Representation in science is anything that stands for something else--drawings, pictures, graphs, or other representational forms (Danish et al. 2020). Representations serve as public displays of phenomena that make aspects of those phenomena explicit (Gilbert 2008). They can serve to make the invisible visible, communicate ideas, display…

This research aims to support the "teaching of concepts" in the 3rd grade Life Science Course with activities. A quasi-experimental design (selective) with a pre-test and post-test control group, one of the quantitative research designs, was used in the research. Using songs, poems, rhymes, acrostics, stories, fairy tales,…

The purpose of this study is to design an argumentation activity for third-grade students learning about the features defining matter. The research was carried out with seven students who enrolled in a tutoring program in a science and art center in the Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey during the academic year of 2017-2018. The activities were…

Evolution by natural selection is key to understanding life and of considerable practical importance in public health, medicine, biotechnology, and agriculture. "The Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS) include natural selection among several evolutionary concepts that all third-graders should know. This article explores a novel…

Picture this: a PhD chemist, PhD science educator, and a preservice Latina elementary educator walk into an aftercare program for primary and intermediate students from a rural school. These students are identified as low income and at risk and therefore eligible to participate in this school-provided aftercare. While across the state, these same…

Acoustical engineers use their knowledge of sound to design quiet environments (e.g., classrooms and libraries) as well as to design environments that are supposed to be loud (e.g., concert halls and football stadiums). They also design sound barriers, such as the walls along busy roadways that decrease the traffic noise heard by people in…

Students love learning about animals: how animals behave, what animals eat, why some animals are more dangerous than others are, and why animals look the way they do. In this 5E lesson, students investigate why some animals look the way they do--specifically, the advantages of camouflage and mimicry. What are an animal's advantages of being…

A rich science learning experience not only captures students' attention but also motivates them to investigate and solve problems and investigate how scientists carry out their work. This article describes how secondary science coordinator Patrick Brown's found success teaching students the nature of science by engaging them in…

Not only is science perceived by some as a hard-to-teach subject, but there are certain topics that all teachers regard as notoriously hard to teach. While their natural inclination may be to eliminate some of the details, teachers have to be careful not to water down the curriculum. How do they share the complexity of the natural world without…

This paper describes Ecuadorian in-service teachers and their science teaching practices in public primary schools. We wanted to find out to what extent teachers implement inquiry activities in science teaching, the level of support they provide, and what type of inquiry they implement. Four questionnaires applied to 173 teachers resulted in the…

In this article, the authors focus on an Engineering is Elementary unit that emphasizes students' understanding and application of properties of materials in the context of an engineering design challenge. Students build understanding through a series of hands-on activities, then apply their knowledge to solve a materials engineering problem:…

"I Wonder" boards are a teaching strategy that can be used in the classroom, as well as during science learning opportunities in nonformal settings, such as after-school science programs or summer camps.This simple strategy has led to deeper science exploration in 4-H, as young people learn alongside program staff, teachers, or…

The authors combined content-driven and inquiry-based lessons into the framework of problem-based learning (PBL). They did this in eight third- through sixth-grade classrooms--two each from grades 3-5, one from sixth grade, and one mixed-grade special education. These older elementary students explored a local problem of lobsters infected by…

In this study we explored how dramatic enactments of scientific phenomena and concepts mediate children's learning of scientific meanings along material, social, and representational dimensions. These drama activities were part of two integrated science-literacy units, "Matter" and "Forest," which we developed and implemented…

This investigation examined the efficacy of a model of integrated science and literacy instruction situated at a community zoo. Three intact cohorts of third grade urban students received instruction via different treatments: inquiry-based instruction at a zoo; inquiry-based instruction at school; and activity-based instruction at a zoo. All three…