Inquiry-Based Science in the Primary Classroom

Garima Bansal is Research fellow at Australian Council for Educational Research. Her research interests include education assessment, science and mathematics education, and teacher education. She has received several international awards from renowned academic bodies such as the International Association of Education Assessment, American Evaluation Association, and British Educational Research Association.Umesh Ramnarain is Professor in Science Education, and Head of Department in Science and Technology Education at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His main research interest is on inquiry-based science education, with a particular focus on its uptake in South African classrooms, where the unequal funding policies of the previous Apartheid education system have resulted in learning contexts that are complex and diverse.

• Introduction: Inquiry-Based Science Education in Primary Schools 1. South African primary school learners’ understandings about the nature of scientific inquiry 2. Indian pre-service teachers’ conceptualisations and enactment of inquiry-based science education 3. Primary school pre-service teachers’ enactment of inquiry-based-science teaching 4. The relationship between teacher’s support of literacy development and elementary students’ modelling proficiency in project-based learning science classrooms 5. Promoting senior primary school students’ understanding of particulate nature of matter through inquiry instruction with multiple representations 6. Fostering senior primary school students’ understanding of climate change in an inquiry-based learning environment 7. Primary teacher educators’ practices in and perspectives on inquiry-based science education: insights into the Australian landscape 8. A coteaching model for developing pre-service teachers’ practice and confidence in teaching primary science through inquiry 9. A knowledge building approach to primary science collaborative inquiry supported by learning analytics