Any assessment activity can help student learning if it provides information that both teachers and students can use as feedback in assessing themselves. However, such assessment only becomes "formative" assessment when teachers actually use the feedback to adapt their teaching to meet the learning needs of students. This column provides…

The authors created an interactive reflective log (IRL) to provide teachers with an opportunity to use a journal approach to record, evaluate, and communicate student understanding of science concepts. Unlike a traditional journal, the IRL incorporates prompts to encourage students to discuss their understanding of science content and science…

We report on an evaluation of the effectiveness of Project ARIES, an astronomy-based physical science curriculum for upper elementary and middle school children. ARIES students use innovative, simple, and affordable apparatus to carry out a wide range of indoor and outdoor hands-on, discovery-based activities. Student journals and comprehensive…

In this article, the author describes how her high school environmental science students led third graders on a dynamic learning adventure as part of their first annual Outdoor Ecology School. At the water-monitoring site in a nearby national forest, the elementary students conducted field research and scavenger hunts, discovered animal habitats,…

This article is about one school district's effort to reform its elementary science curriculum through a program of professional development called Science, Parents, Activities and Literature (Science PALs). The differential exposure of the district's K-6 teachers to Science PALs and differences in how well teachers implemented Science PALs-type…