This column presents ideas and techniques to enhance your science teaching. This month's issue shares information about a unit promoting scientific literacy and the engineering design process. The integration of engineering with scientific practices in K-12 education can promote creativity, hands-on learning, and an improvement in students'…

Presents the highlights of National Science & Technology Week '97 which focus on different kinds of communications and communications technologies. Describes the activity packets that are part of the celebration and include innovative, hands-on teaching activities in science, mathematics, and technology. Presents suggestions for school…

This document provides teachers and students with the opportunity to learn about the "Bone Wars" of the frontier West, the smartest dinosaur, current hot topics in paleontology research, and how to bring the study of fossils to life with hands-on activities for both the classroom and outdoors. Includes a list of teaching resources. Contains 19…

Presents a hands-on activity as an excellent starting point for investigations related to the eye. Involves making a simple model of the vertebrate eye to illustrate the formation of an upside-down image on the retina by the lens. Links to investigations in numerous science disciplines including astronomy, genetics, biology, earth science, and…

Explores programs at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. Focuses on the museum's preschool program and the hands-on science facility. (DDR)

Presents an argument for inquiry-based activities and defines science as talking to the material world. Discusses the notion that a hands-on activity is an inquiry-based activity only if a dialog with the material world takes place. (DDR)

Provides an activity in which students create small classroom factories and investigate several aspects of production including design, engineering, quality control, waste management, packaging, shipment, and communication. (DDR)

Announces the theme for National Science and Technology Week (NSTW) 1998 and offers a rationale for the choice of the topic of polar connections. Suggests that the poles offer a glimpse of science as high adventure. The poles are often seen as pristine, nearly lablike environments that provide a platform for animal studies. (DDR)

Details an activity in which children experiment with creating their own sun protection devices and a model of the sunglasses invented by native people of the Arctic. (DDR)

Outlines an activity centered around the soap-making process in which soap is made via demonstration. Students are asked to develop an acid-base classification table and discuss various acid-base indicators. (DDR)

Explains an integrated insect unit in which students learn about the characteristics, life cycle, and environment of an organism; learn about specific body structures; and make inferences about the body structure and behaviors of the insects. (DDR)

Contains information on rain sticks and other similar musical instruments. Describes procedures for making rain sticks and using them in the study of sound. Discusses the physics of sound and how to utilize computers to study sound with rain sticks. (DDR)

Discusses various problems with Activitymania (prepackaged activities for science instruction) in the context of teaching scientific inquiry. Suggests that teachers clearly define conceptual goals and their relationships to students' lives and interests before selecting classroom activities. (PVD)

In this lesson, students use Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans--a "wild" candy written about in the Harry Potter books and now available in stores--to learn about classification and dichotomous keys. In these activities, students sort jelly beans according to a key and then construct a key for a "new" flavor of beans. Students then build on their…

Suggests ways to add exciting activities to science lessons in spite of budget cutbacks by relying on various forms of support which include having guest speakers like pharmacists, landfill engineers, and electricians; obtaining miscellaneous supplies from local hospitals, colleges, television stations, and grocery stores; and seeking out other…