To foster understanding, interest, and appreciation of the world in which we live
-encourage students' natural curiosity, develop procedural skills for investigating and problem-solving, consider the possibilities and limits of science and technology in human affairs, and build an understand of the nature of science and technology as fields of inquiry themselves

To "do" science, i.e. questioning and discovering, not just covering material
-essential spirit of science is one of process
-science involves higher-order cognitive thinking, and comparison and connection of phenomena from a variety of settings
-constructivist approach is much more effective which means activating children's prior knowledge about a phenomenon
-seeks to ensure that students really understand and retain and seen in a larger context of thought and inquiry
-teachers must organize and guide experiments so that the students engage in real problem solving--they are helped to generate real questions, realize apparent contradictions between pieces of data, pose alternate hypotheses, gather information to test them and analyze the meaning of the information

 Effective hands-on inquiry involves a series of steps that builds students' investigative skills
-scientific inquiry involves a number of distinct steps, but not lock-step, one after the other--able to jump back and forth
Questioning
Observation
Organizing data
Explanation
Reflection
Taking Action
-many process skill students learn as they carry out meaningful investigations:
classifying data                      defining operationally       designing experiments
communicating                      formulating models           hypothesizing
controlling variables              inferring                           interpreting
measuring                              observing                          predicting
questioning                            using space/time relationships
using numbers

  Will aim to develop thinking, problem solving, and attitudes of curiosity, healthy skepticism, and openness to modifying explanations
-following attitudes are important:
desiring knowledge
being skeptical, willing to question self-evident truths
relying on data, testing ideas rather than just accepting explanations
accepting ambiguity, holding off on an answer if data isn't clear
willing to modify explanations, being open to changing one's opinion
cooperating in problem solving, working effectively in groups
respecting reason, using logic to work out explanations
being honest, presenting data observed, rather than cookbook expectations

Can build a knowledge base focused on essential concepts, rather than disconnected topics or bits of information
-nine essential approaches characterize the study of nature:
organization
cause and effect
systems
change
structure and function
discontinuous and continuous properties
models
diversity
scale

 Students grow out of misconceptions and naïve theories only by actively engaging in investigations
-only through a process of active questioning, encountering contradictory data, and investigating it that students can internalize more accurate scientific concepts and perceive their plausibility and usefulness

Learning science means integrating reading, writing, speaking, and math
-not difficult to see how an effective science program involves a wide range of language and numeracy skills

Need to consider issues of application of science and technology
-technology addresses problems of human adaptation in the environment, while science attempts to answer questions about the natural world
-each influences the other
all technologies involve both gains and environmental costs, and most present various alternatives for solving a given problem

Good science teaching involves facilitation, collaborative group work, and a limited, judicious use of information-giving
-lecturing is not only unsupportive of hands-on investigation, but research shows that it is strikingly unsuccessful at influencing students' science concepts
-start with questions rather than with answers to be learned; engaging students actively in the use of hypotheses, the collection and use of evidence, and the design of investigations and processes; and placing a premium on students' curiosity and creativity

 Meaningful assessment of students' learning in science must promote the objectives of a good science curriculum, and not undermine them
-if teachers are to promote experiential work and thinking skills in science, then assessment should stress these as well
-informal but structured assessment based on teacher monitoring of group investigations can do this job very well
-use checklists to guide their observations, can have students fill out self-evaluation forms, and can in brief conferences, ask questions about why individuals or groups are proceeding in a particular way
-even written tests can be designed so that they focus on the process of finding an answer, rather than just the answer itself
-some questions can be designed so that they have more than one right answer, so as to recognize creative thinking and problem-solving.