The main aim of this project was to study young people's ability to use science knowledge when talking about and explaining everyday phenomena involving transformations of matter. Students' individual knowledge was studied both as their spontaneous explanations and as their explanations with appropriate help in discussions with the researcher or with other students. The framework for learning in this study was a social constructivist perspective of learning. In the project students discussed everyday phenomena with peers and with the researcher. The role of the discourse was stressed in the interviews as well as the development of students' use of their mental models when explaining everyday phenomena. Data were gathered through four interviews with each one of 40 students, between 10 and 11 years of age. The development of the basic particle model was one of the themes during the instructional units. Other recurrent themes were states of matter, gases and chemical reaction. Most of the students were able to use knowledge of science when talking about known everyday phenomena. Almost all of the students in the group developed the use of their own mental models during the project. [Chem.

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The aim of this project is to study the quality of the discussions in groups of students during laboratory work. The project builds on a study of the role of communication in science classrooms with students aged 14-15 years. An intervention with role-playing for example reporting to another group is carried out to foster discourses that focus students' use of science knowledge. The discussions have been divided into sequences. In each sequence the students are discussing one separate part of the lab work activity. A revised version of the SOLO-taxonomy has been used in the analysis of tape recordings from students' discussions during lab work and from the reporting to another group. The students talk about the experimental procedure as well as the science content. In most of the groups the analysis show a long-term development towards higher quality mixed with unistructural sequences. During the reporting to another group the students describe the experiment using new knowledge and new concepts. Almost all the reporting groups use two or more concepts well integrated. The reporting to another group stimulates students' discussions. The SOLOtaxonomy makes it possible to assess group learning and interaction in lab groups.