Teaching the Nature of Science Through Process Skills: Activities for Grades 3-8

Engage your students with inquiry-based lessons that help them think like scientists!

”[This] book…has made such a difference in my teaching of science this school year. I have had some of the most amazing science lessons and activities with my students and I attribute this to what I learned from…[this] book… I have watched my 5th grade students go from being casual observers in science to making some amazing observations that I even missed. We enjoy our class investigations and the students ask for more!”

--Alyce F. Surmann, Sembach Middle School

"Teachers will relate well to the author's personal stories and specific examples given in the text, especially the ones about events in his own classroom.... like having the grasshoppers escape into the classroom!"

--Andrea S. Martine, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Warrior Run School District

With Teaching the Nature of Science through Process Skills, author and science educator Randy Bell uses process skills you’ll recognize, such as inference and observation, to promote an understanding of the characteristics of science knowledge. His personal stories, taken from years of teaching, set the stage for a friendly narrative that illuminates these characteristics of scientific knowledge and provides step-by-step guidance for implementing inquiry activities that help children understand such important, yet abstract, concepts. With Randy as your guide, you can better adhere to current science education standards that urge teachers to go beyond teaching science content to teach children about the practice and the nature of science in a way that engages all learners in grades three through eight.

Investigate further…

• More than 50 ideas and activities for teaching the nature of science to help you meet content standards.
• A comprehensive framework to guide you in integrating the approach across the science curriculum, throughout the school year, and across the grade levels.
• A goldmine of reproducible resources, such as work sheets, notebook assignments, and more.
• Assessment guidance that helps you measure your students’ nature of science understanding.

Randy L. Bell is a former high school science teacher and Oregon New Science Teacher of the Year. Currently he is an Associate Professor of Science Education at the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia. In addition to preparing science teachers, Randy has written a number of articles for both research journals and practitioner publications such asThe Science Teacher and Learning and Leading With Technology. He co-authored the elementary science methods textbook,Constructing Science in Elementary Classrooms (Allyn & Bacon, 2004), and co-edited two books,Science Units for Grades 9-12 (NETS-S Curriculum Series, ISTE, 2005) and Technology in the Secondary Science Classroom (NSF, in press).