Explore-Before-Explain

Guest Editorial

Editor's Note November-December 2024

With environmental issues and awareness rising globally, our connection to the natural world is clearly critical, but education that teaches children how to relate to local plants and animals is seemingly lacking in elementary curriculum. For an undergraduate honor’s thesis, an environmental education program was created utilizing the 5E instructional model. This program, focusing on species identification and nature journaling, was developed for third and fifth graders and implemented at a local elementary school. During the program, students distinguished between groups of plants and animals, learned to look closely at local flora and fauna, explored the importance of recording the world around them, and spent time outside on the school’s nature trail. Overall, the students were eager to learn about local plants and animals and enjoyed utilizing scientific resources such as field guides and nature journals. Additionally, the children were highly motivated by the interactive indoor and outdoor activities, implementing problem solving and creativity throughout. Using the outdoor space at the school’s facility was a very effective and fun way for students to connect with the flora and fauna around them. This kind of education can be implemented widely across school facilities, leading future generations towards environmental stewardship.

This article summarizes our research findings, investigating instructional adaptations elementary science teachers make to accommodate a growing population of Karen immigrant students. Hailing from the war-torn country of Myanmar, Karen students, who have cultural backgrounds generally unknown to U.S. trained teachers, face unique challenges, including PTSD and cultural differences that impact their expectations for classroom participation. Clinical interviews conducted with teachers about how they differentiate and adapt their elementary science instruction reveal that there are great learning benefits when teachers emphasize the significance of building relationships and creating a safe learning environment. Particularly when teaching science, interview data showed teachers find that they need to highlight the use of visual aids, hands-on learning, and technology integration as they emerge as effective strategies. We also found that teachers needed to reduce the amount of out of class homework, carefully considering language barriers and family responsibilities, while still maintaining academic rigor. Teachers further stress that relationships with students, using parallel language, and the need for ESL/cultural training for teachers are keys to success. The results of this study reveal the resilience and eagerness of Karen students to succeed when provided with supportive, culturally sensitive learning environments.

This article shares the experiences of three elementary teachers who took steps to transform their roles from speakers to listeners. After participating in a professional learning (PL) project that uses science to support English language practices, teachers re-positioned themselves to learn alongside and hear the brilliance of their emergent multilingual students in ways that re-positioned children as knowers with agency. Each teacher created three-lesson learning sequences which moved away from traditional lesson plans, as a steppingstone toward science storylines. Here they share vignettes highlighting important moments in their transformation which illustrate the power of listening to and learning alongside children, along with a description of the lesson sequence and the associated NGSS. We conclude with suggestions and reflection prompts to support educators who want to enact student-centered practices, including using a notice and wonder charts, using shorter lesson sequences before moving toward storylines, using prompts to invite children’s lived experiences, having a range of accessible materials on hand, and re-examining familiar teaching practices.

The creative opportunity inherent in developing a STEM project is a great opportunity for preservice teachers. This article outlines a project in which a Science Education professor collaborated with an elementary STEM teacher to provide background on STEM and then work together with preservice teachers to create a new STEM project for a fifth grade classroom. In order to apply concepts learned about sound, the project tasked students with creating a model of a soundproof room, taking account for the ways in which different materials absorbed sound differently. The preservice teachers then taught this lesson with the support of the elementary STEM teacher and the Science Education professor. The elementary STEM teacher continued with the use of the project the following year, sharing revisions from the first iteration.

Starting to teach science through inquiry can be intimidating for teachers who don’t have much experience with it. Some concerns about teaching science through inquiry often come from misunderstandings of what science entails (Authors et al., 2015). Yet, when students are taught through inquiry, they are often more engaged, curious, and learn more about science (Minner et al., 2010; von Renesse & Ecke, 2017). This article provides an example of how we started incorporating more aspects of teaching science through inquiry by having students engage in argumentation that some changes caused by heating and cooling can be reversed and some cannot (2-PS1-4) (NGSS Lead States, 2013). In this sense, we are warming up to inquiry by startin with a more guided process. Throughout the article, we work to strike a balance between student decision-making and teacher scaffolding by using a 5E.

Science learning that is connected with students’ experiences and interests has shown to be critical in fostering student enthusiasm for science and may be linked to later educational and career choices. Teachers, however, often feel pressure to teach curriculum quickly, without depth, disregarding student interests and experiences. Desiring a richer experience for our students, we re-evaluated our curriculum to make room for a year-long student-driven passion project that would allow our students choice in their learning and afford them the opportunity to dive deep into a topic of their interest. In this article, we share how we promoted students’ wonder about the world, structuring weekly sessions to help them identify and narrow down their “jams.” We explain how we promoted development of cross-curricular skills as they learned about, then communicated their passions. From our Friday “jam sessions” to our spring Jamboree, students were thoroughly engaged in finding, researching and sharing their passions. The reception to this project has been so positive and student engagement extraordinary. We can’t imagine a year without “jammin’” with our students. Through authentic choice, students had control over their own learning, which proved to be a strong motivator for all!

In a Community School located in a First Nation in Northern Ontario, grade 3 students draw on their connection with the land and their own background knowledge through a Land-Exploration-Based Approach to learn about structures and their functions. This method allowed students to become primary investigators in their own learning. In preparation for a summative engineering task, students first engaged in various activities to promote both cultural and scientific understanding. An outdoor Snowshoe Discovery Walk provided the opportunity for students to independently identify various structures found in nature along with the co-creation of working classroom definitions. A comparison of natural and human-built structures found in their surroundings was implemented to further develop foundational learning. In the classroom, students engaged in learning about and constructing beaver dams to cultivate essential engineering and design skills. The culminating activity was introduced through the integration of Indigenous stories to foster cultural relevance in students as they partook in designing and testing an animal shelter of their choosing. This holistic approach to teaching effectively engaged students, promoted curiosity, and built on their knowledge of structures and functions all while developing collaboration and problem-solving skills. Next steps are directed at solution improvement in the design process.