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Many topics in the current science curriculum pose difficulties for teachers in that they are too complex to allow children to experience at first hand, due their size or hazardous character. In such cases representations are commonly used. Teachers select representations for use in their lessons and the extent to which such representations contribute to teaching and learning in the classroom has important implications for the construction of knowledge in the primary science classroom. The theoretical framework for the study arises from a social constructivist perspective which proposes that children hold mental models of scientific phenomena, and that learning takes place when these models are challenged sufficiently to effect conceptual change, leading to increased knowledge and coherent understanding. A participant observer and insider perspective was taken within a case study approach of a teacher using representations in series of Year 5 (ages 9-10 years) science lessons on the Earth in Space. Data were captured by video recording to observe incidents and aspects of the teacher's use of representations . \. An analysis of the video recordings was made to note all the aspects observed which included gestures employed to highlight and/or add information about the phenomena depicted and all verbal emphases and additions. In addition, a combination of two analysis systems was used to establish informational content of the representations themselves, and of the verbal and gestural teacher additions. One grid allowed the combination of illustration and text to be assessed for informational content and the second grid enabled attributes of the phenomena to be determined. This allowed conclusions to be drawn about the manner of use of representational material in relation to informational content and cognitive suitability for learning.