Traditional secondary science education draws on markedly different pedagogies than those made use of in contemporary environmental education, therefore, embedding environmental education within secondary science curriculum presents both epistemological and practical difficulties for teachers. This ethnographic study examines the work of six secondary science teachers in Northern Ontario, Canada, as they engage in an action research project focused on merging environmental education in their science lessons. Over the course of five months the teachers examine and discuss their views and their professional development related to the project. In the place of definitive conclusions, six propositions relating the work of secondary science teachers to environmental education, form the basis for a discussion of the implications of the study. The implications are particularly relevant to secondary schools in Ontario, Canada, where the embedding of environmental education in science studies has been mandated.

Despite inquiry-based teaching was introduced and encouraged as significant tool to develop students‘ scientific knowledge and habits of mind, its implementation has not been well established in science classrooms in Korea. To understand the challenges and difficulties of the practice of inquiry practical work, this study particularly aims to understand how pre-service teachers‘ understandings of inquiry and practical work have been shaped in educational and social contexts in Korea and later how their views and willingness could be developed through redesigning and practicing textbook activities. 25 third-year students in an elementary science methods course in Korea participated in the study. Mixed methods including questionnaires and reflective discussion and writing were employed for data collection. The pre-service teachers expressed their ideas and difficulties of inquiry approach in their everyday classroom conditions and social situation and thus unwillingness to attempt its practice. Throughout the study, they gradually overcame their resistance and reluctance toward inquiry and practical work and develop willingness and motivation to practice in everyday science classrooms. This study further suggests need for thorough examination on teachers‘ situated contexts for developing ways of inquiry-based practical work.

The purpose of this study is to design information communication technology (ICT) courses related to experimental chemistry for junior college freshmen (aged from 16 to 18), entitled “ICT-integrated environmental learning”, and to assess the learning performance of these students after completing the courses. This study adopts a quasi-experimental approach to evaluate the learning of two groups of students after completing a nine-week semester syllabus. Aided by ANCOVA data, we probe the processes of the students‟ chemistry learning, its effectiveness and their attitudes. The result analyses verify that our ICTintegrated environmental learning has a more significant effect on the students‟ learning performance. Therefore, it is our goal to design an effective approach for upgrading students‟ cognizance and learning attitudes. The results obtained from our ICT-integrated environmental learning when compared with other chemical experimental results show the same positive and scientific perspective for academic research.

Knowing „what do I know‟ and thinking about „how do I learn‟, that is metacognition, is an important element in learning. The Finnish curriculum points out metacognition in the choice of the studying methods. The methods should help the students to become aware of their own learning, to develop better learning strategies, and skills to apply the strategies in new situations. In this qualitative case study the metacognition of Finnish sixth graders (N=19) was studied in a virtual learning environment, ENO - Environmental Online. Pupils´ metacognitive knowledge and skills were studied in one ENO course. The aim was to describe what and how pupils monitor in their learning processes. It was found that 11year-old sixth graders possessed declarative and procedural metacognition, and also some conditional metacognition. In this study, the social component of learning was especially emphasized.

The purpose of this study was to investigate what Greek secondary school students (grades 8 and 11) believe about the greenhouse effect and climate change. A total of 626 students completed a closed-form questionnaire consisting of statements regarding the causes, impacts and solutions for this global environmental issue. The possible influence of three factors – i.e. educational level, gender and previous participation in Environmental Education extracurricular programs – on students‟ ideas was examined. The results suggest that eleventh graders were much better informed than eighth graders although some of the misconceptions reported in the literature (such as the cause-effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and ozone layer depletion) persist, irrespective of educational level. Students have fairly clear ideas of impacts while they seem to be somewhat confused about solutions and especially causes. Among the possible explanations of these trends, the logical sequence of physical consequences and students‟ difficulty in recognizing causes that presume specific scientific knowledge are emphasized. In addition, the role of information sources, especially television which emerged as the dominant source, is discussed. Finally participation in Environmental Education programs appears to be a critical factor since it has clearly influenced students‟ ideas in a positive way.

This study was conducted to determine 4th, 5th, and 6th grade primary students‟ conceptions about the particulate nature of matter in daily-life events. Five questions were asked of students and interviews were used to collect data. The interviews were conducted with 12 students, four students from each grade, after they finished the formal courses related to the particulate nature of matter. The results show that the understanding level of students in all grades about the microscopic properties of matter was quite low. They have little knowledge of or alternative conceptions about the microscopic properties of the particles such as the order of the particles, spaces between particles, the number of particles in different phases, the size of particles and the movement of the particles. And also, progression of students‟ conceptions on the particulate nature of matter is multifaceted. In addition, it was also determined that students have trouble connecting science knowledge to their daily-life experiences.
 

This paper argues that environmental destruction arises from a discourse rooted in Western Economic and Scientific Theory. This discourse artificially separates individuals from our natural world and argues that competition and utilitarian actions are beneficial to society. It is however, a discourse that is taking us to a Shakespearean tragic end: it is resulting in actions that actively harm our natural world, as all too familiar statistics of environmental damage make clear. It is a discourse that does not match our underlying physical reality, which is why calls for Environmental reform within this discourse will not be effective. Hearing about global warming, deaths caused by hunger every two seconds, and the extinction of plants and animals on a scale never seen before can be enough to envelop us in a sense of hopelessness: we are headed, it seems, for an inevitable tragic ending.  However, Shakespeare makes clear that this is not necessary the case. We are not yet at our end; we are yet still storying ourselves. We can thus rewrite a better ending by shifting ourselves into a Shakespearean comedy. The potential lies in our discourse which is not truth, but a contingent creation. After describing these ideas in more detail, this paper goes on to present the parameters of a new Ecological discourse rooted, like Shakespeare‟s Comedy, in care and humanity that dovestails with our natural world and provides for hope through transformed consciousness. It concludes with recommendations on how this new discourse can be spread and taught in schools.