Children and pupils have little interest in soil. There are some probrems in the soil study: (1) soil education is negative, (2) the basic natures and functions of soil are hard to teach, (3) only few teachers understand about soil, (4) no teaching guide for the observations and experiments on soil are available.

In this report, I proposed a tentative curriculum for teaching in elementary and secondary school science and discussed on the soil education.

In the present work, we have developed a laboratory exercise suitable for teaching asexual reproduction in Japanese junior high schools. Twenty-three species of familiar flowering plants, all of which are wild herbaceous plants, were used. Leaves of these plants were cut near the base of their stalks from the stems or stems and roots of these plants were cut into pieces of about 1 cm in length.

These plant cuttings were placed on two layers of wet filter paper and kept in a plastic box for 10 days at 25°C under L : D=12 : 12 light regime. The light intensity of 2 klux was obtained from fluorescent lamps. In 14 species, adventitious buds or roots sprouted from some cuttings of these plants. Among the 14 species, the formation of adventitious buds and roots was observed well in both the stem and root segments of Rorippa indica (Brassicaceae). The formation of adventitious buds and roots was also observed in the stem segments of Oxalis corniculata (Oxalidaceae), Trifolium repens (Leguminosae), Achyranthes japonica (Amaranthaceae) and Pinellia ternata (Araceae).

Trials of the developed exercise in science classes were done at a junior high school located in Tokyo. Enough plant materials could be collected in the yard of the school. The experimental method of the exercise seemed to be easy for the junior high school students. The students could understand the result of the exercise and readily connected it to the asexual reproduction of the plants. Thus, the exercise developed in the present work is useful for teaching the asexual reproduction of higher plants at the junior high school level.

Fertilization of fern was examined as a school subject matter. Three methods were used to allow spores of six fern species to be sown and to bring out prothallia. Prothallia, antheridia, archegonia, and sperms were comparatively observed in order to screen the experimental materials of fertilization. The process of fertilization was also examined using the fixed materials.

The following results were obtained:

l) Pteridium aquilinum (WARABI) and Struthiopteris niponica (SHISHIGASHIRA) were suitable for experimental materials of fertilization.

2) Various stages of fertilization could be observed using fixed materials with Carnoy’s fluid.

3) Process of fertilization could be recoganized at the cell level.

In this study, the present author attempted to clarify children’s naive concepts of the embryonic development of killifish, a topic which has seldom been attempted in the past.

The author tried to (1) examine whether the children had some naive concepts of the embryonic development of killifish or not before they were taught about it in elementary school science, (2) categorize the children’s naive concepts of this, if any concepts had been identified by (1), and (3) based upon these categories, analyze and consider each child’s naive concept of the development of Killifish.

His findings include: (1) children who had not learned about the development of killifish yet already held some naive concepts of it, (2) the children’s naive concepts of this could be divided into four categories, (3) more than 60% of the children exmined in the fourth grade showed awareness of some concepts of epigensis, but none of them had a firm grasp of the concept, and (4) some concepts of the development of animals similar to those held by the ancient Greeks (including Aristotle) were found among the children.