By some estimates, over 1.2 billion tons of soil was blown across the Great Plains during the height of the Dust Bowl. The so-called "black blizzards" these massive dust storms caused suffocated cattle, sickened children, and destroyed thousands of family farms. Formerly prosperous farmers, unsure why they had such bad luck, wondered if…

Are you interested in helping your elementary students learn the practices of science, including constructing explanations and engaging in argument from evidence? "Argument-Driven Inquiry in Fifth-Grade Science" will provide you with both the information and instructional materials you need to get started right away. The book is a…

School pedagogies that expand opportunities for learners to build and use knowledge for meaningful purposes are resources for hope. Internationally, standards-based reforms in science education position schooling as a context for building and using disciplinary knowledge to explain phenomena and solve problems. There is also growing research…

Project-based learning (PBL) is centred on a challenging, yet meaningful, driving question and culminates in a product that students create or do to showcase their learning to a public audience. Other essential elements of a true PBL experience include: sustained inquiry, authentic tasks, opportunities for students to make decisions about their…

Literacy is a powerful tool to engage students in learning about the social, cultural, political, and natural worlds around them. This is especially true within the discipline of science where students use reading and writing to engage in scientific inquiry. In the era of accountability reform, however, students spend more time acquiring reading…

Background: As inquiry-based instruction is not universally implemented in science classrooms, it is crucial to introduce instructional strategies through the use of contextualized learning activities to allow students with different background knowledge and abilities to learn the essential competencies of scientific inquiry and promote their…

Given the increased emphasis on science in early learning standards, two studies were conducted to investigate preschool teachers' efficacy for teaching science and their inquiry-based teaching practices. Fifty-one teachers completed a survey of their efficacy for teaching science and understanding of inquiry methods. Teachers reported moderate…

Turning lectures into interactive, student-led question and answer sessions is known to increase learning, but enabling interaction in a large class seems an insurmountable task. This can discourage adoption of this new approach -- who has time to individualize responses, address questions from over 200 students and encourage active participation…

This article tells the story of one second grade teacher and the ways she integrated informational texts into her classroom. Reported by the classroom teacher and a researcher who studied her practice for a year, the manuscripts detail the ways Michelle (the classroom teacher) embedded informational texts in her classroom primarily within the…

This paper presents the findings from a randomized control trial study of reading/literacy-integrated science inquiry intervention after 1 year of implementation and the treatment effect on 5th-grade low-socio-economic African-American and Hispanic students' achievement in science and English reading. A total of 94 treatment students and 194…

Teaching nature of science (NOS) is beginning to find its place in science education in China. This exploratory study interviewed twenty-four Chinese science teacher educators about their conceptions of teaching NOS to pre-service science teachers. Although five dimensions emerged, this paper mainly focuses on reporting the findings relevant to…

The third annual conference of the National Academy for Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (NAIRTL) was held at Trinity College Dublin on 11-12 November 2009, and was attended by over 300 delegates. The theme--"Research-Teaching Linkages: Practice and Policy"--was timely and generated some fascinating papers, workshops and…

This study explores a fourth grade classroom, hypothesizing about the possibilities for using drama to teach elementary school science. The case study provides one with the author's first glimpse into a fourth grade science classroom, as well as a preliminary examination of whether or not room exists for drama in the elementary science classroom.…

Explains integrated science and emphasizes the need for integrative conceptual themes, changes in science teacher preparation, and a focus on student motivation and active student involvement in learning. Describes Science Links, a multimedia curriculum in integrated science designed for ninth graders. (Author/LRW)

Discusses a middle school level interdisciplinary science project in which students create and display their own inventions. Considers the role of science, math, language arts, writing, social studies, and computer science in the project. Describes the process whereby students become inventors and present their work. (JPB)