This paper focuses on the Key Learning Area of Science and reports on the preliminary findings of research into the continuum of Science teaching from Kindergarten to Year 10. Experience working with both primary and secondary preservice and inservice teachers has revealed interesting similarities and differences in the teaching of Science to children. A comparison will be made between the intended science curriculum (based on syllabus documents) and the implemented curriculum and methods of teaching (from in-school data collection and teacher interviews in a secondary school and its main feeder primary schools).

The purpose of this case study is to develop a picture of the science that is taught in a cluster of primary schools and its alignment with the subsequent secondary school science program. Two key roles of the Science and Technology K-6 syllabus are to:

This study resulted from the following observations that were made by the researcher during primary and secondary school science teaching experience:

• Teachers of primary and secondary school science had little if any communication, therefore the two courses were being planned and taught independently.
• Similar activities featured in both primary and secondary school science programs, that is, they were selected for reasons other than children's development levels.
• Primary science activity books (texts) often included those that were a regular part of secondary school science programs.
• Pre-service primary teachers expressed concern re determining knowledge and understandings content from the syllabus (outcomes were too general).
• Inservice secondary teachers generally perceive that little if any science is taught in primary schools, therefore they should assume virtually no pre-existing knowledge and understandings of major science content areas and component concepts.

The study aims to provide a research base to assist the schools in this cluster to enhance the alignment between the stages in K-10 science. This should result in primary school science experiences providing children with the knowledge and understanding, skills and motivation to ready them for secondary science. Further the secondary school science experiences should be able to build on students prior learning eliminating needless repetition and gaps in the learning program.

This research is important for a number of reasons:

• It seeks to promote partnerships between primary and secondary science teachers to facilitate the reality of a K-12 curriculum.
• Research of this nature has scope for influencing the quality of the continuum of science teaching and learning in schools.

The results of this research will have implications for both inservice and preservice teacher education and future curriculum development.

The study involves a small sample comprising one secondary school and four of its main feeder primary schools. This sample size is limited and the findings would need to be ratified through further studies across a wider population.

The structured interviews with teachers is to assist in the interpretation of the written science programs, however, the information that can be gathered in a 30 minute interview is finite. Observations within each of the schools to enable a first hand view of the activities that students were engaged in would reveal further the nature of science within the sample schools.

The willingness of schools to participate in research of this nature (that may be viewed as evaluative) could influence the acquired sample population possibly resulting in bias.

This paper presents preliminary findings of content analysis (Borg and Gall, 1989) of the syllabus documents and is therefore limited by a review of the intended curriculum only. The intended curriculum may differ from the actual curriculum - that which is implemented in schools resulting from teacher interpretation and local conditions influencing science teaching and learning. The value of this study rests with the completion of the second, critical phase of analysis of school science programs and teacher interviews.

This section has not been included.

The documents included: - in this analysis were:

One secondary school and five of its surrounding primary schools were approached for inclusion in this study. The secondary school was chosen for convenience by the researcher. The primary schools were selected because they provided the majority of year 7 students for the local secondary school. The five primary schools were geographically close to the secondary school and all schools in this cluster were located in similar socio-economic areas. The secondary school is a large, co-educational comprehensive school and the primary schools are medium sized co-educational comprehensive schools.

Science programs will be requested from each of the schools in the cluster. Interviews with science teachers will be sought from 2-3 teachers in each school including the head teacher science in the secondary school.

The Science Head Teacher will be asked to provide copies of the school science programs from 7-10 (stages 4-5). This person may also be one of the teachers interviewed. One or two classroom teachers will be interviewed about the science program (30 minutes per person).

Selected teachers involved with teaching Science will be asked to participate in a structured interview. (One to two teachers from each school, 30 minutes per person). One of the above teachers will also asked to assist the researcher to obtain a copy of their school's stages 1 - 3 (K- 6) Science programs.

The sampling period will be between the 18^th November 2000 and the 18^th of December 2001.

Semi-structured interviews will be used as they are generally the most appropriate for interview studies in education and provide objectivity and depth, whilst permitting the gathering of valuable data about teacher's opinions that may not be obtainable by other approaches (Borg & Gall, 1989). Interviews will be tape recorded to reduce interviewer bias towards data selection, enable more thorough studying of the interview through play back and to speed up the interview process through eliminating note taking (Borg & Gall, 1989).

Macquarie University Ethics Review Committee (Human research) and the Department of School Education Strategic Research Directorate procedures will be followed to ensure informed consent and ethical protection of the subjects involved.

The following measures will be taken to ensure the anonymity of participating schools and teachers:

• Schools will not be directly named or referred to within the project. Schools will be labeled as secondary ABC, primary 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Any identifying features of schools e.g. school logos, contact details or names, will be removed from obtained science programs prior to inclusion in appendices or sample references within written papers or subsequent articles.
• No teacher or principal will be directly named or referred to within the project. Teachers will be labeled as teacher i), ii), iii), etc from school Secondary ABC, P1, P2, P3, P4 or P5.
• Interview transcripts will not contain any identification of teachers involved and transcribed data only will be referred to within the project.

Note: these findings are preliminary only and may change as a result of further data collection.

The Science and Technology K-6 syllabus aims to develop students' competence, confidence and responsibility to enrich:

• their views of themselves, society, environment and the future and
• their enthusiasm for further learning (Board of Studies, 1991:7).

This is achieved through studies of the world around them in a broad framework with general rather than explicit content.

The Stage 4-5 Science syllabus aims to provide learning experiences that will assist students in developing:

• scientific knowledge and skills about phenomena within and beyond their experiences,
• appreciation of science as a human activity and apply science to an understanding of their world,
• positive values and attitudes about themselves, others, learning, science and the environment (Board of Studies, 1998: 8).

This is achieved through studies of broad areas of science that relate to general scientific principles encompassing Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Geology that enable students to apply science to the world around them. The content is explicitly stated and related to every day life.

The K-6 syllabus if far more general and open ended than the 7-10 syllabus. This means that actual syllabus content may differ from the intended syllabus content due to the individual school or teacher's interpretations. Consequently children in schools within the same cluster may differ considerably or little in their learning experiences depending on chooses or emphases taken by teachers. As children from several schools comprise the feeder population for one secondary school, children may (and likely do) enter the same secondary school with varied science backgrounds. This is not the fault of primary teachers; it is the nature of the primary school curriculum as dictated by a generalist syllabus. The existence of this trend increases the need for greater communication between primary schools and their related secondary schools in order to address this issue. An increase in awareness of the primary school curriculum by its subsequent secondary teachers and visa versa would assist in the overall science learning of the students involved.

The two syllabus documents structurally differ in the arrangement of objectives, outcomes and content. The K-6 Science and Technology syllabus is organised by 6 content strands and 3 learning processes accompanied by values and attitudes that cut across these areas.

• Content strands - Built environments, Information and communication, Living things, Physical phenomena, Products and services, the earth and its surroundings.
• Process strands - Investigating, Designing and Making, Using Technology.

The 7-10 Science syllabus is organised by 3 major areas: Contexts, Prescribed Focus areas and Domains.

• Contexts - and are determined by the school or teacher. These are based on one of the following categories: motivation, conceptual meaning, communication skills, scientific literacy or personal and societal power.
• Prescribed focus areas - History of Science, Nature and Practice of Science, Applications and uses of Science, Implications for society and the environment and Current issues, research and development.
• Domains integrate knowledge and understanding, skills, values and attitudes are comprised of:
• Knowledge and understanding - subdivided into: Models, theories and laws, Systems and structures and Interactions)
• Skills - subdivided into: Planning investigations, conducting investigations, communicating information and understanding, Develop scientific thinking and problem-solving techniques and Working individually in teams), and
• Values and attitudes.

The K-6 syllabus is simpler in its structure than the current 7-10 syllabus. Secondary teachers are currently grappling with the change in emphasis from the previous process based syllabus to the new more knowledge-based syllabus that is designed to be taught in contextual framework. Both primary and secondary preservice teachers first and foremost are concerned with the content knowledge and understandings that they will be responsible for teaching. Once established, such content can be taught in a variety of frameworks, e.g. topic of theme based, integrated with other KLA's or taught separately.

One of the aims of the curriculum mapping exercise was to separate the basic Science content areas and component major Science concepts from the encompassing syllabus structure. This would enable both primary and secondary teachers to quickly identify the content and concept areas that are to be emphasised in the stages for which they are responsible for teaching. A simple grid containing the major concept areas for each stage of Science teaching and learning may assist both teachers and resource developers to ensure that the content and experiences proposed or utilised are appropriate for students learning in particular stages.

The topics and concepts covered by each stage will be summarised and tabulated. The extract below provides and example of the information revealed by this process.

Firstly differences can be seen in the emphasis of content areas across the stages. For example:

• Stage one does not involve the idea of organisms living together, focussing instead on the general characteristics of living things, similarities and differences between various types and changes relating to seasonal variations.
• Stage two emphasises the dependence on other living things and the environment for survival and changes that occur in organisms during their lifetimes and consequent changes in needs.
• Stage 3 considers the human impact on the balance of nature and variations within species. (One would assume this requires some preliminary ideas about classification, although this is not explicitly stated). This stage also introduces at a rudimentary level, the idea of evolution in relation to changes in groups of organisms over long periods of time.

Stages two and three do not include specific references to structure and function of living things. Nor do they include references to the human body. However, the content strand components outlined in the K-6 Science and Technology syllabus states "the human body as a complex system" (Board of Studies 1991: 20). This suggests that there was an intention to include some treatment of human body systems in primary Science. The content strand descriptors were not included in the curriculum-mapping grid because they were not written as stage statement and it was assumed that these would be encompassed by the outcomes.

• Stage 4 includes specific concepts to be studied relating to organisms living together (adaptations, food chains & webs, photosynthesis & respiration). The cell is introduced as the basic unit of structure and function and is related including cell parts, unicellular and multicellular organisms and the beneficial & harmful effects of microorganisms. Cell specialisation and organs & systems are studies for a range of multi-cellular organisms including ways the materials are acquired for photosynthesis & respiration. Specific humans body systems are listed as well as nutritional requirements. Structural features are used as the basis for classification using simple keys, as well as methods of food production or consumption. Simple reproduction is introduced via cell division in unicellular organisms.
• Stage 5 builds on the impact of humans on the environment through studying the biotic & abiotic features of the local environment, the cycling of materials and methods for conserving, protecting & maintaining environmental quality. The theme of structure & function continues with the cell theory focusing on how systems provide for the needs of cells, coordination systems and malfunctions relating to infectious and non-infectious diseases. The role of cell division in the growth, repair & reproduction of organisms is also included. The Watson & Crick DNA model is introduced along with its role in controlling organism features through the inheritance of genes and chromosomes and the role of mutations in the theory of evolution and natural selection.

Quite obviously the stage 4-5 syllabus content is much more explicit that the K-6 content. The stage 5 content builds directly on the stage 4 content. Whilst the stage 1-3 content may be considered to be assumed knowledge for the stage 4-5 syllabus - this cannot be taken for granted with such a loose framework of general rather than explicit content at the primary level. This also raises problems for primary teachers making decisions about what specific content areas should be taught at the primary level. Many primary Science teachers do not have a Science background which often results in a lack of confidence about scientific knowledge (ASTEC, 1997). A syllabus that listed the basic knowledge and understandings to be included in each content area may assist primary teachers in choosing Science activities and experiences.

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The continuation of the process of curriculum mapping and content analysis will reveal further the intended curriculum in the major content areas. This will be able to be compared and contrasted with the actual curricula that are being implemented into schools through and analysis of school science programs. Mapping of the school science programs will also identify areas common to primary school curricula and areas that may be overlooked. It will also indicate areas of overlap with the secondary school syllabus content that may affect (positively or negatively) the learning of science in High School.

Teacher interviews with primary teachers will reveal how they deal with a generalist syllabus including factors affecting their selection of subject matter and class activities. Interviews with secondary teachers will reveal the methods used to determine student prior learning from stages 1-3 (and related experiences outside school) and how they cater for this in their teaching practice.

Australian Council for Educational Research. (1997). Maths and Science on the line: Australian Middle Primary Student's Performance in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study. Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research. Ltd.

Board of Studies. (1991). Science and Technology K-6. Syllabus and Support Document. Sydney: Board of Studies.