The diploma thesis Josef Velenovský and František Mareš ? two personalities of the Czech scientific life (their biological and philosophical activities) deals with the philosophical theses of two notable Czech biologists ? philosophers ? in their biological research. The first part introduces the biological and philosophical activities of both personalities. It depicts in detail Mares' views of physiology and Velenovsky's take on natural philosophy. It further contains their critical views of contemporary trends in natural sciences and philosophy, especially the positivism and naturalism. The second part contains a comparative analysis of the fundamental ideas of both scientists, included in The natural philosophy (Volume I, Natural) and Physiology. The text attempts to analyze their theses (positivism, naturalism, vitalism, physiology, natural science) and to find similarities and differences in their points of view.

This dissertation deals with the natural and national history themes. There are suggested five excursions, two cycle-excursions, one project and one instruction lesson. The aim of this dissertation is the reinforcement and fixation of a good relation of pupils to nature by interesting and accessible forms and to teach them how protect it in the interest of mankind. The thesis is being done for the pupils of 4th and 5th grade of basic schools. There are working sheets with the tasks prepared for pupils that are continuously completed at separated way points of excursions.

The purpose of this study is to contribute knowledge about the pre-school teachers' view of the role NTA plays in the field of science education. NTA, which stands for Natural Science and Technology for All, is a concept for school development offered for preschool and elementary school. The study uses semi structured interviews. Six preschool teachers at a preschool from four different departments have been interviewed. All preschool teachers have completed NTA training to work with natural science themed boxes. The result shows that NTA is used both planned and spontaneously. Most often, the chil- dren work with the experiments in the boxes in smaller groups, but on some occasions the thematic experiments are used as a demonstration for larger groups. As to how NTA influenced the other teaching, the study shows that it helped to visualize the natural science work and increase the scientific aware- ness of the educators. One conclusion of the survey is that the work on the thematic boxes is an inspiration for the natural science work in the preschool and that the educators are positively prepared for this work. / Syftet med denna studie är att bidra med kunskap kring förskollärarnas syn på vilken roll NTA har för naturvetenskapsundervisningen. NTA som står för Naturvetenskap och Teknik för Alla är ett koncept för skolutveckling som erbjuds förskola och grundskola. I studien används semistrukturerade intervjuer. Sex förskollärare på en förskola från fyra olika avdelningar har intervjuats. Alla förskollärarna har gått NTA:s utbildning för att arbeta med naturvetenskapsinriktade temalådor. Resultatet visar att NTA används både planerat och spontant. Oftast får barnen arbeta med experimenten i lådorna i mindre grupper men vid vissa tillfällen används temalådornas experiment som demonstration för större grupp. När det gäller hur NTA påverkat den övriga undervisningen visar studien att den hjälpt synliggöra det naturvetenskapliga arbetet och ökat den naturvetenskapliga medvetenheten hos pedagogerna. En slutsats av undersökningen är att arbetet med temalådorna är en inspiration för det naturvetenskapliga arbetet i förskolan och att pedagogerna är positivt inställda till detta arbete.

This diploma thesis is concerned with the summary of data about the wider surroundings of Kutná Hora. It offers a proposal of an excursion to this place. A general overview of methods appropriate for an excursion is included and other variants of useful activities and tasks are also suggested in this work. The main goal of this work is to provide general information about the location and suggest a number of activities other teachers may find useful when making an excursion. Supervisor: PaeDr. Václav Pavlíček Department of Biology

This diploma thesis examines children's knowledge of natural science through the five years of primary school. Achievement test is used as the main data collection tool. It also mentions pupils with specific learning disorders or other developmental disorders. The results may assist teachers or others involved in this branch as a landmark on the map of children's knowledge.

In this diploma paper there is a set of biological didactic games for natural science at primary school. The games are divided into four sections - botanical games, zoological games and some topics of human biology, mineralogy and geology. According to the possibilities of their usage in the education they are divided into three groups again. We call them revision games, which are useful to revision and fix curriculum, and knowing games for gaining new knowledge and finally motivational games to interest the students. The theoretical base is set on specialized literature. In the appendix there are concepts of didactical games with their gadgets like texts, cards, game plans, pictures, maps and photographs.

Uma das principais características das exposições museológicas é o seu potencial de representatividade histórico-cultural, sobretudo quando dirigimos nossa atenção aos museus de história natural dos séculos XIX e XX, período de constituição do museu público, impulsionado pelos discursos nacionalistas, civilizatórios e modernizantes. A análise de projetos expositivos desse contexto possibilita inferir que o novo modelo de museu é resultado da busca do equilíbrio entre os estudos científicos desenvolvidos através das coleções de pesquisa e as formas efetivas de instrução pública. Centenas de museus foram construídos enquanto outros reformaram suas áreas técnicas e administrativas, de forma a atender os novos parâmetros estabelecidos pelos programas museológicos, arquitetonicamente definidos como área restrita de pesquisa e área restrita da exposição pública. As exposições museológicas abertas à visitação ganharam impulso a partir de uma perspectiva objetiva. Os recursos comunicacionais, que nasceram e se desenvolveram nestes museus, reforçam o sentido da educação popular a partir da leitura do discurso expositivo presente nas narrativas polissêmicas estabelecidas nos novos espaços de consagração da ciência. O objeto museológico, o espaço museal e o público das exposições formam a base desse fenômeno moderno de comunicação. A modernidade forjada tanto pela Revolução Industrial quanto pela Revolução Francesa gerou este tipo de organização institucional que, por meio da reunião de objetos extraídos do mundo natural, como referências patrimoniais, registros documentais e testemunhos materiais, assumiu a responsabilidade pela conservação, pesquisa e difusão de uma nova visão sobre a natureza, a partir de critérios científicos. A este processo de seleção, de transferência de elementos naturais para o interior dos museus, para composição de coleções e cenários museais didáticos, foi cunhada a ideia de Musealização da Natureza. Essa proposição deve ser entendida pela abrangência do percurso da nova vida do objeto, enfocando as formas de representação do mundo natural por esta tipologia de museu, apresentando em seus sistemas comunicacionais uma natureza compartimentada, classificada e reconhecida. Com o desenvolvimento e aplicação de diferentes recursos expositivos, sobretudo os dioramas, os museus de história natural passaram a preencher as salas expositivas com uma museotecnia nascida na Europa, que ganhou forte e determinante impulso nos Estados Unidos e se difundiu por todo o mundo, inclusive no Brasil. Com a instalação de cenários de ambientes naturais, didaticamente preparados, consolidou-se no museu público uma nova forma de olhar para o mundo natural: uma forma científica. É justamente no limiar da ciência moderna, que os museus de história natural se proliferam e declaradamente passam a se preocupar com a popularização da ciência. Os processos modernos de produção econômica transformaram definitivamente a relação do homem com o mundo natural. Ao mesmo tempo, estabeleceram novas formas de vivência com a natureza, seja através de parques naturais, jardins ou mesmo pelas exposições museológicas com seus dioramas, aqui considerados como verdadeiras janelas para o mundo natural. / One of the main characteristics of museum exhibitions is its potential historical and cultural representativeness, especially when we focus our attention on the museums of natural history of the 19th and 20th centuries. Those were periods of constitution of the public museum that was driven by nationalistic, civilization and modern speeches. The analysis of exhibition projects in that context makes it possible to infer that the new model of museum is the result of the search for balance between scientific studies developed through the research collections and the effective ways of public instruction. Hundreds of museums were built while others reformed their technical and administrative areas in a way they could attend the new parameters established by the museum programs that were defined as restricted area for research and restricted area for public exhibition. Museum exhibitions opened to visiting won strength based on a focused perspective. Communicational resources that had been born and had developed in those museums reinforced the sense of popular education based on the reading of the exhibition speech that were present in the multifaceted narratives established in the new spaces of consecration of science. The museum object, the museum space and the exhibition\"s public form the basis of this modern phenomenon of communication. The modernity forged by the Industrial Revolution as well as the French Revolution generated this kind of organizational institution that - by the means of reuniting objects extracted from the natural world such as heritage references, document data and material testimonies - have assumed the responsibility for the conservation, research and diffusion of a new vision about the nature based on scientific criteria. To that process of selection and transfer of natural elements to the interior of museums to form didactic museum collection and scenarios was coined the idea of Musealization of Nature. This proposition must be understood by the comprehensiveness of the path of the new life of the object focusing the ways of representing the natural world by this typology of museum and presenting in its communicational systems a compartmentalized, classified and recognized nature. With the development and application of different exhibition resources, especially the dioramas, the natural history museums began to fill the exhibition rooms with a museumtechnique born in Europe that gained strong and determining strength in the United States and had spread all over the world including Brazil. With the installation of scenarios of natural environments that were didactically prepared, a new way of looking to the natural world in the public museum were consolidated: the scientific way. It is precisely on the threshold of modern science that the museums of natural history proliferate and reportedly began to worry about the popularization of science. The modern process of economic production definitely transformed the relationship between man and natural world. At the same time thei established new ways of living the nature whether through natural parks or gardens or even through museum exhibitions with its dioramas that we consider in this research as are true windows to the natural world.

Anyone who has gazed at a cloud free sky during daytime certainly havenoticed that the colour of the sky is blue. A careful observer may also havenoticed that the sky can look darker or lighter blue. The actual reasonsbehind this nature phenomena were not resolved until the second half ofthe 19th century but the variation of blue was already investigated duringthe time of Enlightenment by the Genovan scientist, aristocrat and mountainexplorer Horace Benedict de Saussure (1740{1799). De Saussure wasa scientist of his time and he measured many natural constants. When deSaussure climbed the Alp mountains he noticed that the sky turned darkerwith a more intense blue, at higher altitudes. To get a relative measure onhow blue the sky was, de Saussure invented a device he called cyanometer.It is a colour chart containing dierent hues of blue, starting with very lightblue, ranging all the way to dark blue. With this simple device de Saussurecould get a recordable measurement on how blue the sky was at the timefor the observation.This thesis deals with the cyanometer as a scientic instrument. It is ofinterest to investigate the cyanometer from a history of ideas perspective,so that this scientic instrument can be put in a visual culture context.Moreover, an investigation of how de Saussure developed the instrumentcan also show his thinking for the modications of it that he made. Further,the visual culture ideas can be applied on the main article de Saussure wroteabout the cyanometer in 1789.During the period when de Saussure was an active mountain explorer,he made several cyanometers which all varied in layout and the number ofblue colour sections included. In this thesis an analyse of the four dierentoriginal cyanometers that de Saussure made will be done. This analysis includesa quantitative comparison between the versions and a discussion onhow the instrument was made and operated. In order to trace a biographicalviewpoint on the cyanometer the thesis will also discuss how de Saussure'sidea, to measure the blueness of the sky, developed after his lifetime.

Studien fokuserar på förskollärare och deras uppfattningar, åsikter och resonemang kring ämnet biologi i förskolans verksamhet. Syftet med studien är att belysa förskollärares uppfattningar om ämnet biologi samt hur de resonerar kring sitt arbete med biologi tillsammans med de äldre barnen i förskolan (3–6 år). Metoden för studien är semistrukturerade intervjuer där sju förskollärare från två medelstora kommuner i Mellansverige har intervjuats. På grund av rådande omständigheter, pandemin Covid-19, togs beslutet att intervjuerna skulle ske via tjänsten Zoom eller via telefon för att undvika fysisk kontakt. I resultatet och slutsatserna framkommer att förskollärarna till största del associerar ämnet biologi med naturen, i form av växter och djur, samt kroppen. Däremot anser tre av de intervjuade förskollärarna att begreppet biologi är svårdefinierat. Samtliga förskollärare menar att biologi är en stor del av verksamheten och att det är roligt att arbeta med. Ämnet biologi integreras bland annat genom odling och kompostering, vistelse i skogen, undersökande av växter, djur och kroppen samt spontant genom samtal och lek. Ämnet biologi integreras framförallt genom barnens visade intresse för biologi som förskollärarna kan vidareutveckla och utmana. Implikationer för verksamheten är att utgå från barnens intresse och nyfikenhet kring ämnet biologi och på så sätt integreras biologi naturligt i verksamheten. Mycket av det som förskollärare gör i förskolan är kopplat till biologi. För att öka ämneskunskaperna runt biologi och dess sammanhang kan biologi vara en del av den kompetensutveckling som förskollärarna förkovra sig i. / This study focuses on preschool teachers and their perceptions, opinions and reasoning on the subject of biology in preschool activities. The purpose of the study is to shed light on preschool teachers' perceptions of the subject of biology and how they reason about their work with biology together with the older children in preschool (3–6 years). The method for the study is semi- structured interviews where seven preschool teachers from two medium-sized municipalities in Central Sweden have been interviewed. Due to the prevailing circumstances, the Covid-19 pandemic, the decision was made that the interviews would take place via the Zoom service or by telephone to avoid physical contact. The results and conclusions show that the preschool teachers largely associate the subject of biology with nature, in the form of plants and animals, as well as the body. On the other hand, three of the interviewed preschool teachers believe that the concept of biology is difficult to define, but that all preschool teachers believe that biology is a large part of the business and that it is fun to work with. The subject of biology is integrated through cultivation and composting, stays in the forest, examination of plants, animals and the body and spontaneously through conversation and play. The subject of biology is primarily integrated through the children's shown interest in biology, which preschool teachers can further develop and challenge. Implications for the activity are to start from the children's interest and curiosity about the subject of biology and in this way, biology is naturally integrated into the activity. Much of what preschool teachers do in preschool is linked to biology. In order to increase the subject knowledge around biology and its context, biology can be part of the competence development in which preschool teachers improve.

The study investigated the linguistic challenges faced by Setswana-speaking Grade 7 learners when writing Science examinations in English. Learners from rural and township schools are only introduced to English as a language of learning and teaching in Grade 4, which creates problems for the learners because English is foreign to them. Teachers help by translating words or code-switching but it become a problem in the examinations because teachers cannot help the learners during the examination session. Since starting as a Grade 7 Mathematics and Science teacher almost three years ago, I have noticed that Grade 7 Setswana-speaking learners are struggling to understand the language used in formal assessments, which is English. I decided to investigate the linguistic challenges these learners face when writing Science examinations in rural and township schools. The purpose of conducting this research is to help policymakers to meet the linguistic needs of non-native English speakers. The study will also make curriculum development specialists and those who set provincial question papers aware of the linguistic challenges faced by non-native speakers of English in primary schools. Lastly, the study will help readers gain a better understanding of why some teachers prefer to use indigenous languages when they teach over English and why some prefer to use English over indigenous languages. Many literature sources state that non-native English-speaking learners underachieve academically because of learning in a language that is not their first language (O’Connor & Geiger, 2009; Dawber & Jordan, 1999; Ortiz, 1997; Statham, 1997). The participants comprised of four purposively selected Grade7 Natural Science teachers, two SGBs and Grade 7 learners from two primary schools in Hammanskraal, Gauteng. This study followed a qualitative research approach and falls under the interpretive research paradigm. It is a phenomenological study and focuses on the lived experiences of teachers and learners. Methods of data collection used were classroom observations, interviews, questionnaires, and document analysis. Data gathered indicated that Setswana-speaking learners made basic errors such as spelling, sentence construction, grammar, incomplete sentences, mixed languages, using words that do not exist, tenses and understanding instructions. Recommendation to the SGBs is that they should consider these linguistic challenges when they draft language policies for rural and township schools. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Humanities Education / MEd / Unrestricted