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Using Argument to Reason About Science Practice
Journal Article |
We have been working for nearly two decades with teachers across all grade bands to promote productive argumentation. From this experience, and those of others interested in the same goals, we have extracted a simple…
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Growing Students' Meaning-Making
Journal Article |
In this sensemaking lesson, K–2 students explore how different factors influence seed germination and explain the elements necessary to sprout. Notebook strategies are embedded throughout the explore-before-explain…
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Computational Modeling With Multilingual Learners
Journal Article |
While the vision for science education through A Framework for K–12 Science Education (NRC 2012) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) continues to take hold in classrooms across the nation, computational…
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Journal Article |
Cardboard, a common maker space material, is inexpensive, readily available, and durable. It is also easy to manipulate. It can be folded, cut, painted, and taped or glued together. Caine’s Arcade, a video featuring…
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Making the Most of Field Trips
Journal Article |
Field trips can be a unique way to engage elementary students in science content. However, budget cuts and a focus on standardized testing are causing some schools to greatly reduce the funding for field trips (Meyer…
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The Astronomical Event of the Decade
Journal Article |
On Saturday, October 14, 2023, and then again on Monday, April 8, 2024, sky gazers all across North America will experience what is arguably the most breathtaking of astronomical phenomena: a solar eclipse. During the…
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Outdoor Teaching and Learning in Natural Spaces and Outdoor Classrooms
Journal Article |
On a humid, sunny day in late July, a group of middle school science teachers closed out three days of teacher professional development (PD) on a nature hike at a forest preserve. Here they engaged as learners, looking…
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Journal Article |
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins said, “There are those who fear reason as cold, bleak, cheerless, unpoetic. That’s not just untrue; it’s the very opposite of true. Science is the poetry of reality” (Dawkins 2016…
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Journal Article |
Writing these columns often requires a considerable amount of reading and then thinking—both alone and always out loud to my wife as I try to explain to both of us what I have been reading. To be honest, this column…
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Journal Article |
Beavers are social mammals who live in groups, known as colonies, and they construct dams and lodges, which modify the surrounding landscape. In their role as “ecosystem engineers,” beavers are considered to be a “…
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Student Uncertainty as a Pedagogical Resource (SUPeR)
Journal Article |
As suggested in A Framework for K–12 Science Education (National Research Council 2012), “Scientific knowledge is a particular kind of knowledge with its own sources, justifications, ways of dealing with uncertainties…
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Teach Sublimation With Markers!
Journal Article |
Sublimation, the change of state from solid to gas, is a challenging concept for many students to grasp and a curious phenomenon to investigate. Our everyday experiences teach us about melting, freezing, and evaporation…
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Journal Article |
Questions are powerful tools teachers can use to understand and scaffold students’ thinking (Clough 2007). However, not all questions are equally effective at eliciting students’ ideas or scaffolding their thinking. For…
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Journal Article |
Students with visual impairments are often the only students at their school who read braille. They often do not participate in science fairs, in some cases because of low expectations on the part of educators and in…
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Hearing All Voices to Promote Learning Orientation and Effective Collaboration
Journal Article |
Motivation and collaboration intersect in important ways in a science classroom. One important motivational component of collaborative work is what students understand the goal of that work to be (Ames 1992). When…
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