Primary science: supporting children’s learning

Science is a key subject area in primary education curriculum frameworks. This free course, Primary science: supporting children's learning, provides an opportunity to consider your own experiences, perceptions and attitudes to science. You will explore and develop some of your scientific knowledge and understanding while considering how you can support primary-aged children's science learning.

• Introduction
• Learning outcomes
• 1 Science subject knowledge
• 1 Science subject knowledge
• 1.1 Attitudes to science
• 1.2 The nature of scientific knowledge
• 1.3 Seeing the bigger picture
• 2 Subject knowledge and teaching and learning
• 2 Subject knowledge and teaching and learning
• 2.1 Getting a sense of scale
• 2.2 Scientific vocabulary
• 2.3 Classification: order or confusion?
• 2.4 Conceptual development
• 2.5 Constructivism and science
• 3 Discovering children’s ideas
• 3 Discovering children’s ideas
• 3.1 Children expressing their ideas
• 3.2 Concept mapping
• 3.3 Constructing a concept map
• 3.4 Uses of concept mapping
• 4 Using models in science
• 4 Using models in science
• 4.1 Modelling electricity
• 4.2 Sweets and cups model 
• 4.3 Rope model 
• Conclusion
• References
• Further reading
• Acknowledgements