An Analysis Of Science Fusion, A Set Of Elementary Science Textbooks In The United States

Since 2000,the eighth basic education curriculum reform has taken place in our country.China’s Ministry of Education promulgated the "Full-time science curriculum standards of compulsory education(grade 3~6)"(experiment draft).Based on it,many cities have published 10 sets of the elementary science textbook.Each has its own characteristics.In 2011,China promulgated the "Full-time science curriculum standard of compulsory education in primary school"(Revised Draft),which proposed to set up science curriculum from grade 1.The revision of science curriculum standards is bound to be accompanied by the revision of the current elementary science textbooks and the compilation of the new version of elementary science textbooks.How to write a high quality elementary science textbook is not only meets the requirements of the curriculum standards but also easy for teachers to teach and for students to learn.Learn from foreign high-level textbooks is a shortcut.The development of American science education has been leading in the world.Science Fusion is a science textbook published recently by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Group in the United States,which is well received.We choose 1~5 grade textbooks to systemic analyses.We can learn from its advantages,which provide inspiration for the compilation and revision of our elementary science textbooks.First of all,through the literature review,we summarize the characteristics and problems of the current elementary science textbooks in china.Through the review of recent studies on the analysis of textbooks in the past decade,we found the studies of elementary science textbooks in china is not much,which indirectly reflects our emphasis on science education in primary school is not enough.Through the review of the studies on foreign elementary science textbooks,we found analyzing the characteristics of foreign textbooks and geting inspiration from it for the compilation of textbooks in China are the research trends in recent years.But so far,there is no relevant research on Science Fusion,a set of American elementary science textbooks.Through the review of the studies on the science textbooks in domestic primary school,we know the various versions of the elementary science textbooks used now and the characteristics and problems of them.Through the review of the studies on theory and practice analysis of textbook at home and abroad,it lays the foundation for the study of this thesis.Then,we specifically analyze the Science Fusion.Design idea and characteristics of Science Fusion are introduced on Houghton Mifflin Harcourt official website.So we can establish the overall awareness of the textbooks.Then,using the qualitative and quantitative method,we make an objective and systematic statistics and analysis of the textbooks’ content selection,content organization and content presentation.Specifically,the analysis of content selection includes four part: four major scientific topics and the proportion in the textbooks,the concepts in the textbooks and their characteristics,types and content selection of exploration activities,the choice of the knowledge content in each theme.The analysis of content organization starts from two aspects: the system structure and the writing style.Each chapter of the textbook is designed around the basic problems and the core concept.The knowledge content of the same subject is arranged intensively.Factual and theoretical knowledge is arranged spirally.Method and skill knowledge is interspersed and affective knowledge is infiltrated in the textbooks.The logical order of knowledge,the order of students’ psychological development and the order of students’ Cognition are closely integrated with each other.Then we analyze the components of the textbook from the macro to the micro.The analysis of content presentation includes three parts: graphics,columns and exercises.Their distribution,types,characteristics and significance are analyzed.On the basis of the above analysis,we get the characteristics of Science Fusion,which is summed up as follows: it cultivates students’ scientific literacy comprehensively;it attaches importance to STEM education,which realize scientific integration;it complies with the students’ cognitive rules and psychological characteristics.