The exercises described here conveniently exploit the built-in acceleration sensors in smartphones, devices that are becoming ubiquitous if not essential items for most students. This allows each student to have the opportunity for a hands-on experience and to collect their own data, reduces preparation time, and greatly reduces cost by removing…

Investigating real-world phenomena in a playful, exploratory setting is a natural process for young children. Teachers can capitalize on children's curiosity to foster their understanding of science ideas and their engagement in science practices, such as predicting, experimenting, observing, comparing, and contrasting. Force and motion…

Drawing on Latour's (Reassembling the social: an introduction to actor--network-theory, Oxford University Press, New York, 2005), this manuscript discusses a study of a robotics class in a public, Title I elementary school. Compared with theoretical frameworks (e.g., constructivism and constructionism) dominant in the field of early childhood…

A conceptual framework for empirical research on the impact of NASA Space Science Education Consortium (NSSEC) activities is presented in this paper, along with a cross-referencing system between the NSF-based NSSEC evaluation framework and historical definitions of comparable psychometric constructs in the literature. A selected set of findings…

For the last several years, the authors have implemented an integrated Mars Colony project for their third-grade classes. Students explored several considerations related to colonizing and inhabiting a new world, including food sources, types of citizens, transportation, and housing design. Nearly everything about the project was open-ended, full…

This article presents a lesson that was designed to explore the scientific descriptions of matter through both the intensive and extensive properties that students successfully added to their vocabulary. Students' examples demonstrated that there were places where their reasoning about matter faltered as related to how the material is the same…

Considerable work over many years has explored the contribution technology can make to science learning, at all levels of education. In the school sector, historically this has focused on the use of fixed, desktop-based or semi-mobile laptop systems for purposes such as experiment data collection or analysis, or as a means of engaging or…

Roadways are literally soaked with petrochemical byproducts, oils, gasoline, and other volatile substances that eventually run off into sewers and end up in rivers, waterways, and other undesirable places. Can the roads be cleaned of these wastes, with their proper disposal? Can vehicles, robots, or other devices be designed that could be driven…

This paper reports on the results of several geotechnical engineering-related science activities conducted with elementary-school students. Activities presented include soil permeability, contact stress, soil stratigraphy, shallow and deep foundations, and erosion in rivers. The permeability activity employed the LEGO NXT platform for data…

"Soil, Seeds, and the Pumpkin Patch!" is an integrated unit designed to provide elementary school teachers with ideas for using hands-on activities, fostering inquiry and valuable discussion, and using technology as a learning tool. This unit integrates science with language arts, mathematics, literature, and technology. During this unit, students…

Optical activity using an iPad as a source of polarized light is demonstrated. A sample crystal or solution can be placed on the iPad running a white screen app. The sample is viewed through a polarized filter that can be rotated. This setup can be used in the laboratory or with a document camera to easily project in a large lecture hall.…

This article presents the design and development of i*CATch, a construction kit for physical and wearable computing that was designed to be scalable, plug-and-play, and to provide support for iterative and exploratory learning. It consists of a standardized construction interface that can be adapted for a wide range of soft textiles or electronic…

Harry Keller is president and a founder of Paracomp, Inc., creator and marketer of Smart Science Education. In this interview, Keller talks about himself and what led him to develop Smart Science labs as an online learning technology. He discusses how schools integrate Smart Science labs into their K-12 science curriculum, the major weaknesses in…

The Calculator Controlled Robots activities are designed to engage students in hands-on inquiry-based missions. These activities address National science and technology standards, as well as specifically focusing on mathematics content and process standards. There are ten missions and three exploration extensions that provide activities for up to…

Now available as a Download! This valuable resource helps educators teach students about both the risks and benefits of flooding through a series of engaging, hands-on activities. Acknowledging the different roles that floods play in both natural and urban communities, the book helps young people gain a global understanding of this common--and…