This article describes a hands-on science curriculum used to teach kindergarten students about decomposition at the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, New York. The goal was to get students to spend more time in the natural world and to have the opportunity to literally "get their hands dirty." This was premised on the idea that the…

Every year, an elementary school celebrates different aspects of Central Texas ecology. This year, they focused on Blackland Prairie, the ecoregion on which the school is located. A schoolwide event at the end of the year offers students the opportunity to teach their parents and their peers what they've learned. The Fourth- and fifth-grade…

In order to demonstrate how plants remove water from the soil and release it to the atmosphere, students compared open- and closed-growing systems using drought-tolerant and higher water requirement plants. Then, students designed a drought-tolerant garden demonstrating what they had learned. Through this experience, students not only learned…

For several years, the author's fifth-grade students raised and observed plants, kept journals, and analyzed the functions of the parts of a plant. But this year, a near disaster taught her a lesson and increased the value of the activity for her students. Not only did students learn about plants, they now understand what a variable is and how…