Presents strategies to use rainsticks with middle grade students. Teaches scientific inquiry using a rainstick activity that challenges students to explore posing, probing, and persuasion and represents the National Science Standards. Allows for the integration of different disciplines. Provides instructions on how to make a rainstick. (YDS)

Points out difficulties with a change from traditional teaching methods to a more inquiry-centered approach. Presents theoretical and empirical foundations for the Networking for Leadership, Inquiry, and Systemic Thinking (NLIST) initiative sponsored by the Council of State Science Supervisors (CSSS) and NASA, describes its progress, and outlines…

Traces a systematic, respectful process for using narrative materials in teachers' professional development. One high school teacher wrote a series of stories about school experiences, using them to facilitate discussion, thinking, and writing about her ongoing practice. Outlines the methods of narrative inquiry used to safeguard the teachers'…

Examines the longstanding argument between advocates of curriculum development and critical curriculum studies from the perspective of democratic inquiry artistry, highlighting the curriculum perspectives of Wraga (1999) and Pinar (1999). Suggests that the daily enactment of democratic inquiry artistry can help educational researchers by informing…

Uses an inquiry-based, instructor guided teaching approach and presents the activity "Selectivity/Reactivity Principle in Terms of Hammond's Postulate". Includes 17 references. (YDS)

Explains the inquiry teaching strategy and how the learning process occurs with inquiry-based instruction. Discusses how teachers can facilitate the development of science understanding and maintain inquiry-oriented classrooms. (Contains 31 references.) (YDS)

Shares the results of a yearlong project of staff development where teachers kept a personal inquiry journal and participated in group activities. Finds the teachers grew together as a cohesive staff in learning to appreciate the inquiry process, to value the interests of their colleagues, to develop meaningful curriculum, and to enjoy the beauty…

Explores the nature of praxis and its impact on scholars' status in community and university. Recommends that researchers endorse standards consistent with enlightenment and modernist goals and engage in democratically transformative activism in conjunction with their scholarly careers. (Contains 103 references.) (Author/SLD)

Presents a science activity on modeling a bridge to teach about the forces of tension versus compression. The activity is designed for middle school students. (YDS)

Introduces a high school science curriculum that embodies inquiry-based genetics, evolution, and astronomy. Presents two astronomy units of scientific modeling. The first activity involves a black box to explain a hidden mechanism's effect on the outflow of water. The second activity involves the development of celestial motion models to explain…

Introduces the Global Positioning System (GPS) and explains its use in the science classroom. (YDS)

Discusses the place of the topic of evolution in high school biology curricula in history, new challenges and misconceptions about science, and the need for biology education. (Contains 20 references.) (YDS)

Claims that one way to avoid the problems of high enrollment and minimal student-instructor interaction is to use lecture facilitators. Not only can facilitators help with group work, operate classroom technology, and perform demonstrations, facilitators can put into practice inquiry-based techniques. (Author/MM)

Explains how a karst is formed in the U.S. and introduces an activity in which students explore the fragile environment of a karst and study the interactions between human population and the earth system. (YDS)

The following three articles in the Learning Connections section (pp. 45?55) consider how technology might be used to facilitate whole-class inquiry in science, mathematics, and social studies classrooms. These illustrative examples are intended tol stimulate thought and discussion among teachers, technology coordinators, and school leaders about…