The article aims to introduce Environmental Education (EE) in Finland and to discuss how it has been taken into account in Finnish nature schools. Firstly, we present EE models used in Finland. Thereafter we describe a qualitative case study on EE in nature schools (NS). The aim of the study was to get information for the development of EE. The research questions were: Who are the visitors to NSs? What are the educational aims in NSs? What kind of educational methods and approaches do NS teachers use? The resultant data for the questions from 1 to 3 is based on the questionnaires completed by 23 (61 %) NS teachers in 2006. The data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively using both deductive and inductive content classification methods. The results showed that most NSs offered their services almost exclusively for children and young people and the main visitor group to the NSs were pupils from primary and lower secondary schools. The ideas on fostering a sustainable way of life and environmental responsibility mentioned in the criteria of the nature and environmental schools were expressed by most respondents. The most used educational methods were nature trips and inquiry learning methods, while the most common approaches were physical activity and learning by doing in nature. The impact of the NSs cannot be very strong when each pupil typically only visits a NS once or twice during her or his entire compulsory education. Based on the results, it seems that the teachers did not take into account the meaning of evaluation. None of them mentioned it as a part of EE.

The study of teachers’ beliefs forms part of the process of understanding how teachers conceptualize their work which in turn is important to the understanding of teachers’ practices and their decisions in the classroom. A growing body of research argues that teachers’ beliefs should be studied within a framework that is aware of the influence of culture. These studies also argue that teachers’ beliefs and practices cannot be examined out of context. This shows that the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and their practices is complex and context dependent. Some researchers have found consistencies between teachers’ beliefs and their practices whilst others have found inconsistencies. The purpose of this paper is to present an argument about the relationship of teachers’ beliefs and practices and to find out frameworks of understanding the consistency and inconsistency of this relationship. In this paper, I explore the nature of teachers’ beliefs. Then, I discuss how teachers’ beliefs have been formed. Also, I will argue the relationship between knowledge and beliefs. Researchers’ key vision of the relationship between beliefs and knowledge was that “whether knowledge directs beliefs or beliefs leads to knowledge. I will argue that the relationship among beliefs, knowledge and practices are intertwined.  Then, I present sociocultural perspectives to explain the consistency and inconsistency between teachers’ beliefs and practices. I will follow these perspectives by presenting sources of forming teacher’s beliefs which will lead to a discussion about potentials of changing teachers’ beliefs.

In the first part of this article I propose a conceptual framework – based on the deficit, public debate and co-production of knowledge models articulated by (Callon, 1999) – with which to examine students’ appropriation of de socioscientific issues (SSI). The second part of this article presents the way a group of three post-secondary/preuniversity students described the attitudes, interests and capacity for understanding of citizens concerned by the controversy surrounding the use of cellular telephones, and how they viewed the conditions under which citizens could contribute to public debates. This study was conducted on the basis of an ethnographic approach. Participant observation was performed by the researcher for three hours during each of fifteen weeks. Findings indicate that the group of three students ascribed to citizens deficits of knowledge and comprehension, and authorized a limited participation of citizens in public debates. Implications for science teaching are discussed. It is argued that the use of the conceptual framework set out in this article in a science classroom would, on the one hand, enable teachers to “problematize” SSI in a way accounting for citizen participation in sociotechnical debates and, on the other hand, provide students with a basis for developing an understanding of SSI management that breaks with an interpretation centring on the deficit model as applied to relationships between citizens and scientists.

Children’s knowledge about human anatomy can be examined through several different ways. Making a drawing of the internal features of the human body has been frequently used in recent studies. However, there might be a serious difference in results obtained from a general instruction to students (What you think is inside your body) and specific (e.g. Draw bones that are inside your body) instruction. We examined relationships between these two types of instructions using drawings of the urinary and endocrine systems as the examples with pupils aged 10-14 years. An ANCOVA showed significant relationships between general and special instruction, but further comparison showed significant correlation only for urinary system. The level of students’ drawings significantly increases with previous knowledge about human anatomy and age. These findings suggest that relationships between two types of instructions strongly depend on the complexity of the organ system that children draw as well as their previous knowledge. We propose that drawings from general instructions are therefore appropriate especially for comparative studies. Special instructions are better for eliciting a deeper understanding of children knowledge about human anatomy.