ASE 2027 Annual Conference

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming how students access information, construct knowledge, and engage with scientific ideas. For science educators, this presents both exciting opportunities and important responsibilities. This session explores how AI can be meaningfully and ethically integrated into science teaching to support inquiry-based learning, deepen conceptual understanding, and strengthen assessment practices across primary and secondary contexts.

Rather than positioning AI as a replacement for traditional teaching approaches, the session emphasises its role as a powerful partner in learning. Participants will explore how AI tools can help students generate hypotheses, visualise abstract processes, interpret data, model scientific phenomena, and refine scientific explanations. Practical classroom examples will demonstrate how AI can scaffold thinking while maintaining the integrity of disciplinary knowledge and scientific reasoning.

A key focus of the session is supporting teachers in developing students’ scientific literacy in an AI-rich environment. As learners increasingly rely on intelligent systems to gather and synthesise information, they must also learn to question sources, evaluate outputs critically, and recognise limitations and bias within AI-generated responses. Strategies will be shared for helping students become reflective users of AI who can distinguish between evidence-based reasoning and plausible but inaccurate outputs.

Participants will also examine how AI can support inclusive science education. AI-powered tools can help differentiate instruction, provide accessible explanations, support multilingual learners, and offer alternative ways for students to demonstrate understanding. Examples will highlight how thoughtful integration of AI can increase participation and confidence among learners who may otherwise feel excluded from science learning.

Assessment is another important dimension addressed in the session. As AI tools become more widely available, educators are reconsidering how to design tasks that promote authentic scientific thinking. The session will present approaches for designing assessments that value process, reasoning, and interpretation over simple recall, while also using AI to support formative feedback and student reflection. These approaches encourage learners to engage more deeply with scientific practices such as modelling, argumentation, and evaluation of evidence.

Ethical considerations will be woven throughout the session, including responsible classroom use, transparency, data awareness, and supporting students to understand how AI systems function. Participants will leave with practical strategies for introducing AI in ways that align with curriculum expectations and uphold professional standards.

This interactive session is designed for educators who are curious about using AI in science education but want practical guidance grounded in pedagogy rather than technology alone. Through discussion, examples, and collaborative reflection, participants will develop confidence in identifying opportunities where AI can enhance—not replace—effective science teaching.

By the end of the session, participants will have concrete ideas they can adapt immediately within their own classrooms and departments to support thoughtful, future-ready science learning.

This session aims to inspire and equip teachers to think beyond the science curriculum to integrate ways of knowing from science with those from other disciplines, which include philosophy, ethics and worldviews to tackle the challenge of climate change.  This supports the intention of the recent curriculum and assessment review, which aims to help learners understand that global challenges, both social and environmental require attention to scientific knowledge and cultural skills.  

I have taken this approach because as a science teacher of 20 years I realised we give children the scientific skills to tackle problems, but most challenges they will face are not ones that science alone can solve. I now work at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, a Cambridge based research and educational institute, where we take the approach that integrating ways of knowing from science with those that consider worldviews, philosophy, ethics helps respond to big questions in a more holistic manner enabling a more effective response. Using this approach, I developed this classroom resource on climate change to help children understand why not everyone is doing everything they can to combat it, as I have taught so many children the science of climate change and they don’t then understand why everyone is not doing everything they can to combat it. It draws on ideas from journals like national geographic and discussion with colleagues.

It will explore the nature of science, through a presentation helping teachers consider the power of science with their learners, but also the limits of science; like those of instruments, timelines, complex systems and the human element and how other ways of knowing, like those from RE, which considers world views, can be helpful for tackling our big questions, like climate change. It will then review the classroom resource on climate change and this will lead into a discussion of the opportunities and challenges of this approach.

It will give you ideas and resources to help learners to consider how an individual's world view can be more important in motivating them to act or not act in response to climate change than being presented with the science and how to respond to this constructively. This will help you manage topics that can open discussions that can be emotive and challenging, encouraging you to embrace this aspect of science learning and develop wider skills in your students; It will help learners to develop oracy and debating skills. It is suitable for learners from all phases, but specifically those at KS2 and 3, covering key parts of the curriculum, but will also appeal to teachers supporting students in extracurricular activities, like science debating clubs.

This workshop draws on our experience of co-writing the primary science curriculum, teacher guides, pupil books and designing teacher training in the Kingdom of Tonga, a Pacific island nation with a rich culture that is vulnerable to climate change.  

In this workshop we will also draw on the expertise of the science educators in Tonga, whose voices will be included by video recording. The work was funded by The World Bank as part of  larger collaboration between Tonga’s Ministry for Education and Training and The Curriculum Foundation.

In this engaging workshop combining activity and dialogue we will:
> Explain the internationally used 5E framework for active learning and how it is supported by educational neuroscience
> Explore alternatives to screen-led teaching and how we can support oracy - developing scientific vocabulary and dialogue
> Expand perspectives by sharing what we have learned about curriculum design and pedagogy through co–designing primary science curriculum and pedagogy for the Kingdom of Tonga: a Pacific island nation with a culture of humility, humour and ‘talanoa’ (dialogue).
> Invite the audience to reflect on how these insights might inform their own teaching.

Participants will leave the session with:
> A framework for progressive planning
> Ideas for developing oracy
> An enriched view of science education in a global world
> Questions about the potential for pupil books as an alternative to screens

Kendra is best known for researching primary science education, currently drawing together educational neuroscience with research in science education and dialogic talk. Philippa is a highly regarded writer of science learning and teaching materials, with considerable experience of leading change internationally. Both are experienced at leading teacher professional development.

This session explores how inclusive pedagogies can support all learners, including those with SEND, to participate meaningfully in thinking scientifically. Bringing together expertise from higher education, primary initial teacher education, and specialist SEND practice, the presenters examine how scientific thinking can be made accessible without reducing challenge or disciplinary authenticity.

The session aims to critically examine how processes associated with thinking scientifically (observing, predicting, questioning, testing ideas, interpreting evidence, and communicating explanations) are experienced by diverse learners across educational contexts. Drawing on examples from primary ITE and specialist SEND settings, the session will explore pedagogical approaches that enable participation in scientific enquiry through multimodal communication, adapted practical work, scaffolding, and collaborative learning. This session will consider how inclusive approaches can broaden participation in scientific thinking while maintaining intellectual rigour and curiosity.

Intended outcomes for participants include:
• developing a deeper understanding of inclusive science pedagogy;
• identifying practical strategies to support diverse learners in thinking scientifically;
• critically reflecting on barriers to participation
• considering how scientific enquiry can be adapted while preserving authentic engagement with scientific ideas.

The session is underpinned by research in inclusive pedagogy and science education, including work relating to Universal Design for Learning, participation in scientific enquiry, and dialogic and multimodal approaches to learning. It also draws on the presenters’ professional practice and experience across teacher education and specialist SEND contexts.

Play is key for young children’s learning, and the world around them is a source of wonder and interest. Using play based methods, NUSTEM have developed a resource to help early years educators introduce young children to STEM careers.

The resources are designed to support adults without a science or STEM background to confidently engage children with science and careers. In this session we will look at why it’s important to introduce STEM careers into early years and how we can help children playfully explore the world around them through the award-winning Play, Be, C resource.

As a result of this session, participants will be more aware of how children's career understanding can be supported even at this young age, and considered how they could make use of the Play, Be, C resource in their setting.

The Government paper (DfE) published 2026,  Every Child Achieving and Thriving underpins national vision, drive and strategy for inclusion in schools.

This session will facilitate a professional ponder on the document key messages through a science educator perspective. What resonates for you? What might you do more or do less in your future work in and with schools?

Scientific literacy is not secured by asking pupils to remember more scientific terms. In primary science, pupils need the language to think, reason, explain, compare, justify and connect ideas. This session will explore how schools can move beyond vocabulary word lists towards an explicit, progressive and purposeful approach to scientific vocabulary teaching.

The session is informed by Recommendation 1 of the EEF Improving Primary Science guidance, which identifies vocabulary as an important factor in improving pupils’ science learning. However, the session is designed to be relevant beyond England. Pupils in any science curriculum need support to move between everyday language, general academic language and precise scientific terminology. Words such as force, solution, current or material can carry everyday meanings that interfere with scientific understanding, while Tier 2 words such as compare, evidence, cause, effect, increase and decrease often provide the language pupils need in order to reason scientifically.

I will share learning from my current PSTT-funded scientific vocabulary project, which supports a primary school to review existing vocabulary provision, distinguish between Tier 2 and Tier 3 words, refine definitions, identify polysemous words and decide where vocabulary is best taught across the curriculum. The project includes baseline audit tools, pupil vocabulary tasks, CPD, implementation support and the development of a vocabulary progression resource.

The session will use this project as a case study to explore how schools can move from isolated vocabulary activities towards a coherent, curriculum-led approach to scientific literacy. Participants will consider how one school is reviewing its identified key vocabulary, separating Tier 2 and Tier 3 terms, defining words more precisely and selecting teaching approaches to support pupils’ scientific talk and writing.

The session will be interactive. Participants will work with a sample primary science vocabulary list to identify Tier 2, Tier 3 and polysemous words, consider which words are doing the most conceptual work and decide where vocabulary should be explicitly taught, revisited and applied. I will then share a practical five-step model emerging from the project: audit, classify, sequence, teach and evaluate. This model is intended to help teachers and science leaders move from isolated vocabulary activities towards coherent curriculum implementation.

Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of why Tier 2 vocabulary often needs to be taught before Tier 3 terminology, how everyday meanings can obstruct scientific understanding, and how vocabulary can be planned progressively across a primary science curriculum. They will also take away a practical framework for reviewing vocabulary in their own setting and identifying manageable next steps.

Metacognition has been shown, through numerous studies (including the two superb EEF reports) to be an incredible important pedagogical approach to supporting the improved attainment of our learners. However, metacognition is notoriously a difficult to understand approach, that is so often invisible in lesson.

Understanding what to do is not always obvious - which is exactly the purpose of this session. The purpose of this session is to not just illuminate precisely what metacognition is, but also to explore a number of different approaches (with examples) of what it looks like in the science classroom.

All attendees will leave with a clearer understanding as to the importance of having a metacognitive focus in their teaching, and a greater set of tools to be able to develop meaningful opportunities for metacognitive development in their classrooms.

How can we teach primary science in ways that are both rigorous and genuinely meaningful?

This interactive session explores how cross-curricular topics such as energy, climate, and sustainability can be taught through enquiry-driven, real-world contexts. Grounded in the primary science curriculum, it demonstrates how linking to geographical understanding—such as rocks and soils, water systems, habitats, environments, and human impact—can strengthen, rather than dilute, disciplinary knowledge.

Participants will take part in a practical renewable energy investigation, modelling how pupils can ask questions, test ideas, and interpret results. The session also introduces free, adaptable resources and shows how they can be used to support substantive and disciplinary knowledge and skills.

We will also explore how initiatives like the Great Science Share for Schools and Practical Action projects can provide purpose and audience for pupil learning, raising engagement and science capital.
You will leave with clear, classroom-ready approaches that combine strong science pedagogy with meaningful context—without increasing workload.

By the end of the session, participants will:
• Explore enquiry-based science lessons using real-world energy and sustainability contexts
• Apply strategies to support pupils in asking questions, investigating, and communicating findings
• Integrate opportunities for purposeful talk to strengthen scientific reasoning
• Be ready to implement at least one practical, evidence-informed strategy in their classroom

Background: This session draws on classroom practice and cross-curricular curriculum development, with a focus on improving how pupils engage with complex scientific ideas such as energy and climate. My work has been shaped by integrating science and geography to provide meaningful, real-world contexts that support both conceptual understanding and pupil motivation.

I have collated, developed and trialled classroom approaches where pupils ask their own questions, investigate renewable energy systems, and communicate their findings—leading to improved engagement, confidence, and scientific reasoning.

This session explores why evidence-based approaches are essential for creating high-quality primary science lessons that are effective and meaningful for all learners.

It introduces research-informed approaches such as Best Evidence Science Teaching (BEST) for primary-aged children, demonstrating how evidence can be translated into practical strategies to diagnose misconceptions, sequence learning and use formative assessment to build secure scientific understanding.

The session also introduces BEST Bites, new CPD modules designed to support teachers in developing learners’ understanding of key scientific ideas and easing transition from primary to secondary science.

The aim of this session is to support teachers in applying a decolonial lens to their primary science teaching practice. It will encourage participants to explore parallel ways of knowing and to acknowledge how colonial legacies continue to shape our current education systems. We will demonstrate how to link historical and indigenous epistemologies to Western understanding and applications of science and suggest how these ideas can be taught concurrently.  

Concrete classroom and whole‑school examples of this approach will be shared, alongside discussion of their impact on children’s attitudes, beliefs and engagement with science. In addition, the session will disseminate evidence from our research into the use of generative artificial intelligence in identifying and producing resources to support teaching through a decolonial lens.

We will start with an introduction for the need to decolonise the primary science curriculum and an overview of what this entails, and discuss tried and tested classroom and whole‑school examples. We will also include a review of research into how GenAI can be used to source specific materials for this approach and offer delegates an opportunity to trial GenAI prompts to source materials, ending with a brief Q&A.

This session draws on decades of research on formative assessment (including Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam’s work) focused on uncovering and using students’ ideas as the foundation for instruction. The approach has evolved through classroom practice that combines research on conceptual understanding, disciplinary literacy, and productive science discussion. Story probes were developed combine the engagement of narrative with the instructional power of formative assessment.

Stories naturally engage learners, spark curiosity, and invite discussion. In this interactive session, participants will explore how story probes can be used to connect science learning, literacy practices, and formative assessment. Through carefully crafted story scenarios, students encounter characters expressing different ideas about a scientific phenomenon or concept. These scenarios encourage learners to analyse characters’ perspectives, and share their own ideas in a low-risk and engaging context.

Participants will experience how story probes can be used to uncover children’s thinking about science while supporting close reading strategies by interpreting meaning from text. Attention will be given to how teachers can listen for children's ideas, use those ideas to inform instruction, and create classrooms where thinking, questioning, and sensemaking are valued. Participants will leave with practical strategies for developing and integrating story probes into science instruction in ways that strengthen both conceptual understanding and literacy skills. They will also be provided with a link to access and download sample story probes.

These story probes are based on extensive formative assessment research and practice from both the UK and the US. Page Keeley’s probes in the Uncovering Student Ideas series published in the U.S. are used extensively in schools throughout the U.S.; and, in collaboration with Ed Walsh, have been adapted by Millgate for a UK audience.

As a result of attending this session, participants will be able to:
1) Facilitate close reading and productive science talk around science scenarios.
2) Use a story scenario to identify and interpret students’ ideas revealed through story-based discussions
3) Apply formative assessment strategies that use student thinking to inform instruction.
4) Adapt or create story scenarios that integrate science content with literacy practices

Join ASE and our partner, University of York Science Education Group, for the launch of our Dialogic Teaching in Primary Schools MOOC.

This resource is supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation as part of ASE’s Sustaining the Impact of Big Questions in Classrooms in Science Education initiative