Teachers' experiences and attitudes play a critical role in outdoor education. In this study, we aim to explore how 5th-10th-grade (10-15 years-old students) teachers use the natural environment in their teaching practices, with special attention to the link to sustainable development (SD). In total, 42 in-service teachers were invited to participate in the study. The data collection was based on the participating teachers' individual written texts concerning their previous outdoor teaching practices, the link to SD and the related assessments. Based on content analysis, three main themes emerged from the data, including (1) teaching biology/ecology concepts, (2) exploring visible pollution and (3) applying a context- and inquiry-based approach. However, we found that outdoor teaching was scarcely linked to SD. The research results' implications for outdoor education and teachers' professional development are discussed in this paper.

We are living in an increasingly diverse media landscape, with advertising a significant part of this. There appears to be unanimous agreement that the ability to critically examine and make rational decisions about advertising is indispensable for contemporary citizens. Students need to develop critical thinking skills in order to evaluate messages and facts drawn from advertisements in various media. They also need to be familiar with the hidden mechanisms used to create advertisements with the goal of subconsciously influencing consumers. Today, advertising for many products has strong scientific and technological components. However, learning both with and about advertising does not play a prominent role in the science education literature. To date, the use of advertising as educational content is found almost exclusively in the humanities and social sciences, especially language education. On the other hand, there is an extensive body of research on the effects of advertising on children, consumer socialization as well as marketing strategies aimed at young consumers. The results indicate that advertising has a strong impact on children's beliefs and perceptions which already starts at an early stage. Therefore, this paper attempts to analyse the potential use of and learning about advertising in science education. It reviews the available literature, not only from science education, but also from other domains, including non-science subjects, cross-curricular approaches as well as research on the use and effects of advertising in the public arena. The aim is to identify the potential roles advertising might play in the science classroom and to open up new directions for science education research and curriculum development.

Background: Sustainable development (SD) is a complex idea, based on environmental, economic and social dimensions. In line with SD, education for sustainable development (ESD) is an approach to teaching that combines cognitive and affective domains and aims to build empowerment abilities.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to investigate effects of the implementation of ESD in Sweden, in terms of developing students’ sustainability consciousness (SC). Two groups of students were included: one was from schools with a profile of ESD and the other one was from comparable schools without explicit ESD-profile.

Sample: A total of 638 students from upper secondary schools (grade 12) in science-related or social science-related programs participated in the study.

Design and methods: A procedure was created for the selection of schools considered to be the most active in using an ESD approach as well as comparable schools with no explicit ESD approach. During spring 2013, the students responded to a questionnaire based on sustainability knowingness, attitudes and behaviors within the environmental, economic and social dimensions of SD that together constitute the concept of SC. Data were analyzed using SPSS software.

Results: The results indicate that there are significant differences in SC between students from schools that teach with an ESD approach compared to students from regular schools. Furthermore, a significant difference between the two groups of students was found in the underlying economic dimension of SC. No significant differences were found in the environmental and social dimensions of SC.

Conclusions: Although the results show that ESD-profiled schools have effect on students' SC, the effects are relatively small. Therefore, the effects and nature of the implementation of ESD are discussed.

Background: Textbooks are integral tools for teachers’ lessons. Several researchers observed that school teachers rely heavily on textbooks as informational sources when planning lessons. Moreover, textbooks are an important resource for developing students’ knowledge as they contain various representations that influence students’ learning. However, several studies report that students have difficulties understanding models in general, and chemical bonding models in particular, and that students’ difficulties understanding chemical bonding are partly due to the way it is taught by teachers and presented in textbooks.

Purpose: This article aims to delineate the influence of textbooks on teachers’ selection and use of representations when teaching chemical bonding models and to show how this might cause students’ difficulties understanding.

Sample: Ten chemistry teachers from seven upper secondary schools located in Central Sweden volunteered to participate in this study.

Design and methods: Data from multiple sources were collected and analysed, including interviews with the 10 upper secondary school teachers, the teachers’ lesson plans, and the contents of the textbooks used by the teachers.

Results: The results revealed strong coherence between how chemical bonding models are presented in textbooks and by teachers, and thus depict that textbooks influence teachers’ selection and use of representations for their lessons. As discussed in the literature review, several of the selected representations were associated with alternative conceptions of, and difficulties understanding, chemical bonding among students.

Conclusions: The study highlights the need for filling the gap between research and teaching practices, focusing particularly on how representations of chemical bonding can lead to students’ difficulties understanding. The gap may be filled by developing teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge regarding chemical bonding and scientific models in general.

Researchers have shown a growing interest in science teachers' professional knowledge in recent decades. The article focuses on how chemistry teachers impart chemical bonding, one of the most important topics covered in upper secondary school chemistry courses. Chemical bonding is primarily taught using models, which are key for understanding science. However, many studies have determined that the use of models in science education can contribute to students' difficulties understanding the topic, and that students generally find chemical bonding a challenging topic. The aim of this study is to investigate teachers' knowledge of teaching chemical bonding. The study focuses on three essential components of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK): (1) the students' understanding, (2) representations, and (3) instructional strategies. We analyzed lesson plans about chemical bonding generated by 10 chemistry teachers with whom we also conducted semi-structured interviews about their teaching. Our results revealed that the teachers were generally unaware of how the representations of models they used affected student comprehension. The teachers had trouble specifying students' difficulties in understanding. Moreover, most of the instructional strategies described were generic and insufficient for promoting student understanding. Additionally, the teachers' rationale for choosing a specific representation or activity was seldom directed at addressing students' understanding. Our results indicate that both PCK components require improvement, and suggest that the two components should be connected. Implications for the professional development of pre-service and in-service teachers are discussed.

Researchers have shown a growing interest in science teachers' professional knowledge in recent decades. The article focuses on how chemistry teachers impart chemical bonding, one of the most important topics covered in upper secondary school chemistry courses. Chemical bonding is primarily taught using models, which are key for understanding science. However, many studies have determined that the use of models in science education can contribute to students' difficulties understanding the topic, and that students generally find chemical bonding a challenging topic. The aim of this study is to investigate teachers' knowledge of teaching chemical bonding. The study focuses on three essential components of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK): (1) the students' understanding, (2) representations, and (3) instructional strategies. We analyzed lesson plans about chemical bonding generated by 10 chemistry teachers with whom we also conducted semi-structured interviews about their teaching. Our results revealed that the teachers were generally unaware of how the representations of models they used affected student comprehension. The teachers had trouble specifying students' difficulties in understanding. Moreover, most of the instructional strategies described were generic and insufficient for promoting student understanding. Additionally, the teachers' rationale for choosing a specific representation or activity was seldom directed at addressing students' understanding. Our results indicate that both PCK components require improvement, and suggest that the two components should be connected. Implications for the professional development of pre-service and in-service teachers are discussed.

Models play an important and central role in science as well as in science education. Chemical bonding is one of the most important topics at upper secondary school chemistry, and this topic is dominated by the use of models. In the past decade, research has shown that chemical bonding is a topic that students find difficult, and therefore, a wide range of alternative conceptions are developed by students. This study focuses on analyzing the models of chemical bonding in chemistry textbooks at upper secondary level and aims to investigate the content of chemical bonding presented in chemistry textbooks with respect to students’ learning difficulties (alternative conceptions and difficulties in understanding). Chapters concerning chemical bonding in five chemistry textbooks at upper secondary level in Sweden were analyzed. The results showed that the models of chemical bonding represented in the school textbooks might cause students’ alternative conceptions and difficulties in understanding chemical bonding, which matched the findings found by other recent studies. Implications for textbooks’ authors and teachers are addressed.

In recent decades, socioscientific issues (SSI) have been emerging from the interrelationship between science, technology, and society. For example, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, related decisions, like whether we need to ask people to use facemasks, is an SSI question being discussed internationally with no right or wrong answer. Controversial issues like SSI and the ability to make informed decisions need to be taught in school, which raises the question of whether teachers themselves are equipped with the skills required to make decisions on SSI. This study aimed to explore whether primary science pre-service teachers could consider multiple subject areas while making decisions on SSI in the context of abortion. Forty-two pre-service primary science teachers (third-year university students) in a genetics and biotechnology course participated in the study. The participants were asked to make decisions about abortion in three genetics-related scenarios and to explain their reasons in written reports. The SEE-SEP (science, environment, ethics/morality, sociology/culture, economy, and policy) model was adopted to explore the reasons behind the pre-service teachers' decisions. The results showed that their decisions were influenced mainly by science and ethics/morality subject areas. The results further revealed that the participants who supported abortion based their decisions on both scientific evidence and their emotional responses. On the other hand, the pre-service teachers who were against abortion based their decisions on scientific evidence and the aspect of uncertainty. Accordingly, our study recognises the importance of including both science and ethics/morality discussions in SSI-based teaching. The implications for SSI-based teaching and learning are discussed.

Numerous of sustainable development related challenges are emerging today, e.g. flooding problems. Our group has developed ’the flood walk’ project since 2010 to convey flood risk knowledge in an authentic context. Considering the limitation of time and space to educate people the flood risk knowledge, we tried to transform the physical flood walk field trip into a Web-based virtual trip. In this study, we aim to examine whether the Web-based flood-walk environment can help participants to achieve the same learning outcome as its authentic counterpart. A total of 65 upper secondary school pupils participated in this study. The results illustrate that a physical experience is irreplaceable, and the importance of providing physical experiences for learners in both formal and informal education needs to be emphasised.

Objective of the article: The aim of this article is to synthesise the findings of relevant research articles and to demonstrate several “didactic models” of education for sustainable development (ESD) in school education.

Research method: The method of narrative literature review was used to identify didactic models for ESD in school education.

A short description of the context of the presented issue: The term didactic refers to the professional scholarship of teaching. In recent decades, the need to develop didactic models that would support school teaching and to allow for this adjustment in new teaching contexts has been addressed. Research has shown that school subject teachers work differently with ESD. It demands holism and pluralism, which requires embracing multiple stakeholders and communities, and a multi-disciplinary approach. Shedding light on achieving sustainability with its holist and pluralist features, this article analyses relevant research articles and demonstrates several “didactic models” for ESD in school education.

Conclusions and recommendations: I propose socioscientific issues-based teaching and learning (SSI-TL) as a useful didactic model for ESD and argue for the need to embrace didactic models like SSI-TL in teacher professional development for both pre- and in-service teachers. The article explicitly considers the value of applying Communities of Practice as a theory to guide educational practices and research on education for sustainability in school science. The implications of applying the didactic models presented in the article are relevant not only for ESD, but also for students’ development of Bildung to become reflective and responsible citizens.

Numerous of sustainable development related challenges are emerging today, e.g. flooding problems. Our group has developed ‘the flood walk’ project since 2010 to convey flood risk knowledge in an authentic context. Considering the limitation of time and space to educate people the flood risk knowledge, we tried to transform the physical flood walk field trip into a Web-based virtual trip. In this study, we aim to examine whether the Web-based flood-walk environment can help participants to achieve the same learning outcome as its authentic counterpart. A total of 65 upper secondary school pupils participated in this study. The results illustrate that a physical experience is irreplaceable, and the importance of providing physical experiences for learners in both formal and informal education needs to be emphasised.

Inquiry-based science education (IBSE) has been addressed in science education internationally during the past decades, and the new Swedish curriculum from 2011 also emphasize the need to develop students’ inquiry skills. However, to what extent school teachers in Sweden have developed their professional knowledge on IBSE has only been focused in a small number of studies in Sweden and it was found that in-service teachers were not well-informed about the ideas of IBSE (Lunde, Rundgren, & Chang Rundgren, 2015). Therefore, in the PROFILES project in Sweden, we could create time and space for in-service teachers to develop and reflect on IBSE. The purpose of this presentation is to share our experiences on the development of PROFILES with in-service science teachers (primary and lower secondary school levels) in Sweden during year 2012 to 2014. A model termed context-inquiry-assessment (CIA) continuously professional development (CPD) is introduced in the presentation together with suggestions on different teacher professional development approaches (e.g. design-based, learning study and action research) (Chang Rundgren, in press) as well as the detailed professional reflection on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK).  

References

   Lunde, T., Rundgren, C-J, Chang Rundgren, S. N. (2015) När läroplan och tradition möts – hur högstadielärare bemöter yttre förväntningar på undersökande arbete i naturämnesundervisningen. NorDiNa (Nordic Studies in Science Education) 11(1) 88-101.

Lunde, T. (2014). När läroplan och tradition möts. Om lärarfortbildning och undersökande aktiviteters syfte inom den laborativa NO-undervisningen i grundskolans senare del. Licentiate Thesis. Karlstad University Studies 2014:42. ISBN 978-91-7063-577-9

In today’s society, mass media plays an important role in our life. In addition toschool education, people receive scientific knowledge from mass media to a greatextent. Within chemistry, the information, for example, concerning food chemistry,crime investigation, environmental toxins and local mining issues, pervades massmedia. Today, all the above-mentioned issues are termed socio-scientific issues(SSI), which are seen as suitable contexts to promote scientific literacy and citizeneducation in the global age. In addition to the importance of noticing the emergingSSI in mass media, both of SSI and media have been found useful in enhancingstudents’ learning in sciences, especially at the moment of facing the presentphenomenon concerning students’ low interest in science revealed internationally,in particular among developed countries (e.g. Sweden). Therefore, it is a majortask now for us, as science educators, to put effort on motivating students’ interestin science, and we believe the combination of SSI and mass media can enhancestudents’ interest through making science relevant. In this chapter, the importanceof SSI-based teaching linking to the meaning of relevance is introduced as a visionthat science teachers need to be aware of and develop further. Further, we arguewhy mass media can contribute to making chemistry education relevant forstudents based on research evidence. Two examples of SSI-teaching approaches,based on local SSI topics discussed in mass media in Taiwan and Sweden, arepresented to benefit teaching practices. The implication to teacher education isalso discussed.

Together with Inquiry-Based Science Education (IBSE), teaching and learning about SocioScientifis Issues (SSI) and the related argumentation skill (termed informal ar-gumentation or SSI-argumentation) are emerging and hot research topics in science education internationally during the past decades. Embedding the four important concepts regarding Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), Citizenship Educa-tion (CE), SSI and IBSE for the education in modern society, the teaching strategy of SocioScientific Inquiry-Based Learning (SSIBL) is generated and recognized by the European Commission to promote in teacher education and apply in school educa-tion. The presentation is based on an EU FP7 project, PARRISE (No. 612438), aiming to develop TPD courses to enhance pre- and in-service teachers’ competence on teaching students’ SSIBL in formal and informal education from primary to upper secondary education levels. The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate a design of a SSIBL TPD course (with a focus of RRI, SSI, IBSE and CE concepts) for a group of pre-service teachers at primary education level. Further, the pre-service teachers’ awareness on teaching strategies involving SSI, IBSE to enhance SSIBL is investigated with the main research questions including: 1. What are the pre-service teachers’ awareness of SSI and IBSE teaching? 2. What are the re-service teachers’ awareness of SSI, IBSE and SSIBL teaching after the SSIBL TPD course? 3. What are pre-service teachers’ general feedback on the SSIBL TPD course? Through the pre- and post-test with quantitative Likert-Scale questionnaire survey, the results showed that the 26 pre-service teachers’ confidence on SSI, IBSE and SSIBL teaching strategies were increased and need for further education was decre-ased, both with significantly differences (p < 0.05) after the SSIBL TPD course. Also, the general feedback on the SSIBL course was positive as well.

The trend of socioscientific issues (SSIs) has been emergent in the science- and technology-dominated society of today. Accordingly, during the past 20 years, students’ skills of argumentation and informal reasoning about SSIs have achieved greater emphasis and profile in school education. Based upon the importance of SSIs, more and more researchers have investigated how students reason and make arguments about SSIs, and also explored the dimensions influencing students’ arguments and also involved in the various SSIs. This article has a threefold purpose. Firstly, we want to address the different roles of SSIs in science education nowadays, and secondly, after reviewing the divergent dimensions involved in SSIs from previous literature, we want to provide a holistic view to represent the essence of SSIs via the SEE-SEP model (connecting six subject areas of Sociology/culture, Environment, Economy, Science, Ethics/morality and Policy with three aspects of value, personal experience and knowledge) developed here. Thirdly, to support the SEE-SEP model, examples extracted from former studies are presented. The implications for research and for school science education are discussed.

In this science and technology dominated society, the complex interrelationship of science, technology, environment and society has been noticed during the past 30 years. In line with this phenomenon, socioscientific issues (SSI) are not only emerging in the research field of science/environmental education, but also discussed in our everyday multimedia world. This year is the last year of the UN Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) decade (year 2005 to 2014), it is time to reflect upon what we have done and how we ought to continue in the next step. Therefore, in this presentation, firstly, we will address the important relationship of scientific literacy (SL), ESD, SSI and science media literacy (SML) in the modern society. Secondly, based on the aforementioned important relationship of SML, ESD and SSI, a model of SSI pedagogic discourse is presented to contribute to school education. The implications to ESD, media, science and citizen education are delineated.

Based on the EU FP 7 project PROFILES, this article presents our findings from a three-round Delphi study conducted in Sweden which aimed at establishing a consensus on how science education should be developed for citizens to enhance civic scientific literacy. A total of 100 stakeholders (9^th graders, school teachers, scientists and science education researchers) were involved in our Delphi study in 2012–13. The results revealed that there were some highly ranked consensus ideas: environmental issues, inquiry skills, motivation/interest and holistic comprehension were all in line with conclusions drawn elsewhere in the literature and ideas within the PROFILES project itself. However, we also found that there were some mismatched aspects of our Delphi study and the Swedish curriculum. The conclusions of our research imply the importance of involving different stakeholders in the educational reconstruction process; we suggest that the school teacher in particular should play a vital role.

Education for sustainable development (ESD) has for decades been a focus internationally and has been embraced in the Japanese curriculum since 2008. Given UNESCO’s emphasis on teacher training for ESD and well-established in-service teacher training programmes in Japan, the aim of this study is to explore whether ESD teacher training could help Japanese in-service teachers to implement ESD in school. Semi-structured individual interviews with 12 in-service teachers from primary to lower secondary schools were conducted via Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was found that in-service teacher training for ESD had a positive impact on transforming the teachers in both their professional and personal lives. However, challenges remain regarding the promotion of ESD in schools because of lack of common ground with other teaching colleagues and time constrains. The implications of implementing global ESD in schools are discussed.

Based on the importance and widely use of visualization in science, this article has a three-fold aim related to the terms of visualization, representation and model that in recent years have been introduced to the field of science education without clear differentiation. Firstly, the three terms are discussed with examples to provide a common ground for the following discussion. Secondly, the roles of visualization in science education are delineated to inform teachers how visualization can be used to enhance their teaching and students’ learning in science. Thirdly, based on visualization research in science education, there are a number of aspects that we need to consider while embedding the proposed visualization into the development of teachers’ professional knowledge. We hope to contribute to pre- and in-service science teachers’ professional development linked to the use of visualization in science education.

 The rapid development of science and technology has become a global issue in modern society, since it will not only bring conveniences into peoples lives but it may also cause extensive environmental damage to the planet earth. Therefore, it is important to propagate the notion of Science Technology and Society (STS) and the awareness of sustainable development. The purpose of this study was to implement a Science across the World (SAW) activity in a resource-based environment regarding two sustainable issues, global warming and renewable energy, and to investigate students responses to this SAW activity. Seventy-eight non-science major freshmen participated in the study. The results from participants questionnaires indicated that students felt most interested in exploring ideas locally via Internet, and exchanging information with students from other countries globally. Through this activity, students also presented the positive results of the acquisition of knowledge, and they felt that their inquiry abilities got improved. Implication of STS teaching on students learning and attitudes are discussed. KEY WORDS: Resource-based learning, science across the world, STS, sustainable development.

The purpose of this study is to introduce Taiwanese last curriculum standards and the development of authentic assessment to investigate 9^th-graders’ scientific literacy in Taiwan. From this study, it was revealed that authentic assessment provided another possibility to evaluate students’ scientific cognition better than the traditional achievement tests. Besides, the hands-on activity developed by this study offered an opportunity to make students enjoy the examination more and showed a higher consistency with lower-achievement students’ performance on the national entrance exam. The discussion and implementation are presented.

Scientific literacy is the ultimate goal in science education world-wide; especially in this modern society of science and technology. How to help individuals to make good judgments and promote their skills of argumentation becomes an important issue. Meanwhile, in the Information Age, visual image is an important medium for conveying information. The purpose of this study is to teach argumentation through visual models in a non-science major class and to investigate which visual models of argumentation students like to choose for constructing their arguments concerning genetically modified food in a resource-based learning environment. The results revealed that most of the participants chose Lakatos’ scientific research programmes as the model to construct their arguments most, and there were three kinds of reasons participants provided about why they chose this model. In addition, the questions concerning genetically modified food that students felt interested to explore were also investigated. The implications for teaching are discussed.

To achieve the goal of scientific literacy, besides conveying science and technology concepts, cultivating students' modeling ability has become important. However, in-service teachers face the difficulty that their teaching load increases while they are still bound by limited teaching hours. Teachers may know of modeling ability, life related content and hands-on activities which are all important and beneficial for science learning; however, they very often find it is hard to engage all these methods into their limited teaching hours. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop an efficient method of instruction based upon the frameworks of cognitive apprenticeship and modeling ability to promote students' modeling ability and scientific concept regarding battery. A topic oriented instructional design has been adopted to develop a four-lesson instruction (200 minutes in total). There were 149 non-science majors from three classes invited to participate in this study. They were randomly assigned different instructions, and students' performances were evaluated by three kinds of tests: the general modeling ability test, concept tests and context-based modeling tests. The results indicate cognitive apprenticeship and modeling ability instruction could significantly improve students' modeling ability and also enhance their learning regarding the concept of the battery. However, it is remarkable to point out that, "modeling ability instruction" and the "video lab" provided in this study play the crucial roles. The implication of this study is also discussed.

The purpose of this study is to explore how Lakatos' scientific research programmes might serve as a theoretical framework for representing and evaluating informal argumentation about socio-scientific issues. Seventy undergraduate science and non-science majors were asked to make written arguments about four socio-scientific issues. Our analysis showed that the science majors' informal arguments were significantly better than the non-science majors' arguments. In terms of the resources for supporting reasons, we find that personal experience and scientific belief are the two categories that are generated most often in both groups of the participants. Besides, science majors made significantly greater use of analogies, while non-science majors made significantly greater use of authority. In addition, both science majors and non-science majors had a harder time changing their arguments after participating in a group discussion. In the study of argumentation in science, scholars have often used Toulmin's framework of data, warrant, backing, qualifiers, claims, and rebuttal. Our work demonstrates that Lakatos' work is also a viable perspective, especially when warrant and backing are difficult to discern, and when students' arguments are resistant to change. Our use of Lakatos' framework highlights how the 'hard core' of students' arguments about socio-scientific issues does, indeed, seem to be protected by a 'protective belt' and, thus, is difficult to alter. From these insights, we make specific implications for further research and teaching.

Scientific literacy and authenticity have gained a lot of attention in the past few decades worldwide. The goal of the study was to develop various authentic assessments to investigate students scientific literacy for corresponding to the new curriculum reform of Taiwan in 1997. In the process, whether ninth graders were able to apply school knowledge in real-life problems was also investigated. Over the course of our two-year study, we developed authentic assessments to investigate a stratified random sampling of 1,503 ninth graders levels of scientific literacy, including scientific cognition, process skills, application of science, habits of mind, nature of science, and attitude towards science. The purpose of this article is to discuss three different formats of authentic assessments: multiple-choice, open-ended, and hands-on test items, which we developed to investigate scientific cognition. To validate the three formats of authentic assessments, students performance on these three assessments were compared with the science section of Taiwans Academic Attainment Testing (STAAT), and the values of Pearson correlation coefficient were all at the significant level, ranging from 0.205 to 0.660 (p<0.01). We found that our three authentic assessments were better in evaluating students authentic abilities in science than standardized tests (such as STAAT). Further authentic assessments, particularly the hands-on activity, benefited low-achieving students. Concerning the common themes tested in the authentic assessments, students performed better in a multiple-choice test than an open-ended test on electricity and heat and temperature. In addition, two themes of chemical reactions and reactions of acid and base with indicators were performed best in a hands-on test than in the other two tests. In this article, we provide evidence that authentic assessments could be developed in different formats to investigate students scientific cognition as part of the national test. Of these formats, the multiple-choice, open-ended, and hands-on test items are all shown to be sensitive in their evaluation of students cognition in science.

The control of human ribosomal protein L22 (rpL22) to enter into the nucleolus and its ability to be assembled into the ribosome is regulated by its sequence. The nuclear import of rpL22 depends on a classical nuclear localization signal of four lysines at positions 13-16. RpL22 normally enters the nucleolus via a compulsory sequence of KKYLKK (I-domain, positions 88-93). An acidic residue cluster at the C-terminal end (C-domain) plays a nuclear retention role. The retention is concealed by the N-domain (positions 1-9) which weakly interacts with the C-domain as demonstrated in the yeast two-hybrid system. Once it reaches the nucleolus, the question of whether rpL22 is assembled into the ribosome depends upon the presence of the N-domain. This suggests that the N-domain, on dissociation from its interaction with the C-domain, binds to a specific region of the 28S rRNA for ribosome assembly.

Students’ learning interests and attitudes toward science have both been studied for decades. However, the connection between them with students’ life experiences about science and technology has not been addressed much. The purpose of this study is to investigate students’ learning interests and life experiences about science and technology, and also their attitudes toward technology. A total of 942 urban ninth graders in Taiwan were invited to participate in this study. A Likert scale questionnaire, which was developed from an international project, ROSE, was adapted to collect students’ ideas. The results indicated that boys showed higher learning interests in sustainability issues and scientific topics than girls. However, girls recalled more life experiences about science and technology in life than boys. The data also presented high values of Pearson correlation about learning interests and life experiences related to science and technology, and in the perspective on attitudes towards technology. Ways to promote girls’ learning interests about science and technology and the implications of teaching and research are discussed as well.

Based on the importance and widely use of visualization in science, this article has a three-fold aim related to the terms of visualization, representation and model that in recent years have been introduced to the field of science education without clear differentiation. Firstly, the three terms are discussed with examples to provide a common ground for the following discussion. Secondly, the roles of visualization in science education are delineated to inform teachers how visualization can be used to enhance their teaching and students’ learning in science. Thirdly, based on visualization research in science education, there are a number of aspects that we need to consider while embedding the proposed visualization into the development of teachers’ professional knowledge. We hope to contribute to pre-and in-service science teachers’ professional development linked to the use of visualization in science education. © 2014 HKIEd APFSLT.

To achieve the goal of scientific literacy, the skills of argumentation have been emphasized in science education during the past decades. But the extent to which students can apply scientific knowledge to their argumentation is still unclear. The purpose of this study was to analyse 80 Swedish upper secondary students' informal argumentation on four socioscientific issues (SSIs) to explore students' use of supporting reasons and to what extent students used scientific knowledge in their arguments. Eighty upper secondary students were asked to express their opinions on one SSI topic they chose through written reports. The four SSIs in this study include global warming, genetically modified organisms (GMO), nuclear power, and consumption. To analyse students' supporting reasons from a holistic view, we used the SEE-SEP model, which links the six subject areas of sociology/culture (So), environment (En), economy (Ec), science (Sc), ethics/morality (Et) and policy (Po) connecting with three aspects, and (KVP). The results showed that students used value to a greater extent (67%) than they did scientific knowledge (27%) for all four SSI topics. According to the SEE-SEP model, the distribution of supporting reasons generated by students differed among the SSI topics. Also, some alternative concepts were disclosed in students' arguments. The implications for research and education are discussed.

In the present STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)-driven society, socioscientific issues (SSI) have become a focus globally and SSI research has grown into an important area of study in science education. Since students attending the social and science programs have a different focus in their studies and research has shown that students attending a science program are less familiar with argumentation practice, we make a comparison of the supporting reasons social science and science majors use in arguing different SSI with the goal to provide important information for pedagogical decisions about curriculum and instruction. As an analytical framework, a model termed SEE-SEP covering three aspects (of knowledge, value, and experiences) and six subject areas (of sociology/culture, economy, environment/ecology, science, ethics/morality, and policy) was adopted to analyze students’ justifications. A total of 208 upper secondary students (105 social science majors and 103 science majors) from Sweden were invited to justify and expound their arguments on four SSI including global warming, genetically modified organisms (GMO), nuclear power, and consumer consumption. The results showed that the social science majors generated more justifications than the science majors, the aspect of value was used most in students’ argumentation regardless of students’ discipline background, and justifications from the subject area of science were most often presented in nuclear power and GMO issues. We conclude by arguing that engaging teachers from different subjects to cooperate when teaching argumentation on SSI could be of great value and provide students from both social science and science programs the best possible conditions in which to develop argumentation skills.

To combine the teaching of scientific concepts with the challenging problems of socioscientific issues (SSI) has been shown to be effective on engaging students in discussions and in developing students’ skills in decision-making and critical thinking. Research has revealed that teaching SSI in science education is a challenging task for science teachers alone suggesting a co-operation with teachers of the humanities, proposing that these teachers might be better at managing debates and other pedagogical methods related to a SSI driven instruction. However, to our knowledge no one has yet investigated the outcomes of a co-operation between language teachers, who regularly in their courses teach topics like argumentation, debate and how to write an argumentative text, and science teachers. Hence, the aim of our study is to investigate how the co-operation of teachers from different disciplines (language and science teachers) can contribute to upper secondary school students’ argumentation skills about global warming. A total of ten teachers from the subjects of Swedish (mother tongue), English, biology, physics and chemistry will participate in this study together with two classes of science major students in their first year of upper secondary school, which they teach. Data will be collected from both the teachers by interviews at the end of the teaching sequence and from students making a pre- and post-test of written argumentation about global warming, as well as interviews. Since this study is an ongoing project, we are still collecting data. We foresee that we will find that the teachers as well as the students can provide us with insights on how they perceive a cross-disciplinary teaching with focus on SSI, and also that we will be able to follow some progression in students argumentation through the pre- and post-test. Our findings on the learning outcome and how teachers and students perceive a cross-disciplinary teachers’ cooperation on SSI will be presented at the ERIDOB-conference. We believe that the results from our study will provide valuable insights on how to develop future SSI-teaching by using a cross-disciplinary approach and how the involvement of language teachers may be of help to the science teachers in doing this.

Researchers and policy-makers have recognized the importance of including and promoting socioscientific argumentation in science education worldwide. The Swedish curriculum focuses more than ever on socioscientific issues (SSI) as well. However, teaching socioscientific argumentation is not an easy task for science teachers and one of the more distinguished difficulties is the assessment of students’ performance. In this study, we investigate and compare how science and Swedish language teachers, participating in an SSI-driven project, assessed students’ written argumentation about global warming. Swedish language teachers have a long history of teaching and assessing argumentation and therefore it was of interest to identify possible gaps between the two groups of teachers’ assessment practices. The results showed that the science teachers focused on students’ content knowledge within their subjects, whereas the Swedish language teachers included students’ abilities to select and use content knowledge from reliable reference resources, the structure of the argumentation and the form of language used. Since the Swedish language teachers’ assessment correlated more with previous research about quality in socioscientific argumentation, we suggest that a closer co-operation between the two groups could be beneficial in terms of enhancing the quality of assessment. Moreover, SSI teaching and learning as well as assessment of socioscientific argumentation ought to be included in teacher training programs for both pre- and in-service science teachers.

The Swedish curricula, as well as researchers and policy makers worldwide, have recognized the importance of promoting and including sociscientific argumentation in science education to promote scientific literacy. However, to teach socioscientific argumentation in not an easy task for science teachers and among the difficulties is the assessment practice. In this small-scale qualitative study, we have, investigated and compared how science and Swedish language teachers, participating in a SSI-driven project, assess students’ written argumentation about Global warming. The Swedish language teachers have a long tradition of teaching and assessing argumentation and therefore it is of interest to identify possible gaps between these two groups. The results indicate that the science teachers focus on students’ ability to reproduce content knowledge within their respective subject that they have been teaching. The Swedish language teachers include students’ abilities to select and use content knowledge from trustable reference resources, in addition to the structure of the argumentation and the form of the language used. In fact, the Swedish language teachers’ assessment correlates more to previous research about quality in socioscientific argumentation and we suggest that a closer co-operation between these two groups can be beneficial to enhance the quality of assessing students’ socioscientific argumentation.