This column presents ideas and techniques to enhance your science teaching. This month's issue shares information on how students' everyday experiences can support science learning through engineering design. In this article, the authors outline a reverse-engineering model of instruction and describe one example of how it looked in our fifth-grade…

Access to drinking water is becoming more limited as drought persists across continents. This article highlights a particularly impacted group of students due to increasing drought conditions and upstream river pollution near their reservation. While there are related water and modeling standards across the K-12 Next Generation Science Standards…

The engineering design process (EDP) can be a wonderful tool to nurture creative problem-solving abilities, prepare students to tackle problems with intentional planning, and encourage learning from failures. Many lesson plans and instructional strategies are guided by the EDP (Hill Cunningham, Mott, and Hunt 2018). In this article, the authors…

In this article, the author describes an activity using physical models -- each a clear plastic box enclosing a miniature coastal town, complete with real water in the "ocean." This activity shows students a natural cause-and-effect relationship that is scientifically simple, yet even many adults don't grasp the worldwide implications:…

In this article, the authors share how model lessons spaced throughout the year, connected by a single anchoring phenomenon, provided opportunities for teachers to build schema for complex science learning as they shifted between "learner hats" and "teacher hats." Descriptions of the authors' workshop sessions include…

Engineering is increasingly expected in elementary classrooms now that the "Next Generation Science Standards" have explicitly identified engineering disciplinary core ideas as well as engineering practices. To incorporate engineering into their elementary classrooms, the authors used building blocks (i.e., LEGOS) to help students begin…

A set of core ideas in the life sciences revolve around genetics, variation, and inheritance. While the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS; NGSS Lead States 2013) emphasize teaching and learning about these concepts across K-12 grades, it is critical for early learners to begin to develop understanding of them. By the end of fifth…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS") have placed an emphasis on the incorporation of engineering practices into K-12 science instruction. This article details a sequence of physical science lessons that would be part of teaching matter in the second-grade classroom. The goals of these lessons are: (1) to be hands-on…

The inclusion of engineering in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) as a key component of K-12 science learning has provided both opportunities and challenges for elementary teachers. One challenge is integrating the design thinking processes that undergird engineering with core science concepts and current issues facing scientists and…

In this article, the authors describe a fourth-grade lesson where 3-D printing technologies were not only a stimulus for engagement but also served as a modeling tool providing meaningful learning opportunities. Specifically, fourth-grade students construct an argument that animals' external structures function to support survival in a particular…

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)--now in development--will be based on "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" released by the National Research Council last summer. The "Framework" identifies seven scientific and engineering practices that should be used in science classrooms. These practices reflect the multiple ways in which…

Engineering is prominently included in the "Next Generation Science Standards" (Achieve Inc. 2013), as it was in "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" (NRC 2012). The National Research Council, authors of the "Framework," write, "Engineering and technology are featured alongside the natural sciences (physical…

"Watch out, the stove will burn you," "Ooh, ice cream headache!" Students construct their conceptions about heat and temperature through their own intuitions about daily life experiences. As a result, misconceptions can be born from these constructed concepts. The activity described here addresses student misconceptions about thermal insulation…