Teach scientific concepts and the inquiry process with self-contained, hands-on lab activities while improving students' critical thinking skills. Students will learn the scientific process and build content knowledge. Teacher Resource CD provides all labs as printable PDFs.

Uncover the M.A.D. (motivated and driven) scientists in learners (grades 3-5) through the inquiry process! Teach scientific concepts and the inquiry process through self-contained, hands-on lab activities, while helping learners to improve their critical thinking skills and build content knowledge. This resource teaches learners how to create inquiry notebooks to record their developing science knowledge through writing and drawing. The activities are suitable for all language levels and require minimal prior knowledge. Includes a Teacher Resource CD with PDFs of all labs. This resource is aligned to the interdisciplinary themes from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and supports core concepts of STEM instruction. 192 pages + CD

Uncover the M.A.D. (motivated and driven) scientists in K-2 learners through the inquiry process! Teach scientific concepts and the inquiry process through self-contained, hands-on lab activities, while helping learners to improve their critical thinking skills and build content knowledge. This resource teaches learners how to create inquiry notebooks to record their developing science knowledge through writing and drawing. The activities are suitable for all language levels and require minimal prior knowledge. Includes a Teacher Resource CD with PDFs of all labs. This resource is aligned to the interdisciplinary themes from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and supports core concepts of STEM instruction.192 pages + CD

Help students create scientific hypotheses and record jaw-dropping results with these interactive activities designed to develop their critical thinking and conceptual knowledge. Standards-Based Investigations: Science Labs provides high-interest content suitable for students in grades 3–5 with lab experiments using the inquiry process. Gaining scientific knowledge through writing and drawing in observation notebooks, students will record and analyze steps, processes, and results. This resource supports core concepts of STEM instruction and builds college and career readiness skills.

Science, engineering, and technology permeate nearly every facet of modern life and hold the key to solving many of humanity's most pressing current and future challenges. The United States' position in the global economy is declining, in part because U.S. workers lack fundamental knowledge in these fields. To address the critical issues of U.S. competitiveness and to better prepare the workforce, A Framework for K-12 Science Education proposes a new approach to K-12 science education that will capture students' interest and provide them with the necessary foundational knowledge in the field. A Framework for K-12 Science Education outlines a broad set of expectations for students in science and engineering in grades K-12. These expectations will inform the development of new standards for K-12 science education and, subsequently, revisions to curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development for educators. This book identifies three dimensions that convey the core ideas and practices around which science and engineering education in these grades should be built. These three dimensions are: crosscutting concepts that unify the study of science through their common application across science and engineering; scientific and engineering practices; and disciplinary core ideas in the physical sciences, life sciences, and earth and space sciences and for engineering, technology, and the applications of science. The overarching goal is for all high school graduates to have sufficient knowledge of science and engineering to engage in public discussions on science-related issues, be careful consumers of scientific and technical information, and enter the careers of their choice. A Framework for K-12 Science Education is the first step in a process that can inform state-level decisions and achieve a research-grounded basis for improving science instruction and learning across the country. The book will guide standards developers, teachers, curriculum designers, assessment developers, state and district science administrators, and educators who teach science in informal environments.

Science Lessons & Investigations presents science learning through in-depth investigation and observation, supporting Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Each unit guides students through exploring a science concept and includes hands-on activities to extend teaming. This robust teaching resource gives you everything you need, including teacher support pages, informational text and graphics, vocabulary review, reading and writing activities, and hands-on science projects. Students apply science, technology, engineering, and math concepts to solve real-world problems. Each of the 15 units focuses on a hands-on challenge in which students work together as engineers to design, prototype, test, and refine their creations. Topics support NGSS. Book jacket.

"It may be that I have stumbled upon an adequate description of life itself." These modest yet profound words trumpet an imminent paradigm shift in scientific, economic, and technological thinking. In the tradition of Schrödinger's classic What Is Life?, Kauffman's Investigations is a tour-de-force exploration of the very essence of life itself, with conclusions that radically undermine the scientific approaches on which modern science rests--the approaches of Newton, Boltzman, Bohr, and Einstein. Building on his pivotal ideas about order and evolution in complex life systems, Kauffman finds that classical science does not take into account that physical systems--such as people in a biosphere--effect their dynamic environments in addition to being affected by them. These systems act on their own behalf as autonomous agents, but what defines them as such? In other words, what is life? Kauffman supplies a novel answer that goes beyond traditional scientific thinking by defining and explaining autonomous agents and work in the contexts of thermodynamics and of information theory. Much of Investigations unpacks the progressively surprising implications of his definition. Significantly, he sets the stages for a technological revolution in the coming decades. Scientists and engineers may soon seek to create autonomous agents--both organic and mechanical--that can not only construct things and work, but also reproduce themselves! Kauffman also lays out a foundation for a new concept of organization, and explores the requirements for the emergence of a general biology that will transcend terrestrial biology to seek laws governing biospheres anywhere in the cosmos. Moreover, he presents four candidate laws to explain how autonomous agents co-create their biosphere and the startling idea of a "co-creating" cosmos. A showcase of Kauffman's most fundamental and significant ideas, Investigations presents a new way of thinking about the fundamentals of general biology that will change the way we understand life itself--on this planet and anywhere else in the cosmos.