Since the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS) were released, K-12 science teachers have been figuring out how to extend related learning opportunities to all students, including multilingual learners (MLLs) who are new to speaking English. Elementary schools often prioritize math and English language arts, the subjects that are…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States 2013) have placed a special emphasis on engineering, raising engineering design to the level of scientific inquiry. Therefore, it is important for teachers to integrate engineering processes into their teaching. Students should experience engineering design in their science…

Visual data--or visual sources of information--are a crucial part of helping students understand STEM concepts, improve their reading skills, and engage in science and engineering practices (Finson and Pedersen 2011). Indeed, many science and engineering practices require students to make meaning from visual data. When students are developing and…

It is well established that drawing upon students' Funds of Knowledge (FoK) supports powerful learning outcomes, especially for youth whose life experiences are not always valued in dominant classroom spaces. Yet, teachers can struggle to find ways to do so (Gonzalez, Moll, and Amanti 2005). In this article, the authors introduce an…

As computational models are becoming more widely used with the release of "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" (NRC 2012) and the "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS"; NGSS Lead States 2013), these models are reshaping the way science is practiced in increasingly diverse classrooms. For students classified…

The population of emergent bilingual students (EBs, or English Language Learners, ELLs) is growing steadily in the United States. One common approach to language instruction for EBs is to expose students to a lesson's content vocabulary before teaching the lesson to build students' word banks and background knowledge. An example of this is the…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS") call for a high level of classroom discourse (Lee, Quinn, and Valdés 2013). To engage all students, including English learners (ELs), in this form of discourse, educators have turned to talk moves (e.g., "Say more about that"), defined as general-purpose tools for…

This article seeks to provide educators with strategies and activities that can be integrated within the 5E model (Bybee 1997) and demonstrate how argumentation can be assimilated into elementary classrooms to teach science concepts. In this lesson exemplar, 25 students in a first-grade English Language Development classroom (all of whom were…

To support elementary school students in finding a solution to an engineering problem, the authors developed a series of five lessons using the 5E Instructional Model (Bybee 2014). The lessons align with the "Next Generation Science Standards" and the "Common Core State Standards" and integrate the teaching and learning of…

The authors' rural community experienced an explosion of young learners moving into their schools who did not have English as their primary language. To help their teachers meet these challenges, they began to partner with a program that provides grant-funded support for migrant learners (see Internet Resources) to find ways to address these…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS") shift what it means to teach and learn science. One significant change emerges from the central role of discourse. As the practices are language-intensive and the performance expectations explain what a student should be able to do in science, every student must learn the…

Courtney Loynachan was a student in Dr. Lindquist's summer 2014 "Teaching Science in the Elementary School" methods course at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The course included an exploration of the power of writing as a learning tool for science with a particular focus on the use of science notebooks. Throughout the…

Sometimes students manage to complete investigations without really using complex and scientific language. Even when they use scientific vocabulary, they do not always build logical arguments to communicate their findings. In this article, the author describes how several elementary science teachers addressed this challenge in after-school STEM…

Because of the "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS"), all of Emily Miller, Hedi Baxter Lauffer, and Paula Messina's students needed to learn the practice of scientific argumentation within the context of sense-making about core ideas in science. The goal, to meet the "NGSS," enabled them to simultaneously…

This article describes a lesson taught in a designated English Language Learner (ELL) classroom in an elementary school in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, using a sheltered instruction approach. Eighty one percent of the students at this school are from diverse ethnic backgrounds where 25 per cent of them receive ELL services. A variety of languages are…