The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore Grades 6-8 teachers knowledge and beliefs about science literacy and instruction that develops science literacy, in both the fundamental and derived senses. All Grade 6 elementary teachers and Grades 7-8 middle school science teachers from five school districts in the Mountain West region of the U.S. were invited to participate by responding to an online survey consisting of open response questions and critical instances. Data were analyzed using an immersion style of coding. Findings suggest a majority of teachers view literacy as reading and writing and text as something that is read or written. Teachers described science literacy as either the integration of science and literacy or as using basic literacy skills in science. When teachers were asked to identify quality instruction for developing science literacy via critical instances, a majority were successful when presented with examples that exemplify best practices in teaching science literacy but could not discriminate levels of quality when examples included minimal or no elements considered to be best practices. This suggests that teacher education programs and professional development should include opportunities that help preservice and practicing teachers better understand the importance of teaching both science subject matter knowledge as well as communicative practices used in science.

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This chapter describes a science and literacy integrative unit on water ecology and reading about water purification in post-civil war Sudan through the text A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, 2010. The authors describe the process of integration according to the 5E learning cycle: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate. This teaching scenario is also further explicated through connections to The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and overlapping practices between NGSS and The Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts. Aspects of the text are used in conjunction with the hands-on science inquiry to dig deeper into the standards.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the textbooks significance in the students' process of learning and how it is correlated with the ability to create scientific literacy. It thus followed naturally to further examine the different forms of content in the textbook such as pictures, questions, text, scientific methods and terminology. In the systematic search keywords were extracted from our research question and a Boolean search technique was used. The databases used are ERIC, ERC, Swepub and Google. We also used secondary sources taken from the search results' reference lists. The results show that the textbooks content has a varied impact on students learning both in and about science. This study concludes that the different forms of content in a textbook have a varied impact in the learning process and the students' ability to create scientific literacy. Teachers should therefore be critical of the content of textbooks before its use. Finally further suggestions of research are given to deepen the significance of textbooks in students' process of learning.

TITLE: New possibilities of providing basic natural science education through experiments AUTHOR: Mgr. Veronika Köhlerová DEPARTMENT: Department of Chemistry and Chemistry Education SUPERVISOR: Prof. RNDr. Pavel Beneš, CSc. ABSTRACT: The thesis stems from the basic need to support and develop natural science education. Based on didactic, technical-economic and ergonomic requirements, a teaching tools kit has been created, which facilitates 100 natural science experiments. The kit includes a methodological manual; further methodological support is also provided on the webpage of the kit's manufacturer. To complement the kit, a concept of an optional teacher training course Natural Science Experiments for Preschools and Primary Schools has been created. The course will take place at the Pedagogical Faculty of Charles University in the school year 2013/2014. During the course of the thesis, didactic research methods were used to choose, process, test, organize, and optimise educational experiments. The pedagogical methods used included questionnaires and expert testimonials. The thesis provides a substantial response to the current educational needs in the field of natural science pre-literacy already at preschools and natural science literacy at primary schools. KEYWORDS: science experiment, natural science...

Nano materials can today be found in a wide range of consumer products and the number of new products on the market is expected to inrease. In the shadow of hope for nano materilas potential in various applications, low awareness of its health and environmental risks is hiding. Furthermore, the knowledge about people´s risk perception of nano materials is limited. Parallel to the situation described above, the scholls meet the challenge of incrasing the scientific literacy. To achieve this goal, skills in argumentation in science studies has been emphasized and the concept of socio-scientific issues has been emerged. Using focus groups as a method, this study aimed first, to explore young engineering student´s risk perception of nano materials, and secont to analyze the extent to which they apply scientific konwledge to argue about nano materials. The material from the focus group interviews was analyzed with respect to both content and interaction. To analyze the content, a thematic classification of the material was made. The interactive and communicative forms were highlighted by an analysis of arguments according to the SEE-SEP-model. Seven themes were indentified from the focus group material. It was also assumed that 55 percent of the participants´arguments were based on values, 25 percent on konwledge and 20 percent on personal experiences. Despite the absence of specific knowledge, the young engineering students have the ability to conduct a complex argumentation about nano materials where they involve the paradox; new opportunities, inresolved risks. Their risk perception is not primarily based on knowledge but on emotional expressions such as fascination, hope, resignation and fear. / Nanomaterial återfinns idag i ett brett spektrum av konsumentprodukter och antalet nya produkter förväntas öka på marknaden. I skuggan av förhoppningar om nanomaterialens potential i allehanda tillämpningar döljer sig bristfälliga kunskaper om dess hälso- och miljörisker. Vidare är kunskapen om människors riskpercetion an nanometrial begränsad. Parallellt med den ovan beskrivna situationen står skolan inför utmaningen att öka den naturvetenskapliga allmänbildningen. För att uppnå målet har kompetens inom argumentation i de naturorienterande ämnene betonats och begreppet sociovetenskapliga dilemman vuxit fram. Med fokusgrupper dom metod har studien syftat dels till att undersöka unga teknikstuderandes riskperceetpion av nanomaterial, dels till att analysera i vilken utsträckning de tillämpar vetenskapliga kunskaper för att argumentera om nanomaterial. Materialet från fokusgruppsintervjuerna analyserades med avseende på både innehåll och interaktion. För att analysera innehållet gjordes en tematisk indelning av materialet. De interaktiva och kommunikativa formerna belystes genom en argumentationsanalys enligt SEE-SEP-modellen. Sju teman identifierades ur fokusgruppmaterialet. Vidare utgick 55 % av deltagarnas argument från värderingar. därefter kom kunskap med 25 % och sist personliga erfarenheter med 20 %. Trots avsaknad av specifik kunskap, har unga teknikstuderande förmågan att föra en komplex argumentation om nanomaterial där de berör pradoxen; nya möjligheter, outredda risker. Deras riskperception baseras inte främst på kunskaper utan på emotionella uttryck så som fascination, hopp,uppgivenhet och rädsla.

This thesis is focused on analysing chemical experiments and their potential to help increase science literacy among vocational school students. Currently, greater emphasis is placed on the development of scientific and critical thinking at higher cognitive levels and science literacy. These skills and abilities can be achieved through tuition based on experimental scientific activities. For this reason, the main goal of this thesis was to review the quantity and method of processing of individual experiments in terms of quality and compliance with the given requirements. Experiments in the field of organic chemistry were taken from available vocational school literature and were analysed and evaluated. These sources were the following textbooks: Chemie pro střední školy, Chemie pro studijní obory SOŠ a SOU nechemického zaměření and the web page Studium chemie and the video database of chemistry experiments. Each experiment was evaluated whether it met the analysed criteria of transparency, connection with practical life, problem solving and material, technical, time and economic simplicity. Furthermore, the experiments were evaluated in terms of usability during various stages of tuition with regard to the development of students through different levels of inquiry. The last and main evaluation...

The diploma thesis deals with the comparison of two selected concepts of science teaching at primary school. The theoretical part of the thesis summarizes the classification of science as an educational field, explains the possible concepts of its teaching and compares the advantages and disadvantages of two selected variants with reference to the fulfilment of educational goals and respect for didactic principles of science teaching. The available materials suitable for teaching, the degree of their use and the comparison of teaching methods depending on the success in scientific testing are also outlined. The practical part of the work brings a comparison of the results of a questionnaire survey between individual groups of ecologically and science-taught pupils. Individual tasks and questions were created on the basis of established hypotheses. The results of the research bring a comparison of the knowledge and skills area, but also the area of students' attitude towards the subject. The established hypothesis was confirmed partially, the attitude section brings in results to the research questions. Students taught ecologically were indeed more successful in the task that led to the connection of knowledge and derivation from the relationships between organisms, but the differetence were not...