Using narratives about science in the classroom as a tool for teaching and learning, this text helps prepare teachers to build their own science knowledge and learn from students experiences. Each science story illustrates key concepts by showing children and teachers doing science together, thus demonstrating content, learning, and strategies in action.

The Expanding Meanings sections which follow each story provide key pedagogy by offering the Teaching Ideas Behind the Story, the Science Ideas Behind the Story, and the Science Standards Behind the Story. In addition, Questions and Resources for Further Exploration challenge readers to explore on their own.

• New! To highlight the important role standards currently play in science education, new sections called The Science Standards Behind the Story examine the specific national standards content addressed in each story.
• New! Chapter 14, Elementary School Science Content: The Big Ideas, the Curriculum and Your Scientific Self, meets the needs of students who require more information on the science domains and their underlying ideas. This chapter invites readers to consider how to take the material they read about science and make it their own. To tie the many topics in this chapter together, the author explores science content across the boundaries that traditionally divide earth science, physical science, and life science.
• New! Useful Internet resources and an overall emphasis on technology as a connection to science learning are included throughout the text, and in Chapter 13 in particular.
• New! Updated terminology and topics reflect current policy shifts and changes in the field.
• New! A dedicated project-based learning web site features MST background information, projects, and stories.

1. An Invitation to Elementary School Science

I. The Scientist Within

2. Locating Your Scientific Self
3. Children's Scientific Selves

II. Doing Science with Children: Inquiry in Practice

4. The Teacher as Mediator
5. The Science Circus: Using the Skills of Scientific Study
6. Making Connections: Science in the Students Own Environment
7. Science Is Not Neat: Explorations of Matter
8. Sustained Inquiry: Explorations of Living Things
9. Extending Curriculum: Explorations of Liquids
10. Making Models: Explorations of the Solar System
11. Expanding the Science Box: Explorations of Electricity

III. Creating the Science Experience in Your Classroom

12. Planning for Science: Lesson Plans and Instructional Strategies
13. Elementary School Science and Technology: A Seamless Connection
14. Elementary School Science Content: The Big Ideas, the Curriculum, and Your Scientific Self
15. What's the Big Idea? Assessing What Students Know and Are Able to Do
16. Pulling It All Together: Reflection and Self-Assessment

More Resources for Teachers
Glossary
References
Index