How many scientists throw out their notebooks at the end of each year and start over no matter how many empty pages remain? How many of them approach a new research question or experiment without using knowledge gained from the previous years? The answer to each of these questions is of course, few if any, yet we ask our students to do that every year in science. This article describes how students can keep a notebook throughout grade levels as a reference. Having students use their notebooks in this way brings them closer to real science. (Contains 4 figures.)