Understanding nature of science is an vital part of civil scientific literacy. Textbook is an important medium to help students develop the proper views of nature of science. Therefore, the research and representations of nature of science in the textbooks is of great significance to the cultivation of scientific literacy in citizens. This article introduces and comments in detail the representations tool of nature of science in textbooks constructed by Nigerian scholar Upahi et al, from three aspects, namely the essence of nature of science, the relationship between nature of science and the content of subject and the presentation of nature of science. Then we conduct the pilot study to apply this tool to analyze the chemistry textbooks in China.

In this study, Level of Openness of Laboratory Activities(LOLA) revised by Herron and Requirements of Student Behavior in Laboratory Activities(RSBLA) proposed by the author are the analysis tools, which are used to analyze the experimental activities of the “experiment” and “experimental activity” columns in chemistry textbooks of PEP (2019).The statistical results of the 2019 textbooks are compared with the 2007 textbooks. The study shows the LOLA of experimental activities in 2019 textbooks are level 1 or level 2, and students’ behaviors are required to “observe”, “record experimental phenomena”, “answer questions related to experiments” and “design experiments”. Chi square test shows that there are significant differences in the distribution of LOLA and RSBLA between the 2019 edition and the 2007 edition textbooks.

Four compulsory chemistry textbooks published by People’s Education Press and Shandong Science and Technology Press in 2019 were taken as research objects, and the visual representations in the four textbooks were analyzed by using content analysis method based on the analytical framework developed by Gkitzia et al. The type of the visual representation, the interpretation of the surface features, the relationship to the text, the existence and the properties of a caption and the link of the triple representation were characterized by the coding statistics of the textbooks. The information of visual representation in the new chemistry textbooks was obtained to provide reference for the arrangement of visual representation in subsequent textbooks.

Chemistry textbooks are one of the most important chemistry teaching resources, and the English teaching resources in the chemistry textbooks are of great value. The reasonable application of English teaching resources has positive significance in improving the professional ability of chemistry teachers, promoting the development of students’ thinking, and training students’ humanistic spirit. Combing the English teaching resources in the new edition compulsory 1 and compulsory 2 textbooks of senior high school chemistry published by people’s education press, it can be summarized into three categories: English teaching resources related to basic concepts and principles, English teaching resources for chemical substance nouns, and English teaching resources for common chemical elements. This paper analyzes the content and characteristics of these three types of English teaching resources with the method of enumeration, explores their applications, and puts forward corresponding suggestions.

In order to make STEM+ education with Chinese characteristics truly land in China, we take the intangible cultural heritage arts project: traditional production process of Chinese painting pigments as main line, and integrate science (including chemistry, physics and biology), technology, engineering, mathematics and culture to solve problems. So the ability to discover, analyze, and solve problems of students is developed through “learning by doing, reading from comprehension, writing from thinking”. The wisdom of the working people in ancient China is experienced and the core literacy of students is developed comprehensively in the collision process of knowledge and creativity.

The main task is the preparation of a nasal wash solution which can be divided into several subtasks and used as a source of chemistry problems. The experiment will expose the students to general laboratory practices as well as the concepts of solute, solvent, and mass percentage, which help students form the rigorous experimental attitude and realistic spirit.

The project focuses on the two social life situations of “inspection and extraction of iodine from kelp” and “extraction of mannitol”. Through four groups of tasks, including the production of flowcharts, the discussion of process problems, the specific operations of experiments, and the after-class expansion research, to complete the review of the chapter on “dissolution phenomenon”, construct a thinking model of cognitive industrial process, understand the concepts of “dissolution, solution, solubility, crystallization” and other discipline concepts, infiltrate the concepts of element view, particle view, balance view, etc., and develop core literacy in designing inquiry experiments, data analysis and evidence reasoning.

On basis of analyzing the current content and situation of “chemistry and social development” course, problems deserve attention and modification in current classroom teaching are discovered. Specifically, the problems are overemphasis of subject knowledge, Integrity of knowledge system, repetition of exercises, but neglect of the permeation of subject value, usage of subject knowledge to solve problems in real situations, real experience of chemical experiment. With the aim to solve these problems, a review lesson is designed and conducted on the background of manufacturing new-energy vehicle “Sun energy No.2” and some derivative issues. The lesson reviews the history, current situation and future of material, energy and environment science and technology which promotes reconstruction of students’ knowledge system about material, energy, environmental science and comprehension of the noumenal value of chemistry associated with lives, society and life.

The review teaching is carried out in combination with the situation of extracting iodine from kelp and the industrial production of potassium iodate from refined iodine. The optimal path of mutual transformation between iodine containing substances is explored by using the properties of elements and reaction principles, and some phenomena in the transformation process are explored experimentally. By setting up graded question chains, students can be guided to complete comprehensive learning tasks in thinking, analysis, exploration and induction, so as to realize the regular and systematic integration of knowledge and the cultivation of high-level thinking.

In this article, a four-dimensional systematic model of discipline core literacy in the topic of electrolyte solution was developed. The four dimensions include core knowledge, discipline task and context, cognitive mode and discipline competence. By using this model, the development goal of discipline competence core literacy can be materialized, and the design and evaluation of teaching activities can be carried out. This model can provide the foundation and support for literacy-oriented teaching.

The historical origination of “chemical equilibrium in classroom” is analyzed from the perspective of knowledge archaeology. As simplified subject knowledge, “chemical equilibrium in textbooks” not only defined the boundary of knowledge, but also implied the structure of knowledge. As evolving performance of understanding, “chemical equilibrium in national college entrance examination” formed stable model of test gradually. As practical teaching contents, “chemical equilibrium in classroom” is a kind of “consensus” reached in the process of social negotiation by multiple subjects which is regional and includes specific discourse. It is a kind of functional and conditional knowledge situated deeply in school environment.

A semiquantitative method was constructed to compare and evaluate the acidity of oxoacids via the valence-bond-theory based Lewis structures, which was referred to as the “1/2 rule”. Density functional theory calculations were performed to evaluate the reliability and feasibility of the “1/2 rule”. The acidities of common oxoacids, stepwise ionization behavior of polyatomic acids, as well as the evolutionary tendencies of the oxoacids of multivalent elements, can be calculated with the constructed “1/2 rule”. The students can understand the regularities of oxoacids by the introduction of the “1/2 rule”. Therefore, rote-learning can be transformed into reasoning-understanding. Students can gradually dip into the chemical “structure-energy-property” logical system and understand the critical competence “macroscopic identification and microscopic reasoning” via the leaning of the “1/2 rule”.

It is an important and unsolved research issue about conceptual structure that different methods of knowledge elicitation can influence the obtained conceptual structure of the group. Taking seventeen middle school chemistry teachers as participants, card sorting, concept mapping and rating of degree of relatedness were used to elicit participants’ knowledge about fifteen atom-related concepts. The conceptual structures of the group were analyzed by multidimensional scaling. The results were below: (1) Conceptual structures of the group obtained by different methods of the knowledge elicitation had different kinds of feature; (2) Conceptual structure of the group obtained by rating of degree of relatedness was more suitable for presenting the complex relationship of science concepts. The results could help the researcher to select a suitable research method and implement more effective research of conceptual structure.

Based on the theoretical framework of Fraser’s constructivist classroom environment, this study developed the Secondary Chemistry Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (SCCLES) for middle school students by combining quantitative research with qualitative research, and measured 625 middle school students’ perception of the constructivist classroom environment by using the SCCLES. The results show that SCCLES has good validity and reliability, and is an economic, practical and effective process evaluation tool for classroom. There are three types of middle school chemistry classroom environment: traditional type, intermediate type and construction type. Students in different classroom environments have significant differences in the perception of dimensions such as “student voice”“personal relevance” “cooperation” and “task orientation”.

Chemical oxygen self-rescuer is one of the main respirators currently used in safety production and emergency rescue. Based on the analysis of the chemical oxygen self-rescuer product structure, the components and properties of oxygen generators and initial oxygen generators are inquired and oxygen candle reaction is simulated. The design reflects product formation requiring the integration of multiple disciplines such as science, technology, and engineering.

The role of the salt bridge is well known. If “the salt bridge of the copper-zinc two-liquid primary battery is replaced by a copper piece, is there any current in the circuit? What are the reactions of the copper piece in the two liquids?”, based on these questions, a series of experiments have been developed to guide students to make assumptions about the reactions of each electrode using various evidences such as precipitate formation, color change of the solution, changes of electrode mass, pH of the solution, and directions of deflection of the galvanometer pointers. During the research, students also need to design novel experiments to gradually find the evidences, based on the evidences of macroscopic experimental phenomena, this paper carries out problem-driven learning to cultivate students’ core literacy of scientific inquiry and innovation consciousness.

The “nail corrosion experiment” in the ninth grade chemistry textbook of Shanghai Education edition has some problems such as long reaction time, difficult classroom operation, low visibility, difficult control variables.Combined with digital sensing technology, a series of explorations and improvements were carried out on the experiment, and two groups of comparative experiments were designed to quantitatively determine the oxygen consumption of reduced iron powder in the process of rust, to explore the conditions of iron and steel corrosion and the factors that affect the corrosion rate of iron and steel.

Under different pH conditions, the main species in the system need to be paid more attention when writing chemical reaction equations. When the ionization equilibrium produced by conjugate acid-base pair moves, hydrogen ions or hydroxide ions are generated to balance chemical equations. Species can or cannot appear when writing equations are discussed in detail. The general rule of writing equations gradually appears after the equations in the college entrance examination and national chemistry competition in recent years are carefully discussed with the revise of some equations.

The principle of removing soluble impurities in crude salt is a key point in teaching, and the experimental steps are the most important. Traditionally, most teachers thought the sequence for the addition of sodium hydroxide and barium chloride couldn’t affect the result of the experiment. However, according to the calculation, it is found that the sequence will largely affect the removal of sulfate ion because of the salt effect. Therefore, sulfate ion should be removed first in the procedure of this experiment.

“Frog Leg Debate” is a classic event in the history of science. The long-lasting scientific debate ended with Volta’s invention of “Volta’s Pile”, which marked that human beings have since entered the era of “dynamic electricity” from “static electricity”. At the same time, it is also considered as a sign of electrochemical establishment. This paper thoroughly combs the process of putting forward the theory and its value in the “Frog Leg Debate” and analyzes its teaching value. The “Frog Leg Debate” fully embodies the interdisciplinary perspective and promotes the understanding of the nature of science.