Vorwort zur Sonderausgabe

Abstract Upmeier zu Belzen and Vogt (2001) have shown that parents are more likely than teachers to encourage children interest in science. Thus, parents have a crucial role for developing their children interest in science. If you want engage children in science learning you have to focus on the parents and get them involved — for example with a common learning setting for children and parents. "Children experience chemistry with their parents" (KEMIE — Kinder Erleben Mit Ihren Eltern Chemie) is a special experimental learning setting for children (grade 3 to 5) and their parents. – KEMIE uses the parent‐child‐relationship. – KEMIE brings children in contact with scientific inquiry. – KEMIE is a long‐term project. Over the course of nine months, the families include the monthly visit at the laboratory into their spare time schedule. Now, KEMIE is an established, experimental learning setting and will be presented comprehensively in this special issue. The first chapter "Children and parents on a common mission" (5 pages) is an essay about the two players in the team. It presents children and parents with their special requirements, explains existing scientific styles of play and introduces KEMIE as a new tactic. The final score and the match analysis indicate the potential inherent in KEMIE. The second chapter (12 pages) presents the concept of KEMIE. KEMIE aims to give children and parents insights into scientific inquiry. Therefore, the didactic concept focuses on the scientific ways of thinking and working. There are nine units with different topics. A spiral curriculum about scientific inquiry is helpful for the realization. In every unit, the participants conduct investigations on everyday products. The third chapter "KEMIE in detail" (105 pages) consists of nine sub‐chapters. Each of the nine units will be presented in a separate sub‐chapter. All sub‐chapters have the same structure: at first the methodological core idea of the unit is introduced, then the learning objectives are stated and we describe the realization. Last but not least, every sub‐chapter contains the worksheets of the unit. Finally, the fourth chapter (8 pages) discusses selected results of the empirical investigations on KEMIE. For example we have shown that the parents become more aware of the relevance of science in their everyday life in the course of the project.