Summary: | This study focuses on science education in primary school. The aim is to systematize and exemplify the content in primary science, not only scientific content but everything surrounding teaching in science, in the forms of a didactical model. The study was performed in grades 1-3 (ages 7-10) in a Swedish primary- and lower secondary school. Four primary school teachers and their classes were followed in their teaching in science education. The empirical data consists of field notes, video- and audio recordings from in total 17 science lessons. The results show how science education in primary school contains much more than just teaching a scientific content. The results also show how teachers, in relation to, and simultaneously with, the scientific content, also teach students in speaking, reading, writing and in social interaction with others. The three types of content areas that were identified were systematized into a didactical model called ‘didactic score’. The didactic score highlights that all these parts in the teaching situation is performed simultaneously, but that different parts may be fore fronted and other parts may be put in the background during the process of teaching. The teacher has a prominent role in directing the students’ attention towards the different parts in the didactic score, in order to give the students conditions for creating continuity in the learning process.
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