This study investigated the effect of place-based teaching practices on students' environmental literacy in the Life Science course of 3rd grade primary school students. The research was designed according to the mixed methods model. In this study, the experimental group was taught with place-based teaching practices for 10 weeks, while the…

"Productive Uncertainty in Science Education" provides the support that teachers and students need for more complex science investigations. Science is driven by the need to manage uncertainty--uncertainty about how to explain the world, but also how to represent the world in an investigation, what to measure, and how to convince peers to…

Young children's scientific attitude is a basic norm of human kind to cultivated actual learning which has been an expected to be a curious, motivated, generous and responsible person. The study aims to investigate scientific attitude of young children through literature-based and project-based learning organization (LPBL). Participants were 25…

Science teachers have been urged to use emerging technologies, such as robots, in ways that empower K-12 students as active participants responsible for their learning and knowledge development within the scientific domain. And yet, little is known about whether the use of robots effectively supports students' epistemic agency in science learning.…

Despite recommendations from science educational standards which claim that science teaching should engage students in scientific investigations the same way scientists practice their profession to discover the unknown, thereby allowing students to actively construct their own knowledge, a growing body of empirical evidence suggests that this may…

Student engagement in math and science courses decreases starting in middle school and continues throughout high school (Museus, et al., 2011). This lack of engagement results in students taking only the required math and science coursework and not advanced coursework that would help prepare them for future careers in science, technology,…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" call for engaging students in practices that scientists and engineers use (NGSS Lead States 2013), but it's also important to explicitly teach thinking approaches that scientists and engineers use. One way to help children think and act like scientists and engineers is to engage them with…

Each fall at harvest time, young students in the authors' part of the Midwest visit apple orchards to learn more about the life cycle of plants. This tradition is one part of a larger unit centered on apples, integrating life science with language arts and social studies. The authors partnered with kindergarten teachers at several schools to…

PEOE (predict, explain, observe, explain) is a strategy that supports conceptual change (Dial et al. 2009). "Conceptual change" is a process through which students can change their understandings, ideas, or beliefs (diSessa 1993; Konicek-Moran and Keeley 2015). This style of lesson allows students to express their scientific ideas…

Will spring be early next year? This is a question the authors ponder each fall as they prepare for a yearlong citizen science project with kindergartners. Citizen science projects naturally promote the development of science and engineering practices. These projects can be integrated at any grade level and aligned to meet other content areas as…

Fidget spinners have become a fixation among school children and adults. Pappas (2017) hails spinners as both a boon to stress relief and a constraint on the ability to focus in persons with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or autism. Spinners can be a distraction in school classrooms, to the point that many schools have banned…

Model Eliciting Activities (MEAs) are pedagogical approaches that allow teachers to integrate multiple subjects into creative multi-day learning experiences that captivate students' curiosity and engage them in real-life problem solving. MEAs are known in the fields of mathematics and engineering (Gilat and Amit 2014), but despite their ability to…

When it snows, children are permitted to play outside during recess, which causes them to experience a variety of problems with their mittens or gloves. To align instruction with a problem student's experience in every day life, the authors developed and administered a short survey to second graders in an after school program. The authors found…

As part of the "Next Generation Science Standards" (K-LS1-1), students are expected to develop an understanding of what living things need in order to live and grow. The lessons provided in this article help students understand the difference between living and nonliving things, and help them acquire important background knowledge to…

The Pelican's Nest, located near Mobile Bay in the Gulf of Mexico, is a science center supported by a local educational foundation. Programs are geared toward marine wildlife and the coastal habitat with an emphasis on hands-on learning for students in grades K-6. The director of the science center conducts daily classroom labs and discovery trips…