This book is designed to help advanced elementary students learn science skills while actively engaged in cooperative activities based on the earth sciences and natural disasters. The first section explains how to make cooperative learning a part of the curriculum and includes an overview, instructions and activities to bring cooperative learning to students and parents, guidelines for setting up groups, ideas for an activity center, and suggestions for assessment and portfolios. The rest of the book provides a wide range of cooperative activities divided into two parts. "Learning to Be a Scientist" develops skills needed in many areas of science activities: observing, making and reading scientific instruments, doing research, recording information, constructing charts and graphs, and presenting information. The section "Being a Scientist" provides opportunities to use the skills learned in the first section, as well as many other skills in the context of interesting and practical hands-on activities. Each unit of activities is based on one of four natural disaster themes: earthquakes, killer heat, killer cold, and hurricanes and tornadoes. Each unit contains a complete lesson plan which explains the purpose of the unit, the skills to be taught, and the materials that are needed. The lesson plan for each unit ends with suggestions for processing and evaluation. (JRH)