In this article, Tammy D. Lee and Jane L. Lubischer describe a classroom lesson designed to explore how animals use sound to communicate and how this communication affects their survival. Lee and Lubischer wanted to bring an awareness of how science is happening in students' own backyards. They developed a half-day 5E lesson integrating two…

Exploration of making and changing sounds is part of the first-grade performance expectation 1-PS4-1, "Plan and conduct investigations to provide evidence that vibrating materials can make sound and that sound can make materials vibrate" (NGSS Lead States 2013, p. 10; see Internet Resource). Early learning experiences build toward…

With the emergence of the "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS"; NGSS Lead States 2013), it is apparent that teaching and learning about nature of science (NOS) continues to be an important goal of science education for all K-12 students. With this emphasis on NOS, early childhood teachers are asking how to design…

Children naturally delight in the sounds created with their bodies, including their own shrieks and shrills. On the playground and in the classroom, young children fill the air with stories, mimicked animal and car sounds, word games, and songs. Babies are aware of their basic cries of hunger and more developed babbling. Ears and brains constantly…

This article describes how one class at Douglas Jamerson Elementary School in St. Petersburg, Florida, a center for engineering and mathematics, incorporated an Engineering Design Process into its curriculum. At Jamerson Elementary, all students in kindergarten through fifth grade engage in teacher-created, integrated engineering units of study,…

This article describes how first-grade students create meaningful communication with families and help build the student-teacher-parent relationship through journaling. Journals are a useful tool to bridge school and home. A journal can communicate learning goals, develop scientific vocabulary, and create dialogue through oral and written…

This column focuses on promoting learning through assessment. This month's issue explores structure and function as it relates to animals and plants. One of the disciplinary core ideas in "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" is LS1.A Structure and Function (NRC 2012). This disciplinary core idea is included in the "Next…

This column focuses on promoting learning through assessment. This month's issue uses concept cartoons to assess students' ideas about the moon. Concept cartoons, formative assessment tools that reveal students' preconceptions and probe for conceptual understanding, have recently become popular in the United States, with teachers…

This article describes a first-grade research project that incorporates trade books and challenges misconceptions. Educators see the power of their students' wonder at work in their classrooms on a daily basis. This wonder must be nourished by students' own experiences--observing the moon on a crystal clear night--as well as by having…

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…

This article describes a hands-on science curriculum used to teach kindergarten students about decomposition at the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, New York. The goal was to get students to spend more time in the natural world and to have the opportunity to literally "get their hands dirty." This was premised on the idea that the…

Children do not always see a connection between themselves and other living things. Sometimes they do not even realize that they, too, are animals and represent a link in the food chain. By obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information (Scientific and Engineering Practice #8 in "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" [NRC 2012,…

In this article, students examined how and why plants work through in-depth investigations. They performed scientific inquiry through questioning, developed models, constructed explanations, and communicated information of the structure and function and system models of plants, and then engineered a representation of their understanding. The…

With the new focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education, it's important to keep an open mind about incorporating technology into science lessons. In many cases, lessons that incorporate technology are not about the technology itself. Rather, the technology serves as a tool to enhance the lesson or add a new dimension to…

Many times students are given the task of keeping a science notebook, but do not fully understand the process or purpose of this endeavour. Science notebooks contain not only data but also questions, predictions, observations, and reflections from their experiences in science. To maximize the effectiveness of the science notebook, teachers must…