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…

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…

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:…

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) has been at the center of a national conversation around the necessity to strengthen the STEM workforce starting with STEM education in K-12 schools. "The Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States 2013) incorporate a prominent engineering component in both disciplinary…

In this article the authors describe a model that starts from the basics of the OWL (observe, wonder, learn) large-group discussion strategy then moves onto new experiences that serve as the jumping off point for student-generated questions and investigations. The OWL version of a KWL (Know-Want to Know-Learn) process becomes a path to language…

Formative assessments serve to engage students in active sense-making, making them critical tools for both teachers and students. Though formative assessments may be an informal mode of assessing, they are one of the most important, especially when teaching science. As a subject, teaching science does not have the same kind of beginning-middle-end…

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…

Scientific modeling, the practice of creating models such as "diagrams, analogies, and simulations" (NGSS Lead States 2013) allows students to develop and revise their own representations of the natural world and use them to generate predictions and explanations about scientific phenomenon. Research provides evidence for elementary…

This column provides ideas and techniques to enhance your science teaching. This month's issue discusses how children think about the small-particle model of matter. What Richard Feynman referred to as the "atomic hypothesis" is perhaps more familiar to us as the small-particle model of matter. In its most basic form, the model states…

Computer science (CS) and computational thinking (a problem-solving process used by computer scientists) teach students design, logical reasoning, and problem solving--skills that are valuable in life and in any career. Computational thinking (CT) concepts such as decomposition teach students how to break down and tackle a large complex problem.…

Across the United States, political leaders, educators, and business persons are issuing an urgent call for reform in STEM education (NGSS Lead States 2013). One important response to this call is Integrated STEM, which the National Governor's Association (2007, p. 7) says involves, "... an emphasis on design and problem solving in…

To show students how engineering design practices reduce the impacts of a natural hazard, the authors--two science educators and an elementary teacher--taught a three-day 5E lesson that focused on hurricanes. They specifically focused on hurricanes because their students are located near a coastal area and are familiar with the effects of this…

Sound propagation is not easy for children to understand because of its abstract nature, often best represented by models such as wave drawings and particle dots. Teachers Rebecca Hendrix and Charles Eick wondered how science inquiry, when combined with an unlikely discipline like drama, could produce a better understanding among their…

For the past five summers, the authors have taught summer school to recent immigrants and refugees. Their experiences with these fourth-grade English language learners (ELL) have taught them the value of using models to build scientific and mathematical concepts. In this article, they describe the use of different forms of 2- and 3-D models to…