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The Building Science Concepts series is designed to help teachers in primary schools build students' understanding of science concepts in steps - “foothills”. Each book in the series focuses on a topic, and presents a set of concepts about the topic. These link to each other and build concept by concept towards a major concept - a "big idea". The books provide a structured approach for the teaching of science concepts, helping teachers to build students' understandings from simple to more complex scientific ideas and to relate these ideas to students' existing understandings of the world around them.
More information about the pedagogical ideas behind this series is included here.
Although not specifically designed to teach the Nature of Science, the books provide many opportunities to do so. For ideas on using the series to teach the Nature of Science see Kick-Starting the Nature of Science published by NZCER.