In this practical article, a kindergarten teacher shares a lesson designed to teach students about the power of wind. To address the Next Generation Science Standards engineering standards, students discussed the negative and positive aspects of wind and made daily weather observations (K-ESS2-1). Students constructed bird-shaped windsocks, called…

Research Findings: This study examines the complexities of enacting an explicit content-rich curriculum in a large urban school district. Thirty-six teachers from 12 elementary schools, preK through Grade 1 were recruited to teach the "World of Words," an integrated science and literacy supplementary curriculum. Prior to the start of the…

In this article, the authors discuss role-play as a pedagogical strategy to engage kindergarten and first-grade students in science and engineering. They present a five-part Mars colony lesson that they developed for a blended class, during which students role-play a space-exploration story that enables them to gain a firsthand perspective of what…

Our research team performed an exploratory analysis of teacher gesturing via a case study of an elementary teacher. We focused on gesturing, a practice found to support both bilingual English learner students' linguistic development and mathematics achievement, during the teacher's engineering and science lessons. The research team systematically…

There is always debate about when, where, and how to introduce students to vocabulary when teaching science. The authors argue that there is not necessarily a singular correct order or right time to introduce new vocabulary to students. Rather, what is important is that we support students in learning the language they need to engage in the…

"Energy" is a term often used in everyday language. Even young children associate energy with the food they eat, feeling tired after playing soccer, or when asked to turn the lights off to save light energy. However, they may not have the scientific conceptual understanding of energy at this age. Teaching energy and matter could be…

Understanding complex systems requires reasoning about causal relationships that behave or appear to behave probabilistically. Features such as distributed agency, large spatial scales, and time delays obscure co-variation relationships and complex interactions can result in non-deterministic relationships between causes and effects that are best…

Teaching students to make daily weather observations is one way educators assist them as they learn to dress appropriately. In addition, it provides a natural and developmentally appropriate link between science and other curriculum areas, such as literacy and language development. The "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead…

Children may not be aware of the origin of much of their food, especially if they eat mostly processed foods. Schools that operate a garden are able to teach children how common foods are parts of plants. This column discusses resources and science topics related to students in grades preK to 2. In this month's issue students focus on…

A science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) activity is any activity that integrates the use of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to solve a problem. Traditionally, STEM activities are highly engaging and may involve competition among student teams. Young children are natural engineers and often times spontaneously build…

It's easy to see the connections between science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) in daily life, but they may not be so obvious in the classroom. This month's lessons allow students to explore the components of STEAM through a favorite art supply, the crayon, and a beloved American tradition, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day…

This ethnographic research examines how children enact developing understandings in science through multiple interactions. Grounded in sociocultural theoretical frameworks, we consider learning to be a social, cultural practice, with understandings as co-constructed between participants through talk and in interactions. With these underpinning…

Despite the abundance of research in Modeling-based Learning (MbL) in science education, to date there is only limited research on MbL practices among K-6 novice modelers. More specifically, there is no information on how young/novice modelers' modeling enactments look so that researchers and educators have an idea of what should be expected from…

Beginning with the assumption that young children are capable of producing unprecedented knowledges about science phenomena, this paper explores the complexities of children's inquiries within open-ended investigations. I ask two central questions: (1) how can we (teachers, researchers, and children themselves) use and build upon…

This article describes a lesson on bats developed for kindergartners, which uses models of bats to teach about their physiology, diet, and habitat. The lesson uses craft sticks, wax paper, and colored construction paper that kindergarten teachers can use to help their students compare the features of 4 different kinds of bats. The use of online…