Search

This paper presents the findings from a survey conducted on primary students to map their views toward science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in Greece according to their urban or rural setting and gender. The sample included 281 primary students from different public schools in Attica and 69 primary students from a Greek province. A close-ended questionnaire was digitally distributed to collect the data. The findings revealed that most students, from both settings, consider themselves good at mathematics and science. At the same time, they do not report it to be very likely that they would follow a career that is related either to these subjects or engineering and technology. Regarding their personal skills, most of them stated that they have communication and cooperation skills. Concerning differences between the two settings, there were statistically significant differences in favor of rural students in whether they believed they could improve, both in mathematics and science, their belief that their knowledge in STEM subjects could be useful in their adult life, and their views on the causes and effects of environmental issues. Finally, limited gender differences emerged in favor of the boys’ responses regarding future STEM careers. The implications for further research on geographical, gender, and socioeconomic disparities in STEM education are discussed.

This article presents in a comparative way the findings from two surveys conducted on primary (students in Y6) and secondary (students in Y10) students in Attica, Greece, in order to map their views on distance science education, which was emergently implemented due to the COVID-19 outbreak during the school year 2020–2021. The research was conducted in a sample of 378 primary and 197 secondary students. The findings revealed that students were not satisfied with the distance teaching and learning of science, either in primary or in secondary education, except for the increased use of audiovisual material. Technical issues, such as poor network and infrastructure, lack of face-to-face interaction with classmates and teacher, external and internal distractions, lack of sufficient experimental activities, and limited understanding of concepts were common findings in both levels of education. Concerning the differences between the levels, it seems that in primary education more technical problems were reported, while in secondary education more didactic problems were reported.

Significant research has been conducted on skills’ enhancement school programs, since their importance has been well established. The pre-sented study evaluates “Steps for life”, a Greek, universal, annual, teacher-taught programme, designed to improve personal and social skills in young elementary students by the use of questions, diffusion in formal and hidden curriculum, and parental involvement. The experimental study was conducted in Greece during 2013-2014. The sample consisted of 2439 students, with 1516 forming the experimental group and 923 the control group. The study questionnaire included demographics, Personal and Social Skills Scale-Elementary, and the BASE scale. It investigated students’ self-esteem, concentration of attention, participation/cooperation, emotions’ identification and expression, emotions’ management, ability to control verbal and physical aggressiveness, ability to control victimization, empathy, friendship skills, problem-solving, ability to take responsibility, and use of spoken and written language. The experimental group exhibited significant improvement in all inves-tigated skills post-intervention, while the control group did not improve concentration of attention, emotions’ management, and their ability to control verbal and physical aggressiveness and victimization. The analysis also revealed that intervention students had significantly higher improvement than the controls in all dimensions. Appropriately designed mental health promotion programs can improve several children’s social-emotional skills and abilities

A STEM education program entitled "Come rain or shine" implemented in a primary rural school in southern Greece as part of the "Diffusion of STEM (DI-STEM)" project and the results of its implementation are presented in this paper. The educational program deepened in weather education and intended to develop eight scientific practices for primary students proposed by the NGSS. Students' pretest and posttest questionnaires revealed difficulties in adopting meteorological vocabulary and relative scientific practices through weather measurements in their local environment. Students' answers indicate a variety in their conceptual progress depending on the scientific practice being investigated. They showed great progress in "analyzing & interpreting data, and using mathematics," moderate progress in "developing & using models, and evaluating & communicating data)," limited progress in "asking questions & defining problems," and "planning & carrying out investigations" and a slight setback in "constructing explanations and engaging in argument from evidence." Possible explanations and relative teaching implications for successful STEM education in primary education are discussed.

The aim of this paper is to present the results of the Greek primary education Geography Curriculum piloted during the school year 2011-2012. The sample consisted of 43 primary school teachers, from different Greek regions, who piloted the new Geography Curriculum and from whom semi-structured interviews were obtained. Furthermore, 36 lesson plans and worksheets produced by teachers during piloting were analyzed. The results from the interviews showed that teachers were generally satisfied with the new Geography Curriculum, seemingly having captured to a large extent the aims and the objectives; they ascertained absolute correspondence between intended learning outcomes and proposed activities, considered the teacher’s guidebook to be highly satisfactory and valued the teacher training accompanying the pilot scheme as being very effective. Moreover, an analysis of lesson plans and worksheets showed that teachers created activities and adopted teaching methods that included the essential characteristics of the Geography Curriculum, both in terms of development of the basic concepts and the use of new technologies.

The results of a STEM educational program named "The air we breathe" implemented in a primary rural school in Greece as part of a National Research Project entitled "Diffusion of STEM (DI-STEM)" are presented in this paper. The educational program deepened in air pollution and intended to foster students' eight scientific practices proposed by the NGSS. Results derived from students' pre-post test questionnaires revealed great progress in five of the scientific practices (evaluating appropriate methods and tools for collecting data, developing & using models, constructing explanations, engaging in argument from evidence and evaluating & communicating using tables, diagrams, and charts) and moderate progress in three of the scientific practices (asking questions and defining problems, planning & carrying out investigations, and using mathematics). The implications for successful STEM education in primary education are discussed.

In this paper a teaching-learning sequence (TLS) introducing pre-service elementary teachers (PET) to weather map reading, with emphasis on wind assignment, is presented. The TLS includes activities about recognition of wind symbols, assignment of wind direction and wind speed on a weather map and identification of wind characteristics in a weather forecast. Sixty PET capabilities and difficulties in understanding weather maps were investigated, using inquiry-based learning activities. The results show that most PET became more capable of reading weather maps and assigning wind direction and speed on them. Our results also show that PET could be guided to understand meteorology concepts useful in everyday life and in teaching their future students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]