Students in the intermediate grades love to talk--but not necessarily about making sense of what they are learning. How do teachers design classrooms that cultivate productive discourse? How do they get out of the way and teach children to learn? First, let's give them something to talk about. Second, teachers need to teach them how to engage in…

Each fall at harvest time, young students in the authors' part of the Midwest visit apple orchards to learn more about the life cycle of plants. This tradition is one part of a larger unit centered on apples, integrating life science with language arts and social studies. The authors partnered with kindergarten teachers at several schools to…

Research has shown that visual literacy is an important element to use within a classroom (Tillmann 2012). One way to incorporate visual literacy into the science classroom is with the use of advertisements. In this article, Tiffany Pace describes how she and her students began their visual literacy quest while studying mixtures and solutions,…

Cooking is a common experience in preschool classrooms, where teachers provide hands-on opportunities with ingredients in the process of following standard recipes. What sets this story apart is the way that the teacher supports the children in designing their own cookie recipe in an authentic way, using experimentation and manipulation of cookies…

Why Does It Take Longer to Boil Potatoes at High Altitudes? This column provides background science information for elementary teachers. This month's issue looks at why water boils at different temperatures at different altitudes.

This math activity focuses on experimental design while connecting math with life science. It is important that the science and engineering practices (SEPs) are not taught as a separate "unit" but integrated within the curriculum wherever possible. The focus is on experimental design to teach animal behavior. Students predict and test…

As well-developed as they may be, standards are not curriculum. It is the job of teachers and curriculum teams to use the Standards as the basis for designing the specific pathway for teaching and learning. In this article, the authors explore the use of Understanding by Design (UbD), a widely-used curriculum development framework, for honoring…

This column provides ideas and techniques to enhance your science teaching. This month's issue discusses how children think about the small-particle model of matter. What Richard Feynman referred to as the "atomic hypothesis" is perhaps more familiar to us as the small-particle model of matter. In its most basic form, the model states…

Matter is an essential science topic that is often challenging to teach at the early elementary levels. Learning about matter helps students develop a solid foundation for more complex concepts that are taught in later years. Make this abstract concept developmentally appropriate for children by engaging them in investigations that focus on…

The authors describe how grade 4 students carried out an investigation about growing cucumbers (members of the curcurbit or gourd family) where they read information sources about seed variety; germinated seeds under different conditions; measured and partitioned growing spaces; collected and analyzed data on germination, true leaf growth, and…

In this article, second graders learn the basics of engineering through an exploration of magnetic levitation (maglev) technology. The author designed and taught the lessons to a class of 26 students enrolled in a month-long summer science program. The maglev lessons took place over three mornings (15 minutes for the first lesson and 40 minutes…

Blowing bubbles is not only a favorite summer activity for young children. Studying bubbles that are grouped together, or "foam," is fun for children and fascinating to many real-world scientists. Foam is widely used--from the bedroom (mattresses) to outer space (insulating panels on spacecraft). Bubble foam can provide children a…

This column shares safety information for the classroom. STEAM subjects--science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics--are essential for fostering students' 21st-century skills. STEAM promotes critical-thinking skills, including analysis, assessment, categorization, classification, interpretation, justification, and prediction, and are…

Scientific investigations are usually introduced to children by referring to phenomena and occurrences that they already know about from their environment. The goal is that children learn to understand everyday observations and experiences from a scientific perspective, pose questions, express and test simple hypotheses by planning and performing…

Earth's surface is constantly changing. Weathering, erosion, and deposition break down Earth materials, transport those materials, and place them in new locations. Children see evidence of these processes all around them. The sidewalk or playground surface cracks and has plants growing in it. Pieces of a rock wall or the sides of a building…