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School science aspires for students to develop conceptual, procedural and nature of science understandings as well as developing scientific literacy. Issues and complexities surrounding the development of science curriculum for Indigenous schools in New Zealand is a concern as little is known about these aspects of science learning in wharekura (Māori Indigenous School). This paper draws upon the findings of an empirical study to address the call for research into effective practices for supporting Indigenous students in learning science. The study is part of a larger project investigating and extending our understanding about how New Zealand teachers’ conceptualise science and science inquiry (investigation). Two Māori teachers participated in the research as well as their class who were supported by two researchers. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with teachers. This research reports the findings of how participating teachers’ conceptualise science inquiry and describes their perceptions of how and why their students should learn science and science inquiry. The paper also presents teachers’ views about their own development as science teachers and suggests two models to address the issue of science teaching in wharekura.

Introduction: Citizen involvement in scientific projects has become a means of encouraging curiosity and greater understanding of science whilst providing an unprecedented engagement between professional scientists and the general public. In this paper we specifically focus on the impact of online citizen science (OCS) participation in the science education of primary school age children in New Zealand. Methods: We use four exploratory cases within a broader research project to examine the nature and impact of embedding OCS projects that use web-based online crowdsourcing and collaboration tools within classroom environments of primary school science learners.Results & Discussion: Our findings provide insights into primary school teachers’ perception of OCS. They offer initial insights into how teachers embed OCS in a classroom environment, and why this improves science learning aptitudes, inquisitiveness and capabilities in primary school age children. We also notice that successfully embedding OCS projects in education is affected by the project context, how the results are disseminated, and inclusivity in socio-cultural aspects.....................................................................................................................................................................This paper is a preprint of a paper accepted at the 11th ACM Conference on Web Science 2019 (https://websci19.webscience.org/).