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The paper compares the nature of the textual construction of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) science test items and the Greek school science textbooks. This nature is determined by the interplay of the notions of classification (content specialization) and formality (code specialization) modulated by both the linguistic and the visual expressive modes. The results of the relevant analysis showed that the textual materials employed in PISA and in school textbooks are oppositional in nature. Specifically, while the linguistic mode of the PISA items tends to resemble texts falling within the public domain (nonspecialized content and code), the corresponding visual mode tends to resemble texts of the esoteric domain (specialized content and code) thus familiarizing students with the specialized conventions and ways of representing entities falling within the realm of technoscientific knowledge. On the other hand, school science textbooks tend to employ the linguistic and the visual mode in exactly the opposite way. These differences between PISA science items and school science textbooks could contribute to a disorientation of the students in relation to what is expected in each specific context. This disparity could potentially be one of the factors explaining the low level of Greek students' attainment in PISA. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed92:664–687, 2008 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the Greek primary school teachers' understanding of three current environmental issues (acid rain, the ozone layer depletion, and the greenhouse effect) as well as the emerging images of nature were examined. The study revealed that teachers held several environmental knowledge gaps and misconceptions about the three phenomena. Using the media as major environmental information sources, in which environmental issues are constructed as environmental risks, teachers are being environmentally educated in lay and not in scientific terms. Moreover, the image of nature emerging from their ideas about the three environmental issues is that of the romantic archetype, which prevails in postindustrial societies. Such a view, though, gives a conceptualization of nature as balance, under which the greenhouse effect and acid rain are seen as exclusively human-induced “disturbances.” © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed91:244–259, 2007 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies the attitudes of high school students towards chemistry in Greece. Investigation on the usefulness of the chemistry course; Examination on the gender and study specialization differences in students; Utilization of report card grades for the chemistry course to measure students' achievement.

Presents models of thinking concerning the greenhouse effect of primary school students in Thessalonike, Greece. Criteria used to differentiate the models; Teaching implications of the models; Objectives of science teaching; Methods to make science lessons more popular.