The introduction of Genetic Recombination experiments into upper secondary school biology classes has become widely implemented. However, it has not been examined whether students actually understand the whole meaning of the experiment or even the significance of each individual step that the experiment consists of. This study is aimed to make clear how well students understand Genetic Recombination experiments through the use of fieldwork; a questionnaire; and the interviews that were given after classes which used the experiments. Research has so far revealed the following results: (1) Approximately fifty percent of the students who participated in the experiment did not understand the whole meaning of the experiment. (2) About sixty percent of the students who conducted the experiment did not understand the significance of the important steps of the experiment, for example, adding arabinose and ampicillin to the medium. (3) The difficult and unfamiliar words used in the experiment hindered about forty percent of the students' understanding of the whole meaning of the experiment and the reasons behind each step of the experiment.

This study aims to characterize materials and approaches in Salters Advanced Chemistry (SAC), which has been developed for GCE-A level students, who wish to go on to tertiary institutions in science in England and Wales. SAC has three materials, "Chemical Storylines", "Chemical Ideas" and "Activities". "Chemical Storylines" plays an important role in introducing the contexts within which chemical ideas and skills are developed and indicates the contents of students' learning in "Chemical Ideas" and Activities". "Chemical Ideas" systematically draws together chemical principles from different parts in "Chemical Storylines". "Activities" provides a wide range of activities, not only practical work, but also group activities, data analysis and application of information technology. We found that; SAC adopts a 'context-based approach', so students learn chemistry through the use of contexts as starting points; the concepts that students learn are divided into pieces so it is possible to introduce them on a "need to know" basis, so students learn chemical ideas to understand a story in "Chemical Storylines"; and as a result, SAC adopts a 'drip feed approach'.

In a microscale experiment using a plastic cell for spectroscopic analysis, teaching materials of Daniell cells and an electrolyzing experiment were developed. When a plastic cell with four transparent sides was used, a reaction around the electrodes could be observed more clearly compared with a microscale experiment using ordinary well-plates. Also, it is possible for students to pay attention to a movement of an electron and an ion during an experiment using a battery and electrolyzing. Using developed teaching materials, class practice was performed. From a questionnaire, we got the opinion that reactions around the electrodes could be seen immediately, so, it was possible to consider a movement of an electron and an ion. We found that it is important that a reaction around the electrodes can be observed clearly in learning of a battery and an electrolyzing experiment when paying attention to a movement of an electron and an ion.

There are many problems in the education and research of the Japanese teachers training in colleges and departments. In particular, the teachers' training course for lower secondary education underwent drastic changes although it had brought many students competent in a specific subject into teaching profession. The number of students applying for the graduate course just meets the quota at the most, which reflects the fact that the graduate school is not attractive to them. The principle of training science teachers was based on the belief that it is sufficient to instruct the same contents with "the courses of the department of science". And it remains unchanged from postwar years when the system was launched, while the rate of enrollment in four-year colleges and universities has now exceeded 50% of the same generation. The background of this reality is a negative attitude of the faculty of the teachers' training department toward developing their own teacher training education. That is to say, the faculty of the teachers' training course does not search for their identity. This situation was caused by the consolidation and reorganization of higher education carried out in accordance with "the Report of the Committee on the Ideal State of Teacher Training" by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. This reform intensified a tendency among the faculty to regard "teacher training as a sunset industry" and triggered an escape of the faculty from improving teachers' training courses. The Japanese government should create an environment to deal with teacher training with conviction from the viewpoint that the foundation of nation building lies in training excellent teachers.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of hands-on experience of the metacognitive activity of upper secondary school students with regards to their understanding of scientific knowledge. Students in two public upper secondary school classes received instructions concerning the "separation and identification of compounds" in Chemistry (I). One class received experimental instructions, while the other class received control instructions. Students in the class for the experimental instructions designed and carried out experiments in groups to solve a problem based on scientific knowledge. Students in the control class carried out experiments to induce scientific knowledge. The main results were as follows: (1) Student's self-estimated scores for their "level of metacognition before the experience" and their "level of metacognition arising from interaction with peers or teachers after the experience" were higher in the experimental class than in the control class. (2) Students in the experimental class did better than students in the control class on especially cloze and transfer tests concerning the understanding of scientific knowledge.

Recently, the enhancement of language activity has become an educational issue. Therefore, there has been much research on dialogue-based lessons among children. So, to create a teaching theory that construct scientific concepts through dialogue-based lessons, is an important assignment. In this study, we discuss instruction in the science class can be understood from a narrative approach, by using Gergen's notion of "the structure of narrative" and Parincsar's notion of "discussion moves". As a result of our analysis of the transcripts, the following points became clear. (1) Dialogue-based lessons through the children's discourse is effective for the enhancement of language activity. (2) Gergen's notion of "the structure of narrative" is effective as a viewpoint of teaching theory. (3) Teachers coordinate to construct scientific concepts as a selection of suitable instruction through dialogue-based lessons. (4) Gergen's notion of "the structure of narrative" and Parincsar' s notion of "discussion moves" will become a framework of analysis.

In this study, we analyzed images and its expression as a metaphor that have a relation to children's constructing scientific concepts. As a result, we revealed that children had tried to construct scientific concepts with a dual-coding approach of images. This prompted conscious and deliberate character of concepts, and children' s autonomous learning.

This research aimed to examine the effect of the visual representation of an external resource on the formation of a scientific concept. Observations were carried out during a lesson on the law of inertia. As an external resource, we prepared polystyrene foam balls. The students provided with the external resource formed the scientific concept more effectively than the students without it. Through an utterance protocol and interview investigation, we were able to confirm the following: The students provided with the external resource were conscious of the polystyrene foam ball during observation. In addition, these students paid attention to the speed of the water during observation. This suggests that the visual representation of external resources has the effect of directing the student's attention towards certain aspects, which aids in the efficient formation of the scientific concept.

Using the analogue models of the caldera inferred by the Biwako Cauldron located over southern Shiga prefecture, the lesson practice of the observation was performed in an upper secondary school earth science class. In the lesson, students observed the analogue models of caldera formation and they discussed how the shape of caldera was formed. The changes of the understanding of the contents by students were examined through "Concept Mapping", and protocol in discussion and questionnaire method. As the result, further understanding about the formation process of a caldera was promoted, which is evidenced that the two observation models are effective for understanding the formation process of the caldera. The discussion by the students was much effective for the understanding too.

In the present study, the practice class of the learner's self-evaluation in the class of the junior high school science to which learning was advanced by the learner's interaction was done by the unit of "Life and kind of the plant", and the learner's relations and self-evaluation were analyzed. The learner comes to select effective relations by the interaction of the result and the learner of practice in the class that advances learning the accomplishing objective. The self-evaluation in such relations becomes the one near appropriate to have considered objectivity because it came to contain an immediately and indirect mutual evaluation. As for the self-evaluation in the class to which learning was advanced by the interaction of the learner of the junior high school science, to a handy, continuous evaluation by relations became clear even if there was no special support of the teacher.

Many elementary school students have difficulties in understanding the "Waxing and Waning of the Moon" phenomena. In this research, we planned and taught a science class on the "Waxing and Waning of the Moon" phenomena aimed at "How Shadow Is Made." We introduced to the science class a closely related continuative observation activities and the differences between Shadow and Shade. As a result, we clarified the following three points: (1) A lesson of "Moon and Stars" aimed at the differences between Shadow and Shade is effective in the formation of true understanding about a phenomena of waxing and waning of the moon. (2) Many students, who can tell the differences between "Shadow" and "Shade" and understand the hemispherical "shade," are showing a tendency to have a true understanding about a phenomena of Waxing and Waning of the Moon. (3) There is a high correlation of an understanding between "lights and shade," and "Waxing and Waning of the Moon."

The successful learning of chemistry involves the construction of mental associations among the enactive, iconic and symbolic levels of representation of chemical phenomena using different modes of representation. In this study, we suggest that students' conversion process of the representation of their concepts in chemistry. First, we focused on visualization of students' representation of chemical phenomena. Cheng, M and Gilbert, J.K. (2008) have investigated 'visual grammar' in the context of school chemistry. Based on this perspective, we identified 'visual elements' in learning chemistry that is action process, conversion process, classification process, analytical process and elaborative process. Second, we propose a chemistry program for upper secondary school students based on visual elements. Results indicate that (1) Students were able to extend and elaborate their knowledge, through the learning of translating and relating the different modes of representation. (2) Students constructed a network representation, which was evaluated appropriately by a teacher. (3) When teachers visualized and digitized appropriately a students' representation, the students' skill of combination and conversion of different mode of representation was improved.

We investigated what the impressions of science learning physics major university students in the department of science have, which they had taken at the elementary school, the lower secondary school and the upper secondary school, with the like-dislike degree scale and the confident-unconfident degree scale. Upon those surveys, we found that they had liked science learning at the elementary school and the lower secondary school, which means that we could never find their science-disliking phenomenon at those their age. We also found that they, both male and female, had liked learning physics at the upper secondary school. However they had a tendency to like physics learning at upper secondary school, but their confident degree scale had began to decrease, with the learning contents becoming difficult than before. That is, even physics major university students of department of science are not confident of the understanding of physics learning contents which they had learned. Therefore, we should study and develop new teaching methods of physics that is applicable in their difficulty of physics learning.

This study aims to clarify the methods and effects of the learning support on the geological field studies at elementary and junior high schools. One of the authors cooperated with teachers in charge of the classes at public schools in Shimane Prefecture, which can be classified as "the type II learning support" of Miyashita (2009). This article shows the supporting activities of the Earth Science Laboratory of the Department of Education, Shimane University. The activities were carried out at 23 classes of 17 elementary schools and one class of a junior high school during the period of 2003 to 2008. The authors showed that the type II supporting activities enhanced the skill of the school teachers through the collaboration, and showed that the increasing number of field studies were involved in the earth science learning at public schools.

Teaching practice incorporating experimental teaching materials for digestion of proteins and lipids was done for an "Animals' bodies and their functions" unit of the science class of the second school year in lower secondary school. Results clarified the following. (1) The class incorporating the experiment stimulated the students' interests. They gave a roughly affirmative evaluation. Students who had conducted the protein experiment, which more emphasized that "The protein and lipids were digested in this experiment using a digestive solution", evaluated the teaching more highly than the students who conducted the experiment on lipids. However, many students felt that the experiment method and the operation were difficult for them. Especially difficult was an operation of the amount of the scale using a Komagome pipette. Therefore, improvement is necessary, such as that through simplification of the experimental method, etc. (2) A class incorporating the experiment for digestion of proteins and lipids can be practiced merely given a room in which to learn progressive contents and a few spare hours.