Offers many suggestions for attracting and observing outdoor animals, presents suggestions for capturing and keeping insects, discusses tracking, and describes wild gardening.

BIOLOGY IS THE STUDY OF LIFE Life is everywhere, thriving in the city and in the country, teeming in ecosystems around the planet—in deserts, oceans, and even the Arctic. And life is right outside your door! Backyard Biology invites children ages 9 and up to investigate living things—especially in yards, parks, nature areas, and playgrounds. Trivia and fun facts bring animals, plants, and microorganisms to life, in all their wonder. Readers become Nature Detectives with activities and projects that encourage children to make discoveries. Children will construct a plankton net to collect pond samples, and they’ll grow microorganisms in a Winogradsky Column. They’ll discover what mystery plants sprout from collected soil samples and build a rolypoly habitat. When children experiment with phototropism and geotropism, they'll discover the ways plants move. In Backyard Biology, children will scout out different habitats to observe and investigate—and do their part to protect them.

The purpose of The Library-Classroom Partnership is to assist library teachers and classroom teachers to effectively use the library and its resources as an extension of the classroom. As in the earlier edition, the lessons included in this book stress the library media skills needed by individuals for lifelong learning. Long after adults have forgotten a particular fact of history or the techniques of balancing an equation, they continue to use library skills to answer their questions and to meet the demands of an ever-changing society. It has been well documented that the skills taught in a library are most effectively learned within the context of classroom work. To this end, the librarian and the teacher must form a working team to take each other's ideas and develop them into effective learning experiences for students. The authors have incorporated the teaching of those library media skills with every discipline taught in the school. Through these lessons, students will realize that research and reference are a vital part of the learning process, complementing and enriching every subject. The eleven disciplines (English, mathematics, social studies, science, art, music, home and careers, technology, physical education, health, and foreign language) normally taught in the junior high and middle schools are addressed in this work. To be included, a lesson must be a learning experience in both the library skills and the subject areas. Each unit has been cooperatively developed using the expertise of the school library media specialist and the subject teacher. All lessons have been implemented successfully in the junior high and middle school environment. This revised and expanded edition of The Library Classroom- Partnership also deals with technology and the changing economic and social conditions affecting public schools. It includes a new section on reading enrichment as well as instruction in accessing information electronically.

A teacher's guide and resource book for designing and conducting live animal activities that are non-invasive and observation-oriented.

This Open Access book examines children’s participation in dialectical reciprocity with place-based institutional practices by presenting empirical research from Australia, Brazil, China, Poland, Norway and Wales. Underpinned by cultural-historical theory, the analysis reveals how outdoors and nature form unique conditions for children's play, formal and informal learning and cultural formation. The analysis also surfaces how inequalities exist in societies and communities, which often limit and constrain families' and children's access to and participation in outdoor spaces and nature. The findings highlight how institutional practices are shaped by pedagogical content, teachers' training, institutional regulations and societal perceptions of nature, children and suitable, sustainable education for young children. Due to crises, such as climate change and the recent pandemic, specific focus on the outdoors and nature in cultural formation is timely for the cultural-historical theoretical tradition. In doing so, the book provides empirical and theoretical support for policy makers, researchers, educators and families to enhance, increase and sustain outdoor and nature education.

This bestselling book has been completely updated and expanded to help teachers use the project approach in child care centers, in preschools, and in kindergarten, 1st grade, and early childhood special education classrooms. For those new to using projects, the book introduces the approach and provides step-by-step guidance for conducting meaningful projects. Experienced teachers will find the teacher interviews, children's work, photographs (including full colour), and teacher journal entries used to document the project process in actual classrooms very useful. This popular, easy-to-use resource has been expanded to include these new features: explicit instructions and examples for incorporating standards into the topic selection and planning process; a variety of nature experiences, with examples that show how project work is an excellent way to connect children to the natural world; an update of the use of technology for both documentation and investigations, including use of the Web as well as and video and digital cameras; and more toddler projects that reflect our increased knowledge from recent mind/brain research about toddler understanding and learning.