The impulse to investigate the natural world is deeply rooted in our earliest childhood experiences. This notion has long guided researchers to uncover the cognitive mechanisms underlying the development of scientific reasoning in children. Until recently, however, research in cognitive development and education followed largely independent tracks. A major exception to this trend is represented in the multifaceted work of David Klahr. His lifelong effort to integrate a detailed understanding of children's reasoning and skill acquisition with the role of education in influencing and facilitating scientific exploration has been essential to the growth of these fields. In this volume, a diverse group of stellar contributors follow Dr. Klahr's example in examining the practical implications of our insights into cognitive development for children in the classroom. Authors discuss such wide-ranging ideas as the evolution of "folk science" in young children and the mechanisms that underlie mathematical understanding, as well as mental models used by children in classroom activities. The volume's lessons will have profound implications for STEM education, and for the next generation of scientists. Contents include: (1) From Theory to Application and Back: Following in the Giant Footsteps of David Klahr (Robert S. Siegler); (2) The Learning of Science and the Science of Learning: The Role of Analogy (Zhe Chen); (3) Does Folk Science Develop? (Frank C. Keil); (4) The Evolved Mind and Scientific Discovery (David C. Geary); (5) Educational Neuroscience: Applying the Klahrian Method to Science Education (Kevin Niall Dunbar); (6) Is Development Domain Specific or Domain General? A Third Alternative (Annette Karmiloff-Smith); (7) Simulating Discovery and Education in a Soccer Science World (Jeff Shrager); (8) Moving Young "Scientists-in-Waiting" Onto Science Learning Pathways: Focus on Observation (Rochel Gelman and Kimberly Brenneman); (9) Supporting Inquiry About the Foundations of Evolutionary Thinking in the Elementary Grades (Richard Lehrer and Leona Schauble); (10) Engineering in and for Science Education (Christian D. Schunn, Eli M. Silk, and Xornam S. Apedoe); (11) To Teach or Not to Teach Through Inquiry (Erin Marie Furtak, Richard J. Shavelson, Jonathan T. Shemwell, and Maria Figueroa); (12) Epistemic Foundations for Conceptual Change (Richard A. Duschl and Maria Pilar Jimenez-Aleixandre); and (13) Patterns, Rules, and Discoveries in Life and in Science (David Klahr).