All Elementary resources
Web Seminar
Archive: School & District Leaders: Engage Your Teacher Groups with NSTA! April 11, 2024
School and district leaders are invited to learn about NSTA’s School & District Partner Program. The NSTA School & District Partner Program provides personalized professional learning for groups of K–12 educators of science....
Journal Article
Nature at your door: Partnering with families to support nature-based engagement
Through regular classroom communications teachers facilitate family partnership in nature-based learning. Teachers can promote family engagement in the local environment and foster lifelong naturalists with a strong commitment to the earth through co...
By Jennifer Gallo-Fox, Ariadni Kouzeli
Journal Article
This article presents a framework to design lesson plans for elementary science teachers using insights from a summer-long research experience for teachers (RET) workshop (National Science Foundation, 2021) to learn strategies to weave ISK (and WMS) ...
By Linda Rost, Rebecca Hite, Gina Childers
Journal Article
Science in the elementary grades is often deprioritized in comparison to ELA and mathematics. We wondered, how comprehensively, frequently, and consistently is science included in elementary schools’ schedules? We reviewed daily schedules for 14 sc...
By Elizabeth Davis, Christa Haverly
Journal Article
Designing Trellises: Cultivating Science and Engineering in the Garden
Schoolyards and school gardens present a rich context for students to engage with engineering and design. We describe the Designing Trellises unit, an example of a guided 3rd-5th grade engineering experience in the garden. In this unit, students work...
By Emily Harris, Ilana Lowe, Lindsey Mohan, Whitney Cohen, Sara Severance, Terra Giotta, Carlo Albano, Jeffrey Snowden
Journal Article
Science 101...
By Matthew Bobrowsky
Journal Article
In an age where catastrophic damage from climate-related events circulates through social and print media, it is important to build communities of hope for our elementary students (Hestness, et al., 2019, Sanchez, et al., 2021). Climate justice educa...
By Candace Penrod
Journal Article
In this edition of Tech Talk, climate education is addressed with two engaging digital resources: the Maine Online Open-Source Education (MOOSE) Climate Education Module and Google Earth. Climate education resources for elementary students, specifica...
By Heather Pacheco-Guffrey
Journal Article
Community Connections to Support Early Science Learning
Community resources offer extensions of early science learning that can deepen connections to the local ecosystem. This column offers ideas to extend early childhood classroom science through community mapping....
By Alissa Lange
Journal Article
Community Gardens as Places for Ecological Caring in Action
Current and future Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) students must grapple with one of the most pressing scientific issues of the century: climate change. Teaching about climate change with our youngest learners requ...
By Amal Ibourk, Lauren Wagner, Deb Morrison, Syrena Young, Justin Milledge
Journal Article
Civic Engagement for Climate Action, Resilience, and Hope for Local Waterways
Climate education in elementary grades offers a chance to teach climate science, to help students understand how serious climate change is, to focus on ecosystems and global social systems, and to work toward justice-oriented solutions. This article ...
By Melissa Braaten, Tiffany Boyd, Jessica Bean
Journal Article
Children experience and grapple with the ongoing effects of climate change in their daily lives. While they did not cause climate change nor should they have to solve it, children deserve educational opportunities to understand why and how it occurs ...
By Kathleen Schenkel, Cassie J. Brownell, Jon M. Wargo