I have several students this year who are really into science. I’d like to provide or suggest some elementary-level projects or activities that parents can do with them at home to encourage this interest. Do you have any ideas beyond book lists and activity sheets?    —M. from Maryland

Your desire to foster student interest in science through science activities with their families is commendable. Creating formal projects for this group of students would require time on your part to organize and could be a burden for families in terms of time and resources. But there are many ways to involve students and parents with informal and enjoyable science-related activities.

In your school or class newsletter, website, or blog, include information about free events at local parks, nature centers, libraries, or museums. Encourage students who attend these events to share their experiences and photographs. NSTA’s SciLinks can help you create a list of appropriate websites related to your unit topics that you could share with parents.

Annotate the school or class calendar with prompts for family conversations (What is your first memory of being outdoors? How have inventions and technology changed over the years? Play I Spy at home and find objects made of metal, plastic, glass, wood. Talk about where food comes from.) If you involve other subject areas, every day on the calendar can have a conversation-starter. Encourage children and their parents/caregivers to build with blocks, walk and play outside if possible, grow a garden or even a few house plants, observe a pet’s behavior, or cook together (reinforcing measurement, nutrition). If your students and their parents speak another language at home, it would be helpful to have several versions of your suggestions.

I worked with an elementary school that had take-home “kits” in plastic bags, created by volunteers from a high school service group (backpacks or pizza boxes could also be used to organize the kits). The student- and parent-friendly materials were donated or bought at a dollar store or flea market. For science, these kits included CDs or DVDs with podcasts of science programs, trade books to read at home with suggested discussion questions, small collections (such as leaves, seashells, rocks, or pictures) with directions on sorting or identifying, a plastic ruler and a magnifying glass with some simple directions for observing and collecting data, maps of the night sky for star gazing, an inexpensive pair of binoculars and a field guide on birds, and sets of building blocks. Students signed out a kit to take home, and they were not “graded” on the use of the kits. Of course, some kits never made it back to the classroom, but that didn’t discourage the teachers from continuing the project. A project such as this would require your time or a group of volunteers to create, sign out, inventory, and replenish the kits.

Students could make small journals to take home with suggestions on each page for something to observe, illustrate, and write about (e.g., the weather, phases of the moon, insects, clouds). If you have a class website, students and parents could send photographs or writing to include (you would want to monitor and moderate this process, however, and provide guidelines and examples).

You could suggest citizen-science or collaborative research in which students, parents, and teachers participate in existing projects with science institutions and organizations. SciStarter is a searchable collection of these projects–regional, national, and international. There are projects appropriate for all grade levels and on a variety of topics. It’s a win-win scenario for all involved—the sponsor gets additional observers and data-collectors, parents and their children can work together on them, and the students get experiences that can extend into careers or lifelong learning. Follow SciStarter on Faceboook or Twitter for the latest projects.

Some parents may feel that they don’t have enough background in science, but how you introduce and promote the activities can encourage them to learn with their children. You’re giving “home” work a whole new life!

Additional resources and suggestions from NSTA:

• This Earth Day, Engage Kids in Citizen Science!
• Citizen science: Collaborative projects for teachers and their class
• Community-based science
• Citizen Science: Engaging Students Through Public Collaboration in Scientific Research
• Citizen Science (December 2012, The Science Teacher)
• Community-Based Science (March 2010, Science Scope)
• Getting Families Involved (February 2012, Science & Children)
• Informal science is one of NSTA’s online discussion forums
• Peggy Ashbrook, author of the monthly Early Years Column in Science and Children and the Early Years blog has been an advocate of citizen science for our youngest scientists.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/glaciernps/4427417055/in/photostream/

Is your science classroom equipped for success? Or are you teaching with limited resources? Either way, the K–College journals from the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) have the answers you need. Written by science teachers for science teachers, these peer-reviewed journals are targeted to your teaching level and are packed with lesson plans, expert advice, and ideas for using whatever time/space you have available. Browse the January issues; they are online (see below), in members’ mailboxes, and ready to inspire teachers!

Science and Children

An interaction of two or more things can be considered a system, and the resulting system can help us understand phenomena. This issue explores systems and the models used to understand them.

Featured articles (please note, only those marked “free” are available to nonmembers without a fee):

• Design in the Watershed
• Free – Editor’s Note: Systems and System Models
• EQuIP-ped for Success
• In the Watery World
• Modeling Change With Clay
• Printing the Playground
• Free – Virtual Modeling
• Full Table of Contents

Science Scope

Many of us have probably witnessed our footprints in the sand being washed away by the incoming tide. Unfortunately, the cumulative weight of our species footprint on our planet grows each day and is not so easily erased. To explore the ever-threatening human impact on Earth systems, check out the articles in this issue.

Featured articles (please note, only those marked “free” are available to nonmembers without a fee):

• Aliens Invade and Drop Off Litter
• Free – Editor’s Roundtable: Branching Out on the Family Tree
• Free – EQuiP-ped for Success: A Rubric to Help Implement the Next Generation Science Standards
• Life With Limited Resources: Using Aquatic Plants to Study Resource Consumption
• No Space? Little Money? No Garden? Not So Fast!
• Plotting Plants: Tracking Invasive Species in the Local Community
• The Human Impact on Earthquakes: Natural Fracturing Versus Fracking
• Full Table of Contents

The Science Teacher

Project-based learning can be an important instructional model for meeting the three-dimensional learning goals of the Next Generation Science Standards. Complex, real-world projects provide opportunities for students to deeply engage in multiple science and engineering practices—like developing and using models, constructing explanations, and engaging in argument from evidence—while learning specific disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts that can be used to make sense of phenomena and design solutions to relevant problems. This issue offers a variety of examples that may inspire you to try project-based science in your own classroom.

Featured articles (please note, only those marked “free” are available to nonmembers without a fee):

• Free – Editor’s Corner: Project-Based Science Learning
• EQuIP-ped for Success
• Global Warning
• Near-Space Science
• Free – Project-Based Science
• The Community Connection
• Treating Pompe Disease
• Full Table of Contents

Journal of College Science Teaching

Can online homework assignments predict the development of problem-solving skills for students taking an introductory physics course? See “The Role of Online Homework” to find out. Read about an innovative student-centered program with a focus on research designed to increase STEM retention rates of underrepresented students. Also, don’t miss the study that examines the teaching beliefs and practices of science faculty with education specialties and how these beliefs and practices relate to national pedagogical reform efforts.

Featured articles (please note, only those marked “free” are available to nonmembers without a fee):

• Case Study: Grandma’s TUM-my Trouble: A Case Study in Renal Physiology and Acid-Base Balance
• Changing College Majors: Does It Happen More in STEM and Do Grades Matter?
• Developing University and Community Partnerships: A Critical Piece of Successful Service Learning
• Incorporating More Individual Accountability in Group Activities in General Chemistry
• It Takes a Village to Make a Scientist: Reflections of a Faculty Learning Community
• Planning and Implementing a Comprehensive Student-Centered Research Program for First-Year STEM Undergraduates
• Research and Teaching: A New “Class” of Undergraduate Professors: Examining Teaching Beliefs and Practices of Science Faculty With Education Specialties
• Research and Teaching: Effects of a Science Content Course on Elementary Preservice Teachers’ Self-Efficacy of Teaching Science
• Research and Teaching: Implementing Comprehensive Reform of Introductory Physics at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution: A Longitudinal Case Study
• Free – The Role of Online Homework in Low-Enrollment College Introductory Physics Courses
• Two-Year Community: Learning How Students Learn: An Exploration of Self-Regulation Strategies in a Two-Year College General Chemistry Class
• Full Table of Contents

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