This study is intended to determine the effects of experience regarding the movement of celestial bodies on the understanding of it by elementary education program students. First, factor analysis was performed for the questions, by asking about previous experience regarding the movement of celestial bodies, and the level of such experience was scored for each of the factors extracted. Second, differences from the mean value were examined for the upper and lower groups of scores on knowledge about the movement of celestial bodies. As a consequence, the following findings were obtained: (1) Factor analysis produced four factors: "direct experience regarding celestial bodies," "interest in/concern with school class," "indirect experience regarding celestial bodies" and "experience of drawing three-dimensional pictures." (2) Students' understanding of celestial bodies proved to be extremely low, as the percentage of correct answers was as low as 16.5% to the question about the positional relationship between the sun and the moon when the waxing moon is observed after sunset. (3) Average scores for understanding of the waxing and waning of the moon that requires grasping three-dimensional positional relationship were significantly higher in the upper group than in the lower group in the two factors of "direct experience of celestial bodies" and "interest in/concern with school class." (4) Average scores for understanding of diurnal motion by celestial bodies that appears like a two-dimensional movement showed no significant difference between the upper group and the lower group in either of the factors of "direct experience of celestial bodies" and "interest in/concern with school class."

The aim of this study devises the worksheet by which elementary school students can watch one's activity objectively, and it is to promote the metacognition of the elementary school students through using the worksheet effectively. I devised the worksheet which thought about whether elementary school students could make a round trip to the cognitive level and meta level. The lessons were conducted for 53 elementary school students (5th grade) on study in the dissolution of substances to examine the effects. As a result of this study, it emerged that the metacognition of the elementary school students promoted it by effective using the worksheet.

In order to foster children's problem-solving ability, it is first necessary to increase the problem-discovery ability and problem-acquiring ability as an initial stage of the problem-solving process. To develop a teaching method for fostering the problem-discovery ability and problem-acquiring ability in the nature, we think it important that we demonstrate the structure of factors affecting students' notice to the natural things and phenomena which is the base for these abilities. The aim of our study is to clarify the causal relationship among factors to affect their notice to the natural things and phenomena for them who take the course of science teaching method for the primary school. We conducted the inspection for "notice to the natural things and phenomena" as a purpose variable and "experience in familiar nature", "favorable impression of mathematics", "confidence in natural science", "intellectual curiosity about nature and scientific technology", "experience in scientific research", "favorable impression of the natural science", and "experience in making things" as explanatory variables and inspected statistically the casual relationship among them. As a consequence, we found that the group of students who obtained high scores for "notice to the natural things and phenomena" showed a significantly higher average of the following five factors of "experience in familiar nature", "confidence in natural science", "intellectual curiosity about nature and scientific technology", "experience in scientific research", and "favorable impression of the natural science". This finding suggests that "notice to the natural things and phenomena" is an ability that is nurtured by intertwining these five factors in the complicated way.

In this study, we analyzed discourses of children's problem solving processes, with three steps of commitments. By analyzing science classes with these steps, as a result, we revealed that teacher assessed children's activities of constructing scientific concepts, and prompted these activities by progressing discourses. And we observed children's appropriations of knowledge as a consensus within colleagues, as a barometer of a formation of learning. In other words, it showed that a conscious and deliberate character of scientific concepts was prompted through such a collaborative learning as discourse.

Students are required to have a clear purpose and to understand principle which collated measurements obtained from observation and experiment, so they must understand by themselves what they have learned. There are many strategies to record learning process myself and look back to its meaning. But, there are few cases for which the Epistemological Vee Map was utilized in science class. In this study, we analyzed the utility of the Epistemological Vee Map in science class, and we tried to improve a problem which was caused by the use of the Epistemological Vee Map. As a result, the following things became clear: By using the Epistemological Vee Map as a tool to look back to learning, a student recognizes that it's useful to understand a learning process. And, it was necessary to improve the ideal ways of the assessment which agree with the usefulness of the epistemological Vee Map in science class.

In BSCS Science & Technology (S&T), Cooperative Learning is "Organizing Principle". The purpose of this study was to clarify the feature of this model by analyzing a BSCS S&T textbook and monitoring the effect of this model by practicing its methodology in lower secondary school science classes in Japan. 1. Features of the S&T model are as follows: 2. Students experience positive effects to include both learning and social aspects; BSCS emphasizes that students can acquire and apply social skills; 3. S&T offers the supportive materials for science teachers who use Cooperative Learning; 4. The structure, process and procedure of the textbook are constructed to facilitate implementation of cooperative learning; 5. The S&T model gives students some responsibilities for their own learning and cooperative work. In our study, we modified the S&T model for it to be used in lower Japanese secondary school science classes and applied it to seventh grade students. The model was used on all science classes from August 2008 to March 2009. Finally, we analyzed positive effects of this modified model by analysis of pre- and post-application-questionnaires administered to the students. 1. Positive outcomes from this study are as follows: 2. Students tend to consider the need of using roles in their group more strongly; Student's contribution, participation and frequency in offering their opinions in group activities all increased. As a consequence, these results present positive effects as a result of our use of the modified S&T model, and this practice helped students to realize they can be effective and resourceful participants when working in small groups. Therefore full implementation of the S&T models can potentially provide positive learning outcome for student's at science class of lower secondary school in Japan.

Japan conducted the Third Country Training in the Philippines for Kenyan science teachers. Observation of the training, interview with trainers and trainees and questionnaire for the trainees were conducted in the Third Country Training in the University of the Philippines, National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development, and also conducted in the national and district training centers in Kenya. The effectiveness of the training, advantages in the training content and management, and capacity development on the organization were investigated. It was found that the training was cost-effective, and participants rated the training high on general aspect, trainers' capacity, and resources. The training participants applied their learning in the development of teaching method, teaching materials and computer usage in teaching in Kenya. There were advantages of using English during the training. In addition, the materials and the equipments, which were obtained during Japanese international cooperation to the Philippines, were reused in the training. The training contributed to capacity development of the organization, in finance and enhanced an understanding of Kenyan education. On the other hand, the training could be improved in areas such as developing teaching and learning materials and sharing in-service training experience.

This research investigates the teacher certificate system for the secondary science including Physics; Chemistry; Biology; Earth Science at State of New York and the teacher education programs of State University of New York at Buffalo (UB). Consequently, following five points were revealed. (1) Teacher certificate is divided into two phases, an Initial Certificate and a Professional Certificate. While this system aimed the advancement certificate only, after 2004 the new certificate system employs both advancement and renewal. The Initial Certificate, which is the entry-level for classroom teachers, issued in specific subject/grade titles, valid for five years and could not be renewal. The Professional Certificate is continuously valid with completion of required professional development hours on a five-year professional cycle. This goes along with the federal NCLB regulations enforced in 2002 that all teachers must be "High Qualified." (2) The Initial Certificate applicant must hold at least a bachelor degree and complete major area for the certificate subject. Then teacher candidates start initial certificate program. Although they complete the course works at graduate school, this program is degreeless. Before the student teaching program, teacher candidates participate in "Field Experience" at least 100 classroom contact hours in fall semester. During the student teaching period, they attend a course work once a week at UB to seek support for their teaching and to promote their competence. (3) Both Teacher Education Associate (TEA) at UB and teachers at liaison school instruct student teachers, just like in Japan. The difference between Japan and UB is that TEA is not a faculty member. They belong to Teacher Education Institute and have responsibilities of entrance examination, to teach and support the Field Experience, 15 week-long Student Teaching, give the student teachers the formative assessments and grading, and find employment for them. The University on Student Teaching has heavier responsibility than that of Japan. (4) Three years' full time classroom teacher experience is required for the Professional Certificate. The course works at graduate school must be completed and Master's degree is required. After that, they earn 175 hours of professional development every 5 years otherwise they loose their teaching certificate. (5) This teacher education system was designed based on the professionalism as reflective practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to find limiting factors (problems) of science field study of school education and those solutions. In order to find these problems closely, I conducted a survey of 12 items at national junior and senior high schools, a public high school in Tokyo, and a public elementary school at Matsue, Shimane prefecture. Then I compared the results with those of public elementary schools, junior and senior high schools in Tokyo, which don't conduct science field study, based on results of survey I conducted in past years. As a result, I found out main nine problems. In this paper, I concretely examined these problems and their solutions.

Many students have difficulties in understanding mechanics due to misconceptions. We have designed a series of computer games which help change such misconceptions and evaluated their effectiveness. The computer games are comprised of six games, each of which is a microworld of Newtonian mechanics. Students try to navigate a spaceship in the microworlds in order to successfully complete the given missions. Dots and arrows are shown on the screen to allow the students to find their misconception while first erroneously leading and then properly navigating the ship in the games. It is found that the computer games have advantages in learning mechanics. However, the games need some improvements in order to use them in the classroom.

In this research, the author developed and tried an environmental education program based on the thoughts of deep ecology, investigated students' responses and the practical problems, and acquired introductory knowledge to examine how the environmental education based on the thoughts of deep ecology should be. The author focused the work "the practice of identification experience with familiar plants," and made the environmental education program in high school biology. Though the program was short and the practice was influenced by some various conditions of the high school, its aims were attained to some degree, which were the changes of students' environmental awareness and attitude, "the understandings of the concepts of diversity and symbiosis of organism" "the acquisition of the views of nature of biospherical egalitarianism as a fundamental rule" "attainment to self- realization by identification with nature" found in the thoughts of deep ecology. It was cleared that the environmental education program based on the thoughts of deep ecology was accepted by the students without a feeling of wrongness, if the program met the needs of the actual conditions of the community and the school.

In this study, we conducted a questionnaire survey to typify the degrees of experience with causal relations in daily life and the tendencies of awareness of/attitude towards the causal relations in daily life among second grade lower secondary school students. As a first analysis, factor analysis was performed to extract factors that served as the basis of a capability to recognize causal relations from questions. Subsequently, on the basis of factor scores obtained from the factor analysis, cluster analysis was conducted to determine the tendencies of experience with causal relations and the tendencies of awareness of/attitude towards the causal relations. As a consequence, the following findings were gained: (1) Factor analysis showed that the following three factors were extracted: "experience with causal relations," "awareness/attitude towards causes," and "awareness/attitude towards results." (2) Cluster analysis based on factor scores indicated four groups: "the upper group of experience/awareness," "the medium group of insufficient awareness," "the medium group of insufficient experience" and "the lower group of experience/awareness." (3) Specific teaching or support to develop a capability in lower secondary school students to inquire into the prospect of success was proposed in accordance with the characteristics of the four groups, such as the upper group of experience/awareness, obtained through the cluster analysis. (4) It was elucidated that women were much richer in "experience with causal relations" than men. The cause of this finding was inferred to be a high likelihood of differences between the sexes in living experience until they had graduated from elementary school.

The phenomenon in which an iron ball is made to float in the field of a permanent magnet is an interesting one. In this paper we describe a teaching experiment in which an iron ball is made to float using a magnetic hollow ring. The observation/test was carried out using equipment constructed using 11 kinds of iron balls, 4 different shapes of magnet rings with different magnetic flux densities, transparent tubes and using both hands and instruments for the optics. Each iron ball was enclosed in a transparent tube of equivalent diameter. The results of the observations showed that there was a case in which the iron ball floated in the upper and lower part of the magnetic ring.