This investigation aimed to create a pedagogical approach to enhance students’ argument self-assessment skills and assess the efficacy of the novel strategy by conducting primary science classes. The teaching approach devised in this study is “argument self-assessment utilizing a rubric.” The teacher instructs the students on how to use the rubric, incorporating the assessment perspectives outlined therein, after which the students utilize the rubric to evaluate the appropriateness and problems of their arguments. Primary science classes that implement the developed pedagogical strategy were conducted with Grade Four students. A survey was administered on the argument self-assessment skills, the argument skills, and the use of rubrics in the self-assessment. The survey findings indicated that: (1) Students’ ability to self-evaluate their arguments improved after the class, (2) Students employed the assessment perspectives described in the rubric when they assessed their arguments, and (3) There existed a correlation between students’ argument self-assessment skills and argument skills. These findings imply that the pedagogical strategy developed in this study has the potential to promote students’ argument skills and enhancement of students’ argument self-assessment skills.

The purpose of this study is to develop a 3D image map, which is an extension of a previous image map developed on a 2D plane, and to clarify how it contributes to the integration and emergence of scientific knowledge through students’ proactive problem solving. The results of this case study were analyzed in terms of the thinking process featured in “Rise Above”, as identified by Nakagomi and Kato (2020). Results of the analysis suggested that the abstract knowledge created through the 3D image map developed in this study facilitates the acquisition of a perspective that compares different contents and, moreover, fosters the thought process of integrating and generating abstract knowledge from concrete knowledge. In addition, it was suggested that abductive thinking is mediated through the comparison of different contents within the same unit, and abstract knowledge may be gradually created through this process.

The purpose of this study was to derive research trends and analyze research results on “interactive learning” in science pedagogy in Japan in recent years, based on the framework of competencies described in the Courses of Study for Science. The results of the narrative review and meta-analysis revealed the following three points in the research trends. First, there has been a lot of research on the construct of “augmentation” in recent years. Secondly, many practical studies on “interactive learning” for the purpose of fostering students’ ability to think critically, make judgements, and express themselves have been accumulated. Third, many studies have examined instructional factors among teachers that could be enablers of “interactive learning”. The results of the meta-analysis showed that the “interactive learning” pedagogical practices did indeed have positive educational effects among students, with a large effect size in the pre- and post- conditions, and a small to moderate effect size in the treatment and control conditions.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the difficulties lower secondary school students experience in expressing chemical changes in terms of chemical reaction formulas, and to verify the effectiveness of classes introducing “Material Model Cards” in overcoming this difficulty. To determine the former, a survey about chemical equations and chemical reaction formulas was conducted among ninth grade students. The survey results suggested that students experienced difficulties in understanding the meaning of chemical information, given their levels of knowledge and reasoning powers, when chemical reactions were expressed by chemical reaction equations. To determine the latter, a class in which students manipulated “Material Model Cards” and a class in which they drew “models of atoms and molecules” was conducted with eighth grade students in two classes, one of which served as a control group while the other, experimental group, utilized the new teaching material. A post-class survey regarding chemical formulas and chemical reaction equations showed no difference in the effect on the experimental group and the control group upon the representation of chemical changes in terms of chemical reaction equations. However, in the delayed survey, significantly more students in the experimental group were able to express chemical changes in terms of chemical reaction formulas. Students who were able to express chemical reaction formulas in the post-class survey were subsequently classified into those who were, or were not, able to do so in the delayed survey. These results of the delayed survey of the classified students were compared, and from the results it was inferred that the lesson in which students were asked to manipulate the “Material Model Cards” was indeed effective in helping students retain knowledge required to represent chemical changes in chemical reaction formulas.

In this study, the authors conducted a questionnaire survey among second-grade elementary school students who have bred and cared for insects at school, to identify (1) whether they can think from the perspective of insects and (2) if so, whether their thinking is centered on the life, ecology, and nature of insects. The results were as follows. (1) First, 25.0% of the children who bred and cared for praying mantises and 23.1% of the children who raised crickets described their thoughts from the point of view of insects. These students were thus confirmed to have acquired insect perspectives, such as seeing insects as having family and friends and empathizing with the feelings of insects as inferred from their appearance and condition. (2) Of the aforementioned children, 13.5% of the praying mantis group and 8.7% of the cricket group described their ideas centering on the life, ecology, and nature of insects. These students’ ideas included their understanding of nature (insects), their understanding of the connection between nature (insects) and humans (themselves), and sensitivity and emotions toward nature (insects) which are important for coexistence with nature. It is thus important to provide opportunities for students to think from the standpoint of insects in their classes on living environment studies, and to incorporate the ideas about insects’ original life, ecology, and nature that they express in these situations. Such opportunities are confirmed to be useful in forming the basis for children to deepen their awareness of the coexistence between nature and humans as they progress from living environment studies to more advanced science in their education.

“Weathering”, a term that is also used figuratively in Japan, is treated in upper secondary school according to the curriculum guidelines. This study clarified that university students enrolled in teacher training courses and majoring in science education do not have a correct or complete understanding of the definition of weathering in scientific terms. We conducted a questionnaire survey of the students in the compulsory science teacher licensing course, and asked them to hypothesize about how the decomposed granite soil, which was formed by weathering the granite, was formed. As a result of the questionnaire survey, only 37% of the respondents chose the correct definition of weathering, while 53% of the respondents chose the wrong definition of rock movement and change due to the action of wind. Only 16% of the descriptions were based on explanations from lower and upper secondary school textbooks, 42% of the descriptions related to erosion, transportation, and sedimentation, and 21% of the descriptions were related to collision. University students aiming to become science teachers may, further, confuse weathering with grain refinement due to crushing and abrasion that occurs during transportation. It is thus desirable to consider the development of teaching materials that foster a correct understanding of weathering and the revision of the corresponding sections of the curriculum guideline.

In the third grade of lower secondary school science course units on “The Earth and Space” and “The Solar System and Stars”, students are required to observe the Sun and find its characteristics, including shape, size, and surface area, based on the observation records and data. Regarding the size of the Sun, the goal is for the students to understand that the Sun is the largest object in the solar system, and for this purpose, it is necessary to compare the size of the Sun with the planets in the solar system. If the size of the Sun can actually be measured, this will lead to a more realistic understanding among the students. Teaching materials for measuring the diameter of the sun have been proposed in the past. In this paper, based on previous findings and the principle of measurement, we developed an experimental apparatus by attaching a light-shielding sheet to a wooden board with a scale. The teaching material has been improved to enable not only direct measurement of the apparent magnitude of the sun, but also more accurate measurement. The improved teaching material was utilized and evaluated in a practical experiment with third-year lower secondary school students, and the average diameter of the sun obtained by the pupils in the class was 1,450,000 km with a margin of error of 2.1%.

Although many previous studies have pointed to an association between childhood nature experiences and future academic variables, most of the studies have been observational, which raises important inherent issues in examining causal effects. The ideal study design for examining causal effects is a randomized controlled trial, but studies in which participants are randomly assigned to experience or not experience nature are difficult to conduct. As a next-best solution, this study focused on a causal inference technique using propensity scores to estimate the causal effects of childhood nature experiences based on data from observational studies. We examined the causal effects of nature experiences in the first year of elementary school on the students’ motivation for science learning in the fourth year of elementary school, using publicly available data from a longitudinal survey conducted by the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo and the Benesse Institute for Educational Research. The results of the propensity score analysis indicated that, while there was no clearly discernible effect from one-time nature experiences in childhood, students who routinely experienced nature in childhood were confirmed to have improved motivation for science learning in the fourth year of elementary school.

In this study, we used a questionnaire-based recognition survey to help us understand Japanese high school teachers’ perceptions of systems thinking. The results were as follows: (1) Keywords associated with the term system tended to evoke images of actions and activities in capturing systems, such as logical thinking and thinking, among the educators participating in the study. (2) While many teachers partially understood the concept of systems thinking, few grasped it comprehensively. (3) Few teachers were aware that they had taken up systems thinking during science classes, and found that there were extremely few practices related to systems thinking in science.