As the vision in "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) takes hold in schools and classrooms, there is an urgent need for teacher professional development (PD) programs that align with NGSS-designed curriculum materials and address the unique strengths and needs of diverse student…

This paper reports on an attempt to investigate Turkish primary school students' interest in science by using their self-generated questions. We investigated students' interest in science by analyzing 1704 self-generated science-related questions. Among them, 826 questions were submitted to a popular science magazine called Science and Children.…

There is evidence that science teachers give naive responses to direct questions about the nature of science. However, there is also evidence that such responses underpredict the more sophisticated knowledge that teachers may use in classroom situations. The purpose of this study was to characterize the informal ideas used by teachers in…