pedagogic Sciences of the R.S.F.S.R. organized a committee at the end of 1964. The new tentative plans of syllabuses made by the committee were announced in 1967 and are now under discussion among teachers, methodists and scholars on the educational magazines. The author studied about these plans from a point of view of the "Gendaika(in Japanese)" and obtained the following results; Some of the material reflected on the achievements of the modern science were accepted in the plans partly but the structure of the syllabuses remained unchanged as a whole. The author has already reported the result in the "Science Education Monthly (Japan Science Teaching Society)". But the data which was used for discussion was omitted owing to limited pages of the ground. So the author presents the data in this report.