ABSTRACT
Teaching students how to use and interpret representations in science is critically important if they are to become scientifically literate, able to participate in discussions related to scientific issues, and make informed evidence-based conclusions about the phenomena under investigation. This chapter presents a case study of how one Grade 5 teacher used different visual, embodied, and language representations to engage students’ interest in inquiry-based science activities. He did this by providing opportunities for them to investigate different topics together and develop scientifically acceptable explanations for the phenomena they were investigating. The case study showed that the students not only demonstrated understandings of the relationships between the phenomena under investigation, but they were also able to transfer these understandings to novel topics, demonstrating generalisability of the concepts that were taught.
