As well as providing a valuable and enjoyable experience for pupils, outdoor learning also enhances and contextualises learning in science by helping pupils understand science concepts. Teachers' lack of confidence in which aspects of the science curriculum they can actually teach outdoors deters them from venturing outside the classroom for…

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is intended to provide students with a cross-subject, contextual learning experience. To more fully prepare our nation's students to enter the globally competitive workforce, STEM integration allows students to make connections between the abstract concepts learned in core subject…

Describes a project that helps students integrate biological concepts using both creativity and higher-order problem-solving skills. Involves students playing the roles of junior scientists aboard a starship in orbit around a class M planet and using a description of habitats, seasonal details, and a surface map of prominent geographic features to…

This column focuses on promoting learning through assessment. In 1999, a group of researchers from Indiana University and Purdue University decided to investigate data about students' ideas in science by inviting National Science Teachers Association members to participate in a research study about children's conceptions of animals. Published in…