Slow looking is the art and practice of learning through observation. Using object-based learning strategies provides instructors with innovative opportunities to pique curiosity while providing scaffolding for creativity skills needed to generate new clothing and apparel designs. This paper aims to identify how an FCS educator can use a slow-…

A desired outcome of teaching intercultural communication is cultivating an understanding and awareness of different cultural values while attempting to increase intercultural communication competence within our students. Goals of teaching intercultural communication include assisting students in recognizing, accepting, and appreciating cultural…

This design-based research study considers the learner-generated design and refinement of a school garden. We report one enactment of the Connected Gardening project in order to illuminate and understand how a fourth-grade class organizes and refines its garden plot using observations of the physical environment and evaluations of data from a…

Action research is a method of examining one's own practice through reflection and critical self-study. In this paper, the author considers her experience teaching a two-day lesson on connections and relationships in William Forsythe's dance "One Flat Thing, reproduced" (2000) and the accompanying website, Synchronous Objects. The author reviews…

Anyone who has observed or played with young children probably has noticed how they imitate what they see--their friends, siblings, parents, and teachers; television, movie, and book characters; and sometimes even their family pets. Frequently, this imitation can help children learn appropriate behaviors, attitudes, and thinking patterns.…

This guide is designed to provide elementary school teachers with a harmless, inexpensive, clean, odorless, and easy-to-care-for insect-rearing project for the classroom. The following topics are included: (1) instructions for the care and feeding of the beetle larvae; (2) student activities for observing larval characteristics and behavior…

Discusses the need for the development of specific instructional practices to teach relevant concepts and issues on communication in the family setting. Provides guidelines for an exercise using E. Goffman's concepts of markers and tie-in signs to determine, observationally yet unobtrusively, whether individuals in public places have a familial…

This guide is designed to provide elementary school teachers with safe learning activities concerning bees and wasps. The following topics are included: (1) the importance of a positive teacher attitude towards bees and wasps; (2) special problems posed by paper wasps; (3) what to do when a child is bothered by a wasp; (4) what to do if a wasp…

This article provides detailed instructions on how to hatch chicken eggs. Sections include: (1) making the incubator; (2) making the brooder; (3) guidelines for hatching eggs; (4) from incubator to brooder; and (5) recommended readings. (JMK)

Shows how teachers developed student self-expression and appreciation for poetic rhythm by using blues music and lyrics in the classroom. Provides examples of students' collaborative poems. (RL)

Provides instructional techniques, using samples from evergreen trees, to explain to school children the concept of adaptation. The techniques help children develop skills in observation, classification, communication, inferring, and predicting. A teacher's reproducible is included. (GLR)

Discusses spiders for classroom use: collecting methods, types, classroom habitats, behavior, and food. (MH)

Field trips allow students unique access to resources not available in the classroom. Field experiences enhance students' understanding, are a factor in retention, can be motivational, and are essential for the acquisition of basic science skills. Students learn, in a meaningful way, the procedures of setting goals, observing and recording data,…

These activities allow students to investigate behavioral responses of the large Milkweed bug, "Oncopeltus fasciatus," and the mealworm, "Tenebrio molitor" or "Tenebrio obscurus," to external stimuli of light, color, and temperature. During the activities, students formulate hypotheses to research questions presented. They also observe insects for…

Reports on the use of participant modeling in a study of 56 college-level students to reduce fear of laboratory rats. Discovers that even mild exposure reduced fear significantly. Finds that women were more fearful initially but that their fear reduction was equal to that of men. (CFR)