Digital photography changed the way I do science with my students. I reflect more on what has happened and what is being left out as I look over the photos, in moments after school, at home on the computer. I have this luxury as a parent of older children who are themselves busy on the computer, and because I do some of my work at home.

Not every program has time or resources to use digital photography to document the science learning going on in their classes, but the children’s own work also reveals the learning taking place. Anytime children record their thinking with drawings, such as drawing an object they think will sink and an object they think will float (before trying to find out or drawing what happened after), they are documenting their science process skills. When recording observations, children make a record they can refer back to. In one classroom children drew the caterpillars as they grew, comparing them to a unit cube (which didn’t grow!). Over the week the growth was noticeable because they had their earliest drawings for comparison.
Have a few clipboards with paper and marker attached for children to carry to where the science is happening—in the block area children are discovering the need for a wide base, in the water table children are noticing the shape of drops, in the housekeeping area children are talking about how their family cooks, and in the book nook children are remembering a butterfly they saw outside that was different from the one in the book. Ask them, “Can you show me with a drawing? “Would you like me to write down your words?”
Peggy