Perspectives: Research & Tips to Support Science Education, K-6

This book provides research-based justification for the types of inquiry-based science practices we want K 6 teachers to be doing. It answers the questions Why does science need to be an elementary classroom? and What are the most effective approaches to teaching science in an elementary classroom? Editors Deborah Hanuscin and Meredith Park Rogers Here s a time-saving way to learn what research tells you about teaching elementary science and applying the findings both inside and outside your classroom. It s a collection of 27 Perspectives columns from Science and Children, NSTA s award-winning elementary-level journal. The book is organized in six science-specific sections, including general teaching goals, strategies to facilitate learning, student thinking and misconceptions, and your own professional development. The columns are written to make it easy to grasp the material and then use what research tells you about issues of specific interest to K 6 science instruction. Each column starts with a classroom vignette highlighting a particular challenge from using analogies to blending science and reading instruction to effective ways to ask questions; provides a synthesis of key research findings, organized as a series of questions; and concludes with specific advice you can use right away. This useful compendium is ideal for K 6 teachers as well as science supervisors and preservice elementary science methods professors who want more students to benefit from what research tells us.