In a traditional science classroom, only a portion of students walk away with a genuine understanding of the material, and even fewer are able to apply the concepts they have learned to events in their own lives. Foundations of Science (FOS) was developed in a cooperative effort between the University of Michigan and the Ann Arbor public schools…

This paper presents the results of a study of the cognitive strategies in which ninth-grade science students engaged as they used a learner-centered dynamic modeling tool (called Model-It) to make original models based upon stream ecosystem scenarios. The research questions were: (1) In what Cognitive Strategies for Modeling (analyzing, reasoning,…