Teaching Secondary Science: Constructing Meaning and Developing Understanding

The fourth edition of Teaching Secondary Science has been fully updated and includes a wide range of new material. This invaluable resource offers a new collection of sample lesson plans and includes two new chapters covering effective e-learning and advice on supporting learners with English as a second language. It continues as a comprehensive guide for all aspects of science teaching, with a focus on understanding pupils’ alternative frameworks of belief, the importance of developing or challenging them and the need to enable pupils to take ownership of scientific ideas. This new edition supports all aspects of teaching science in a stimulating environment, enabling pupils to understand their place in the world and look after it.

Key features include:

Illustrative and engaging lesson plans for use in the classroom

Help for pupils to construct new scientific meanings

M-level support materials

Advice on teaching ‘difficult ideas’ in biology, chemistry, physics and earth sciences

Education for sustainable development and understanding climate change

Managing the science classroom and health and safety in the laboratory

Support for talk for learning, and advice on numeracy in science

New chapters on e-learning and supporting learners with English as a second language.

Presenting an environmentally sustainable, global approach to science teaching, this book emphasises the need to build on or challenge children’s existing ideas so they better understand the world in which they live. Essential reading for all students and practising science teachers, this invaluable book will support those undertaking secondary science PGCE, school-based routes into teaching and those studying at Masters level.