BSCS, which played a significant role in the curriculum reform movement of the 1960s in the United States, is the only organization from that time which continues to develop innovative science programs. BSCS has recently developed several programs which deal with the relationships of science and technology to society. Among them, "Basic Genetics: A Human Approach" and "Advances in Genetic Technology" are representatives. These programs focus on the development of problem solving and decision making skills. These are also important ones in Science-Technology-Society (STS) in the United States. So this study investigated the following two points: 1. teaching methods to develop problem solving and decision making skills in the above two genetics programs. 2. based on the results of this first investigation, the relationship between STS approach of these programs and STS approaches of the United States and England. As a result of these analyses, it was learned that BSCS genetics programs incorporated inquiry teaching method and analysis methods using a variety of points of view or values. And these porgrams also dealt with the relationship between the decision and public policy. However, there were four main points of difference among the approaches of BSCS, the united States (NSTA), and England: 1. Curricular apporach to teaching STS; integrated or separated curriculum of scientific contents and STS topics. 2. The use of a published program or of a program of the teacher's own making. 3. The order of teaching of scientific knowledge and social issues; science first, society first, or intermediate approach. 4. The use of a national issue or of a local issue.

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As teaching materials in home economics, a simplified device used to measure air permeability properties of fabrics was developed. Each fabric was fixed on the open ring, made from poly-propylene sheet, and /as put in the cylinder of this device. The air permeability of multiple layers of fabrics was closely related to the air pressure difference of two sides of layers and the flow rate (v) of air through the layers. Both of them were measured as the change of water level, ΔP (mmH_2O), and of v (200cm^3/sec) respectively. In the case of 16 different kinds of fabrics, a plot of ΔP vs. the number of layers of fabrics (N) gave a straight line in the range of N≦5 layers. The slopes of the lines, for fabrics of low air permeability (such as polyester taffeta, nylon taffeta and so on), were larger than those for permeable fabrics (such as cotton shirting, cotton knitting and so on). This device was applied to the following three cases as a teaching material in elementary school; (1) combination effect of three layers of fabrics (two sheets of cotton knitting and a sheet of polyester taffeta), (2) washing influence of cotton shirting, (3) sizing effect of cotton shirting.

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Previous work has provided the following three intrinsic motivations as a reason why children are eager to play video games; challenge, fantasy, and curiosity. We investigated practically about 650 children of 3 to 6 grade of elementary schools to find which factor of the three categories makes video games the most attractive to the children. There are several differences among the favoured intrinsic motivations between sexes and grades. The boys like challenge, regardless of grade. Tendency of preference is not found in girls' ratio. In order to plan and construct video games for science learning, screen on computer should be added to the three intrinsic motivations, which will lead to learning environment where children's activities and thinking become wider. We must situate the computer as a tool of thinking.

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The recent tendency among the senior high school students toward a diminishing choosing-rate of physics as an elective course subject is a serious problem which is difficult for high-school teachers to solve by themselves. But, everyone who teaches physics has the key to solving the problem. This paper indicates that it is indispensable to consider teaching of physics at higher education courses as well as secondary schools in connection with the influence of social and cultural environment on the students. To fulfill the requirements of a successful study at school, such as to cultivate the best attitude based on logical thinking on fact toward studying natural sciences, the following two important things must be considered. First of all, teachers must plan to give such lessons as will enable the students to learn physics happily. Secondly, the student must look at a phenomenon again and again by himself from a quantitative viewpoint without abbreviation to get his idea into theoretical shape. It is emphasized that the most important thing for the students is rich experiences during the lesson through experiments and several topics as well.

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The main purpose of this study is to propose a new educational method for constructivistic understanding of science and to test the validity of the method proposed. For this purpose, the author let students try the KJ method before and after the lecture on nature of science and its related issues. The task for students on applying the KJ method is "to choose and categorize the words necessary for describing and explaining science". There are two aims at applying the KJ method to this study. One is to investigate the change of students' view of science caused by lectures, the other is to let students understand science in constructivistic way by writing a composition compared science with the KJ method. From analizing the change of the words for sciece which students wrote down before and after the lecuture and the compositions, we can estimate to what extent students understand science in constructivistic way.

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In this study, the relationship between cognitive development and strata observation is discussed. The author investigated the cognitive development using GALT and observation skills using photographs of strata on 295 students. It is sure that, strata observation are influenced by cognitive development. The influence is shown as changes into a qualitative, quantitative, and classifiable observations from a simple observation, according to developing of their cognitive abilities.

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