This study aims to determine the expected effect size of intervention studies in science lessons through meta-analysis. Intervention studies were collected from education-center websites in every Japanese prefecture to calculate the average effect size and examine the moderation effect. The results of the quantitative analysis showed that the mean effect size of multi-valued items was g=0.594 [0.557, 0.630] (k=626, N=9122). The moderator analysis revealed relatively low effect sizes for learning in the geology domain, and differences in effect size for various types of academic indicators. In addition, we provided basic statistics to help determine the sample size needed for future studies.

This study focuses on “Rise above”, which is one of the principles of knowledge construction advocated by Scardamalia (2002), as an approach to deep learning in science learning. Five thought elements are hypothetically set as images, and their validity is clarified from actual cases. From the analysis, we will consider the factors that promote Rise above and aim to obtain suggestions for lesson design that realizes deep learning.

As a result, a concrete appearance of the thinking element was seen in the cases, and its usefulness as a component of Rise above was confirmed. The factors that promote Rise above were the assessment of one’s thoughts accompanied by metacognitive activities, and the updating of the viewpoints and criteria to be considered. As a result, thinking was repeatedly performed from a different point of view, leading to an increase in the degree of knowledge abstraction. Therefore, it can be said that the study of ways to think repeatedly from different viewpoints and criteria is an important viewpoint for class design that realizes deep learning in science learning.

It is necessary to develop human resources that have the ability to drive us toward a new society—Society 5.0. Therefore, it will be a challenge to enhance maker-centered learning opportunities and accumulate knowledge on learning effects. The utilization of virtual reality (VR) technology in town planning can make people think about its connection with their daily lives. This study focuses on “Maker Education” that assumes the importance of human resource development for Society 5.0. The aim is to show the possibilities of town planning in a virtual environment. The learning effects of this practice are manifested in the relationship between the activities in the virtual environment and learners’ thoughts and actions in their daily lives. As a result, participants in this study showed high motivation and interest in VR content production. The participants set up a traffic safety facility while imagining their daily lives. Many of the participants evidently thought about the role and purpose of traffic safety facilities in their daily lives.

The more interested people are in science and technology, the more likely they are to participate in science cafes. Moreover, there has been pointed out a possibility that science and art events could attract a public that is potentially interested or disinterested in science and technology. In this study, we investigated participants in science cafes and science and art events and potential participants who are willing to participate in those events from the viewpoint of interest in science and technology. Our results showed that 1) participants in science and art events consisted of more of a public that is potentially interested or disinterested in science and technology than science cafes, 2) the rate of potential participants are similar between science cafes and science and art events, 3) there is a significant difference in the rate of interested public between participants and potential participants in science cafes. These results suggest that both science and art events and science cafes could attract a public that is potentially interested or disinterested in science and technology at the stage of willing to participate in these events, but there are some barriers for the public potentially interested or disinterested in science and technology to participate in science cafes.

Although research on mathematics education incorporating humor generally expects humor to improve students’ emotional experiences in mathematics learning and provides multiple ways to interpret word problems, this study examined the cognitive role of humor in authentic mathematical activities, wherein more general mathematical problems are generated from relatively particular ones. Particularly, this study clarified the cognitive role of humor in mathematics lessons that intentionally incorporate humor in secondary education. We applied the incongruity theory of humor as a theoretical framework and analyzed eighth-grade students’ mathematical activities for ascertaining the sum of interior angles of polygons. We observed that students themselves discovered that different initial assumptions led to the same mathematical conclusion. We found that the incorporation of humor into mathematics education has at least three effects, wherein humor 1) guarantees freedom of thinking in solving mathematical problems; 2) updates didactical contracts between teachers and students; and 3) enhances students’ critical thinking skills. Thus, we concluded that humor contributes to the realization of students’ authentic mathematical activities. As an implication for future mathematics education research, we point out the necessity of exploring how classroom cultures for connecting humor with mathematics might emerge.

The objective of this paper is to identify, using case examples, how the composition process of revision and refinement of mathematical knowledge relates to changes in the intention behind statements present in mathematical negotiations. To this end, analysis and consideration were conducted to clarify the methodology for the analysis of mathematical negotiations against the theoretical background of agreement constructivism, as well as to plan and conduct experimental lessons on the “division of fraction” unit in the 6^th grade of elementary school. In this paper the children’s opinions in that experimental lesson are analyzed and considered by using the analysis frame created by T. Shimomura (in press). The results of the analysis and consideration revealed the following two points. First, differences in the intention behind statements were observed in conjunction with changes in the direction of the process of adapting to the “world” and “oneself” in the composition stage of mathematical knowledge. Second, the intention behind statements used to reach a consensus in the form of mathematical knowledge differed depending on the implications of the existence of others.

To evaluate the quality of “Swing away from Science” research methodology, we reviewed the related literature through a systematic search of an electric journal platform, J-STAGE. Through this survey, we located 1,058 articles published between 1973 and 2019, as of November 2019. Among these articles, we reviewed 149 empirical studies. Three types of research are identified: descriptive studies, analytical studies, and interventional studies. Descriptive studies collect data on students’ interest in science status. Analytical studies search determinants which influence students’ interest in science. On another hand, interventional studies examine effects of implemented intervention on students’ interest in science. The results of our critical review suggest seven methodological deficiencies: (a) a clear definition of “Swing away from Science” mostly lacked; (b) few researches used validated instruments; (c) no descriptive study followed through one group’s change in interest; (d) analytical studies failed to reveal complex interactions among determinants; (e) most interventional studies lacked pre-investigation and a control group; (f) some concepts of interest measured were not theoretically aligned to the span of intervention; and (g) almost all of the measures relied only on psychometric variables. The future direction of “Swing away from Science” research is discussed based on these seven findings.

As mathematics was developed by people, the nature of mathematics is assumed to be important to the human development process. In this study, “mathematical values” means the value a person assigns to the nature of mathematics in evaluating it. Research identifies the nature of mathematics having been assigned mathematical values by people, and mathematical values are described in the literature. However, the context in which a person assigns mathematical values to the nature of mathematics need to be explored because what should be assigned a mathematical value depends on the context. Therefore, this study aims to reveal the features of mathematical values within such a context. This study focuses on evaluating the multiplicity of ideas. A problem of counting marbles was set with four different solutions to capture mathematical values; 45 pre-service teachers were asked to select which solution had mathematical values and to give an account of the reasons for their selection. As a result, there were different contexts for evaluating the mathematical character of a solution. This indicates that the contexts of mathematical values are not necessarily the same, even if mathematical values are assigned to the same nature of mathematics. The context needs to be explored more closely.

The purpose of this paper is to improve understanding of “the proof of character expression”, which is a problem in junior high school mathematics departments through the training of “the ability to transform the formula according to its purpose” in elementary school arithmetic. As a method for that purpose, we will show how to develop that ability in the “even/odd, multiple” learning guidance.

In order to achieve this purpose, we have developed and conducted a survey to understand the actual conditions of children regarding their “the ability to transform a mathematical formula according to its purpose”. Then, based on the childrens’ actual situation obtained, we proposed five points regarding “even/odd, multiple” learning guidance that develops “the ability to transform the mathematical formula according to its purpose”.

Metal dendrites can be valuable learning materials for the visualization of the Lorentz force in chemical reactions; however, the appropriate experimental conditions for this purpose such as the voltage, reaction time, magnitude of magnetic field, and electrolyte solution concentration are not known. Hence, we conducted experiments to effectively visualize metal dendrite precipitation in a swirling shape due to the Lorentz force generated by the magnetic field and for use as practical teaching materials. The electrolysis was carried out at a voltage of 20 V, 15 V or 10 V for 1 or 2 min with 3 or 5 rare-earth magnets in piles and a CuSO₄ aqueous solution with the concentrations of 0.050, 0.10, and 0.15 mol L^–1. It was found that the magnetic field was increased using the magnets stacked, even though the effect decreased with increasing numbers of layers. To observe the shape of the metal dendrites under a magnetic field effectively in a short time, the concentration of the aqueous CuSO₄ was determined to be 0.10 mol L^–1. The magnetic field was increased using magnets in piles, even though the effect decreased with increasing numbers of layers. A copper wire was used repeatedly as the anode, and the mass of the copper participating in the reaction gradually decreased. The magnitude of the applied voltage was not sufficiently studied in this work, and will be investigated in future studies.

This study examined whether celestial motion material with a ground image known to students promoted understanding of the diurnal motion of stars by comparing it to two other types of materials: a material with ground images unknown to students and a material without any ground image. Test performance and subjective evaluation after learning between the three fourth grade classes, in which students took a lesson on the diurnal motion of stars with one of the three types of materials, were compared. As a result, the test performance revealed that the known ground image material improved students’ understanding of the diurnal motion of stars more than the other two types of materials. Subjective evaluation also showed the effectiveness of the known ground image material. In addition, we inferred the reason for the effectiveness by interviewing the students about what they had learned from the known ground image material.

In order to promote STEM education in elementary schools, professional development of STEM teachers is necessary. For that purpose, there are ways in which the teacher can collaborate with researchers and engineers to design the STEM classes and develop the profession. It is necessary to know when teachers receive good influences from researchers and engineers. However, we have not seen any information about those characteristics to date. Therefore, in this study, referring to Bekir et al. (2018) STEMPCK, we extracted the STEMPCK elements in the utterances of the class design process and created a network diagram of the utterances. By doing so, we attempted to understand how teachers interact with researchers and engineers, and how they are influenced by these interactions. The results showed that teachers were more likely to be influenced by researchers and engineers when pedagogical knowledge, which is one of the STEMPCK elements, was used as a shared term. In addition, the importance of acquiring knowledge of Science, Technology, Engineering and 21st Century Skills Knowledge from experts was also confirmed.

In science education, it is important to make students realize the usefulness of science, and Super Science High Schools (SSH) are supposed to foster the attitude of students to utilize scientific knowledge and perspective proactively. It is therefore necessary to evaluate whether the efforts of SSH schools successfully foster expected attitudes. This study aimed to develop a science utilization orientation scale to assess the efforts of SSH schools. The results showed a factor structure as assumption with sufficiently high factor loadings. There were no DIF, ceiling effect, and floor effects, that would impair the validity of the scale, that we found in the results. The difference in the mean value between each group was consistent with the theoretical hypothesis. In conclusion, this scale is considered to be able to measure the science utilization orientation of SSH students and evaluate the efforts of SSH schools.

We have developed teaching materials to directly measure the buoyant force of a body, using an equal-arm balance. First, to cancel the gravity effect, we made the arm of balance horizontal by attaching the body and an appropriate weight of clay at each end of the arm in the air. After this, we immersed the body in water. The body, being exposed to buoyancy only, floated. Next, we made the arm of balance horizontal again by pushing down the body-side arm with an electric balance. Thus, the display of the electric balance has been arranged so as to stand for the buoyant force of the body. We implemented a class practice at a public lower secondary school with these teaching materials for encouraging students to understand that the buoyant force of the body depends on the volume and is independent of its position, shape, and mass. The results are as follows: Students’ understanding for the contents of buoyancy treated in the practice improved. Furthermore, improvement of students’ understanding is also useful for buoyancy problems which are concerned with moving bodies and with boards in different situations of position and direction, which were not treated in the practice.

This study aimed to examine the history and current state of elementary school childrens’ textbook descriptions regarding the management after breeding an alien species, specifically crayfish, in living environmental studies. The study analyzed 112 childrens’ textbooks and 60 teachers’ guides.

Three main points were identified.

(1) Childrens’ elementary school textbooks have evolved from having no mentions of crayfish or recommending that they be abandoned outdoors to recommending continued breeding over the past 30 years.

(2) Regarding the teachers’ guide description, recommendations to abandon crayfish outdoors have decreased and recommendations to continue breeding have increased over the past 20 years.

(3) The description of the childrens’ textbooks sometimes differs from the teachers’ guides, including those published simultaneously by the same publisher.

In those cases, both descriptions complement each other to facilitate smooth teaching.

The moon is a familiar space object that children can easily find in the night sky. Most children will have emotional impressions when looking at the moon, for example, “How beautiful!”. The moon is not only a symbol of the night sky but also of a variety of concepts such as time and shape. However, “moon” motifs in some picture books and everyday life do not match the real (correct) appearance of the moon in time and space, which means regularity of the phases of the moon. This may lead to a low knowledge retention rate, despite study of the subject in junior high school science in Japan. Therefore, we created a science picture book titled, “The 7 Days of the Moon” based on the theme of “How the Moon Looks”. Next, we read the picture book to kindergarten children in Japan and then let them experience the appearance of the moon in the picture book. The children who experienced this developed sensitivity with scientific awareness of the moon that captured the essence of the phenomenon.