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This investigation was done to understand how to support teachers to adopt innovative inquiry based science practices at elementary education. Here we present the results of two inquiry-based activities that were done in three elementary schools, involving six teachers and a total of 140 students. To understand the process of implementation of each activity by the teachers and its impacts on students, a qualitative methodology was used. The teachers were actively involved in the activities, however, the process followed by them was considerably different in what concerns time allocation. Additionally, instead of joining experiments from the different areas of conceptual knowledge, some of them chose only one separate subject. As a consequence, the students’ achievements were also different in each class. In the classes where the students had more time for discussion, more adequate answers were given to the initial questions, whereas, in the classes that devoted less time to the activity some competences, like observation skills and planning experiments were not achieved. It is suggested that although the creation of new curriculum materials can facilitate the adoption of new practices by teachers, this is not sufficient. Teacher's ownership of the activities is perhaps the keystone of this entire process.

Mobilizing scientific knowledge for understanding the natural world and for critically appraise socio-scientific situations and make decisions are key competencies for todays' society. Therefore, it is essential to understand how students at the end of compulsory schooling use scientific knowledge for understanding the surrounding world. The objective of this study is to understand how students construct a scientifically oriented explanation while making sense of a phenomenon related to health. We analysed 526 answers to a question of a Portuguese national 9th grade science exam. The results reveal that most students present difficulties in explaining a phenomenon related to health supported by logical and clear reasoning, and in mobilizing scientific knowledge for connecting different scientific domains. We reaffirm the need to reconceptualize the role of health education within science education. Developing reading, writing and discussion activities related to health, which requires the use of scientific knowledge from different domains, would facilitate students' understanding and appropriation of scientific knowledge and its transference. This is a fundamental competence for promoting active and informed citizenship.

International audience; Abstract The purposes of the study were to analyse the promotion of scientific literacy through practical research activities, and to identify children's conceptions about scientists and how they do science. Elementary school children were engaged in two scientific experiments in a marine biology research laboratory. A total of 136 students answered a questionnaire about their previous habits towards science and carried out the following actions: i) a guided visit to the laboratory; ii) a brief presentation of the research theme; iii) the development of two experiments; iv) a questionnaire about the experiments and science conceptions. The research methods included observation, document analysis and content analysis of the answers to the questionnaires. Additionally, each visit was video recorded in order to design learning materials. The results revealed that most of the pupils were able to follow every stage of experimentation. However, some of them misinterpreted results and conclusions. One implication of the study is that this type of outdoor activities is extremely important to promote meaningful science learning in children, but more care should be taken in practical science activity so that children can overcome some common difficulties about scientific inquiry.

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Living in an unpredictable and ever changing society demands from its’ citizens the development of complex competencies that challenges school, education and curriculum. PARSEL, a pan-European Project related to science education, emerges as a contribution to curricular development as it proposes a set of teaching-learning materials (modules) in order to make science classes more popular and relevant in the eyes of the students and as such to increase their interest with school science. The goal of this study was to understand how students evaluate those innovative modules. This paper presents data concerning 134 secondary students, collected through interviews, questionnaires and written documents. A quantitative analysis of the data collected through questionnaires was complemented by a qualitative analysis of the data collected by interviews and written documents. Results show that understanding the relationship between science and daily life, participating in practical activities based on problem solving and developing critical thinking and reasoning were the issues most valued by students.