The results of the OECD’s PISA 2003 and the key competencies indicated by the DeSeCo Project continue to have a major influence on reforms in primary and secondary education around the world. Implementing competency-based education is important as it aims at efficient and rational teaching through rearranging the contents of education and specifying competencies, among which are “knowledge skills and attitudes one should possess”. Competency based-education has been greatly improved in European and Oceanic countries. In Finland, often named as an example of successful education, seven key competencies are set out in the current curricula of all levels of schooling where these competencies are taught and nurtured. In Japan too, the importance of fostering qualities and abilities has been acknowledged, although it has yet to emerge from the abstract level of discussion. As a proposal, I clarified concrete elements through examining the kinds of competencies that teachers should be trained in through science education and, as a model case, in medical education. Instead of merely teaching only the subject matter, it is important to have alternative viewpoints, such as nurturing competences for children and students through these subjects. For this purpose, it is necessary to have discussions about the meaning of culture as the background of education, as well as what skills and qualities should be fostered in children and students towards the latter half of the 21^st century.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between mutual evaluation activities and the transformation of the logical representation of a description in an argument. In order to nurture certain qualities and abilities, we incorporated learning activities into lower secondary school science classes in which students used mutual evaluation sheets and analyzed the argument about describing from experimental results. The purpose of the learning activities using mutual evaluation sheets is for students to evaluate their responses, and those of other students, using evaluation standards. They then reviewed their responses and the results of the evaluation, developing their expressive ability and reflecting through proactive learning. The results of the analysis showed that students’ logical representations of the description for consideration appeared to improve in the classes incorporating mutual evaluation activities. However, it became clear that there was a problem regarding describing and evaluation of the supports which are one of the most important constituent elements of theany argument.

In this paper, using the comparative history of Japan and the UK during three periods, the author discusses the content of science curricula according to theories of knowledge. Who has decided the content of teaching and learning, including knowledge of/in science and about science? Which criteria has been discussed for selecting those contents? As a result, science (rika) education should be regarded as a product/phenomenon of the social and historical contexts in which science educators have historically endeavored. The content of teaching and learning in our contemporary era, the author proposes, should be decided and selected based on the purposes of science education, as well as the knowledge and competencies that students will be expected to develop and acquire through this education. To do so, it is necessary to discuss the “noosphere” based on arguments that fully involved not only academia, but also science, industry, and society in general. Finally, the author argues that the definitions of the separate subject curriculum and the discipline-centered curriculum where science (rika) is a school subject traditionally based on natural science should be re-interpreted to take into account globalization and contemporary contexts.

Observing animals and plants to understand and appreciate diverse forms of life is an important topic in scientific education. However, unlike plants, soil animals are not well studied in the context of classroom preparation, and thus are seldom used as teaching tools. The development of observational learning sessions utilizing soil animals (e.g., worms, including nematodes) leads students to be able to observe a wide range of animals in their immediate surroundings, which can enhance their understanding of diverse life forms and foster a sense of appreciation for life. In the current study, we proposed a simplified collection method for soil nematodes and aimed to have students observe these animals. A concept map activity conducted before and after class showed that the observation of the active movements of these soil animals, including nematodes, led to a change in students’ attitudes toward living organisms as well as life in general, while enhancing their learning experience. Even though they were presented with it beforehand, the label “nematode” was only used by a limited number of students before the session; however, most students were able to associate nematodes with soil by the end of the session. Changes in students’ usage of linking words in the concept maps suggested that they clearly recognized that diverse forms of soil animals live in their surrounding environment and, further, that they had a renewed perspective of, and appreciation for, life. We believe that these results suggest that such experiential learning modules with soil nematodes have unique advantages over traditional classroom learning, and, moreover, that they provide valuable opportunities for students in understanding the diversity of life and fostering a sense of appreciation for life.

This study explores in- and pre-service teachers’ perceptions on “making” in science learning and examines their teaching and learning experiences of “making” by administering a questionnaire. Twenty elementary and thirty-eight junior high school in-service teachers participated in this study, along with one hundred and forty-eight and forty-five pre-service teachers from the faculty of education and the faculty of science, respectively. The in- and pre-service teachers’ experiences were found to be as follows: regarding the pre-service teachers’ attitudes toward “making”, they preferred making in science learning and considered themselves as poor makers rather than good makers. Despite their majors at the university, statistically significant differences were not seen in preference, self-efficacy, and frequency of making. Regarding the in-service teachers’ frequency of making in science teaching, the junior high school teachers did not implement making as often as the elementary school teachers did. In- and pre-service teachers believed that the activity-rich “making” teaching method is not as desirable as the observation and experimentation-rich teaching method. In- and pre-service teachers recognized that children prefer observation, experimentation, and “making”, but they are not necessarily good at them. Regarding the educational significance of “making”, in- and pre-service teachers value enhancing children’s creativity, evoking intellectual curiosity, and improving their making skills. On the other hand, their educational beliefs regarding the role of “making” in the acquisition of scientific knowledge differ. The findings of the study revealed the implications of developing science learning through making, such as promoting curriculum management, developing a teaching model including “making” as a learning activity, and enriching the lesson study.

This study examines the concept formation in primary school chemistry by analyzing five categories from science textbooks in England: “Material characteristics”, “Conservation of particles”, “Particle bonds”, “Energy of particles” and “Presence of particles”. The results of this study reveal four main points. First, the concepts of “Conservation of particles”, “Particle bonds”, “Energy of particles” and “Presence of particles” are related to “Material characteristics”. Second, the concept of “Presence of particles” is indicated explicitly with models. Third, the spiral curriculum is found in both “Material characteristics” and “Energy of particles”. Finally, the concepts of “Particle bonds” and “Conservation of particles” focus on handling material changes.

In order to uncover what kind of concepts students maintain in the learning of the balance of nature about ecosystems, we have investigated the corresponding relationship between questionnaires and a concept map of the balance of nature through examination and analysis of student replies at a public lower secondary school and an educational university. The results revealed that, for the lower secondary school students, the concept labels of photosynthesis and plants related to the concept of photosynthesis is used at high rates, while the concept labels of fungi and bacteria related to the concept of decomposition is used at low rates. This finding suggests that the concept construction of the lower secondary school students progresses in the connection of nature on the ground and is insufficient for examining the working of underground life. Furthermore, we have focused on links between the concept label of carbon dioxide and the four given concept labels of plant, carnivore, herbivore, and fungi-bacteria. For both the lower secondary school and the university students, the average link order between the label of carbon dioxide closely related to the concept of gas exchange (respiration) and the label of fungi-bacteria as decomposer is late in comparison to the average link orders between the label of carbon dioxide and the other three concept labels, and we therefore concluded that the link between the concept of carbon dioxide and the concept of fungi-bacteria is weak for the students.

The purpose of this research is to examine what kind of competencies are, and can be, fostered in a lower secondary school science class. We studied a first-year lower secondary school classroom lesson that incorporated an experiment to identify five types of plastic. In this study, we used the following methods to analyze whether the lesson unit improved the students’ competencies, including “general skills” and “attitudes and values”: 1) transcription of a classroom video recording that showed the interaction between selected students; 2) interview with the selected student after class; and 3) a self-assessment questionnaire that we asked all the students to complete before starting the lesson unit, after the recorded classroom hour, and after completing the lesson unit. Based on our analysis of the classroom recoding that showed the students engaging in developing and executing their experiment plans, as well as our analysis of the student interviews, we found that the students improved their general skill of “developing foresight” in this lesson that focused on designing the experiment plan. We also found an enhancement in the students’ attitudes and value of “curiosity and inquisitive mind” by working with materials that related to the students’ everyday life. Finally, our analysis of the self-assessment questionnaire implemented on three occasions showed that the students were able to bring out, apply, and foster a variety of “general skills” and “attitudes and values” through their synergistic influences.

It has been indicated that, in argument instruction, teachers’ beliefs have a strong impact on argumenta, and Katsh-Singer, McNeill, and Loper (2016) have categorized these beliefs into seven categories. Based on these findings, this case study offers an analysis of an in-service teacher’s beliefs in terms of argument-construction ability trainingwhile demonstrating the impact of the teacher education program (Kamiyama, Matano, & Yamamoto, 2017) on the teacher’s beliefs. The subject of this study is comprised of one person, M, a teacher specializing in science at an elementary school attached to a national university. M has 12 years of experience teaching at an elementary school), and no experience teaching argument construction in class. The implementation of the teacher education program was based on the work of Kamiyama, Matano, and Yamamoto (2017), and after the course finished, M completed a questionnaire survey and was interviewed. The results revealed that: 1) the logical characteristics of the arguments focused on the argument component experienced during the program, 2) the students’ ability and enthusiasm were required for the explanation focusing on argument component activities during the program for it to be effective, and 3) the actual activity of planning and implementing lessons in the program did indeed impact the teacher’s own beliefs.

In this research, we developed a teaching material that helped fourth-grade elementary school students understand the concept of convection by linking temperature difference and movement. We also verified the effectiveness of our material through practice in class. The results clarified the following three points:. 1) The hot-air balloon teaching materials allow students to observe that they rise as the temperature difference with the surroundings increases due to heating, and that they descend when the temperature difference with the surroundings decreases due to heat dissipation. 2) The children who used the hot-air balloons understood the concept of convection by linking temperature difference and movement, and their understanding continued for about one month. 3) The usefulness of the teaching materials was high for the children, and the hot-air balloon was one of the most effective aids for children to understand the concept of convection concretely. From the above, it is suggested that the hot-air balloon teaching material developed in this research is useful to foster students’ understanding of the concept of convection by linking temperature difference and movement.

It has been clarified by past science education research and national school achievement tests that metacognitive control in science class is difficult for children. In order to improve from those problems, and to clarify the information that children consider to be accepted and the bases for their choices in science learning, in this research study we attempted to develop a “Science Learning Process Sheet” (worksheet) in which children externalize metacognitive regulation, and we utilized it to try to understand the process of the construction of children’s scientific conceptions. As a result of utilizing this “learning process sheet” in the science class, the following was clarified: 1) In this study, we could uncover five children’s thinking process with expectations of the learning task. Also, by encouraging the thinking process to visualize and promote dialogue with others, children updated their ideas based on experimental results. 2) When choosing information that children considered to be accepted in science learning, children recall what originated from their life experience related to learning keywords. Based on the relationship between their ideas and the learning objective, children added grounds supplementary to their expectations, with the addition of children’s understanding from prior science learning and other experiences. 3) Depending on how easily the factors that resulted in the experimental outcomes could be expresed, the children’s methods of expression varied. Their methods of expression were determined by their ability to articulate the cause of the experimental results as well as their conceptualizations, and further varied according to the children’s confidence in their explanations.

The purpose of this research is to conduct an illustrative analysis of the reality of the “socialization” of self-regulation learning centering on the feedback function. In the case of the stage where a child cannot perform the feedback function, the teacher utilized scaffolding and urged mutual appropriation. On the other hand, when a child could address feedback self-consciously, the teacher performed fading, and children repeated mutual appropriation until they reached consensus. That is, if a child could perform feedback on a self-regulation target, and children’s mutual appropriation is facilitated, the “socialization” of self-regulation learning will be clearly realized.

The purpose of this study is to clarify factors that affect variable control ability in science education. From the results of quantitative and qualitative analyses, “scientific thinking” and “meta-cognition by teacher involvement” were clarified as variables which directly affect the students’ variable control ability. The results also revealed that “need for cognition” has an indirect effect on variable control ability by mediating metacognition. In conclusion, it became clear that it is important to increase students’ motivation for critical thinking and to reflect on the thought process in and of itself to promote nurturing the variable control ability.

The purpose of this study was to foster new lower secondary school students’ understanding of Biodiversity, and to explore further into the formation process of Evolutionary Thinking based on the Biodiversity approach. In the new course of study, a description of “grouping” was added, indicating the importance of understanding Biodiversity. There are two theories: (1) understanding Biodiversity requires acquisition of knowledge about evolution, and (2) Evolutionary Thinking (based on Group Thinking and Tree Thinking) is the basis of the evolutionary approach. Therefore, in this study, which is based on both theories, we developed learning plans to act as initial observational training for new students; these plans expanded upon the viewpoint of a scientific perspective. Specifically, we presented the cases of dandelion “grouping,” the “diversification” by appearance of hybrid dandelions, and the “systematics” of plankton. In conclusion, through analyzing the data obtained from the description of the worksheet and the questionnaire survey, it became clear that the students’ understanding of Biodiversity and the scientific evolutionary concepts were promoted to an extent.

This study aimed to clarify the structure of lower secondary school students’ interest in observations and experiments and to investigate the relationship between interest and learning strategies. A bi-factor model for interest structure was adopted, as the result of a confirmatory factor analysis and comparison of suitability. The results implied that interest in observations and experiments could be constituted via two orthogonal dimensions: “the level of positive emotion”, and “the value cognition of observations and experiments”. In addition, we found that positive emotion and “thought deepening-based orientation” could promote the use of deep learning strategies (e.g., associate strategy) for observations and experiments. On the other hand, we also found that “experience-based orientation” could restrain the use of deep learning strategies. Furthermore, we verified the scale score calculation which accorded with the factor structure of this scale. Relevant calculation software was developed.

A practical study based on the idea of the hermeneutic circle was carried out in a fourth-grade elementary class. The teaching content was the “Water Cycle in Nature” using the concepts of water vapor, evaporation and condensation. The class’s textbook, which shows the schematic presentation of the “Water Cycle in Nature” at the opening of the learning unit, was used. As the textbook shows the theoretical framework of the water cycle, the children could easily find their learning problem, construct their hypothesis as the “existence of water vapor in the air”, and understand the meaning of the methods and operations of the experiments. The children could also interpret the evidence resulting from the experiments scientifically, as the water evaporation and vapor condensation in the context of the theoretical framework shown in the textbook. The present writers consider that the children could effectively take a proactive approach to their learning and successfully acquire a solid understanding of the target learning outcomes, and thus “HUKAI MANABI”, or “deep-learning” was achieved.

This research developed a Japanese version of the Science Curiosity in Learning Environments (SCILE) attitudinal scale. The participants were 989 students in elementary school, lower secondary school and upper secondary school. Through administering a questionnaire to the students and analyzing their answers, we clarified the following three points: 1) The exploratory factor analysis showed that science curiosity expounded three factors out of 17 items: to participate in scientific practices in the pursuit of scientific knowledge (Science practices: SC), to test out experiences that are unfamiliar or uncertain (Embracing: E) and to seek out information and new experiences (Stretching: Str). 2) The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the model created on the posit that their factors have correlations and the response data confirmed that the science curiosity expounded three factors that correlate with each other. 3) The hierarchical cluster analysis showed that Japanese students were divided into three groups, 58% of the students (“Group 1: curiosity middle group”) whose curiosity is a bit higher than average, 8% for high curiosity students (“Group 2: curiosity high group”), and 34% for low curiosity students (“Group 3: curiosity low group”).

The received wisdom is that, even after science classes, students’ scientific misconceptions cannot easily be changed to correct conceptions. Many researchers have reported the mechanics conception is one of their misconceptions. The purpose of this study is to reveal what kind of misconceptions lower secondary school students who have completed the lower secondary science curriculum in full in Japan still have, regarding the relation between a body in motion and its energy on a slope. 97 3rd-grade lower secondary school students learned about the relation about 6 months prior to this study. They respond a questionnaire. We obtained the following results: Students have largely assimilated the concept that the more the mass of a body increase, the faster the body drops when it freely drops. They also have repeatedly directly experienced sliding down slides, running downhill, and going down slopes of different angles on a bicycle, and they thereby memorize an image of these experiences, including the sense of the speed change. Thus, they have a misconception that the mass of the body, the slope angle, and the distance the bicycle goes down the slope cause the speed change. Students associate ideas based on recalled their memories, and they hence revive the following three misconceptions: The potential energy of a dynamic cart resting on the slope and the speed when the cart finishes going down the slope depends not on the height of the center of gravity of the cart but on the slope angle; The higher the center of gravity of the same carts resting on the same slope, the stronger the force in the parallel direction to the slope acting on the cart; The shorter the distance the cart resting on the same slope goes down, the stronger the force.

We developed an index to evaluate the arrival stage of hypothesis formation in the exploratory scientific problem solving of high school students. We set up a model of the hypothesis formation process to create an evaluation index, and we evaluated the actual exploratory scientific problem solving practiced by high school students. The results of our analysis confirmed the following in the learning group in which scientific skills and activities are progressing: (1) “Extraction of Elements” occurred through “Operation” on experimental materials; (2) Explaining the elements caused “Generation of Explanatory Hypothesis”; and (3) Deduction from an explanatory hypothesis resulted in “Generation of Working Hypothesis”. However, in the stagnant learning group, “Extraction of Elements” was repeated and did not proceed to “Generation of Explanatory Hypothesis” or transition to deductive exploration. These findings show the possibility that the indicators proposed in this study can be effectively utilized to evaluate the arrival stage of hypothesis formation.

From 2011 to 2018, we have held a delivery experiment class for elementary school students, using colored salt water in the experiment with the aim of having the students notice the relationship among “concentration of aqueous solution, weight and density”. In this paper, we introduce the contents of the delivery experiment class. In addition, to enhance students’ enjoyment of the experiments at each elementary school, we explained the details of how to make a “rainbow” using colored salt water. The outcomes of this delivery experiment class can be summarized into the following three points. (1) By experiencing experiments using a familiar substance, “salt,” we were able to surprise and interest the children. (2) We were able to effectively deploy learning content to guide children to notice the relationship among “concentration, weight and density.” (3) We examined the optimum conditions of how to make a “rainbow” using colored salt water and found a method that anyone can practice. These results suggest that the experiment using colored salt water is effective as a teaching material that can be used to foster children’s enjoyment of science and to help them notice the relationship between “concentration, weight and density.” It is thought that by incorporating familiar subjects such as salt, children can gain motivation to study science, which will lead to eliminating “disinterest in science.”

The Third Basic Plan for the Promotion of Education during the period between FY2018 and FY2022, the achievement of Society 5.0, was predicted to be one of the most important educational policy problems after 2030. The Fifth Science and Technology Basic Plan during the period between FY2016 and FY2020 defined Society 5.0 as a new society that followed the Information Society from 2016. The achievement of Society 5.0 is expected to become a new concept to guide the world under a new paradigm. It has been said that it is important for the Science Technology and Innovation (STI) to guide toward and to invent Society 5.0. The importance of the role that STI should play aiming at the achievement of Society 5.0 has, since 2016, been acknowledged in government, academia, and business. This research inquires into science education with the aim of contributing to human resources development leading the next generation of STI for the achievement of Society 5.0. Therefore, this research aims to consider elementary school teachers’ opinions and the demands of the STI human resources development education in the elementary school science class. Moreover, it examines teachers’ opinions of, and the demands of, science teaching methods. A mini debate by the elementary school teachers was executed. A follow-up questionnaire was administered and analyzed, and the results demonstrated that in the elementary school science class, with regard to the positive development of STI human resources development education, the opinion of its necessity was 60.0% group basis and 78.3% individual basis. Moreover, the opinions of what science teaching methods were thought to be effective for the science specialist teacher and the science researcher of the company to utilize were abundant. Additionally individually, there were a wide variety of opinions, including on how the classroom setting can correspond to students’ concerns, and how science teaching materials development research which emphasize science communication skill improvement, point toward potential avenues of future inquiry. The progress of the research and the practices of the science education are expected to invent and foster STI that will contribute to the invention of Society 5.0 .

Performing behavioral experiments using animals is an effective tool in science education. Conducting a learning experiment on fish is useful to study and understand “learning”, which is a common mechanism in psychology among animals, including homo sapiens. This study investigated whether it is possible to complete a learning experiment in which students teach fish to swim through a ring within a day. The experiment used four fish species (network filefish Rudarius ercodes, goldfish Carassius auratus, dusky frillgoby Bathygobius fuscus, and red sea bream Pagrus major). The training involved “acclimation to the ring”, “approach to the ring”, and “swimming through the ring”. Each training session was comprised of ten consecutive trials, with a one-minute inter-trial interval. The training was limited to a daily maximum of eight training sessions, with a 30 minute inter-session interval. As a result, at least one individual of each species, completed the task of learning to swim through the ring within eight sessions, after which the experiment can be applied with various species. The time it took to complete “swimming through the ring” varied from 19 to 317 min for each fish. This learning experiment is particularly useful for application in an educational program with limited class time.