Teacher Bibliography

Science Is... by Susan Bosak is a "must-have" teacher and homeschool resource with a variety of quality activities for classrooms in all areas of science. ISBN 0-590-74070-9

Geology Rocks: 50 Hands-On Activities to Explore the Earth by Cindy Blobaum is an excellent activities resource for teachers, parents, and children. ISBN 1-885593-29-5

Geology Crafts for Kids: 50 Nifty Projects to Explore the Marvels of Planet Earth by Alan Anderson, Gwen Diehn, and Terry Krautwurst is an excellent activities resource for teachers, parents, and children. ISBN 0-8069-8156-3

Hands-on Nature: Information and Activities for Exploring the Environment with Children by The Vermont Institute of Natural Science is a wonderful teacher resource which contains hundreds of activities, including outdoor investigations, puppet shows, and more. The Erosion and the Pebbles and Rocks puppet shows are especially appropriate for an erosion unit. Assign small groups of students to create props and conduct this puppet show for your class or other classes. This is a great life science resource for the elementary classroom. Copies can be ordered at 1-800-421-1561. ISBN 1-58465-078-8

http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=2184 - Small pieces of paper are used to model the effects of the wind on soil erosion.

http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=15092 -

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/engineer/facts/12-053.htm - Soil Erosion – Causes and Effects Fact Sheet

http://userpages.bright.net/~double/erode.htm - example experiments

Haury, D. L. (1993) Teaching Science through Inquiry. ERIC/CSMEE Digest. www.eric.ed.gov. This article addresses the benefits of teaching science through inquiry. Inquiry based programs have generally been found to enhance students performance especially in laboratory skills, understanding graphing and interpreting data. Inquiry related teaching is also helpful in helping students understand the scientific process and build vocabulary knowledge.

Ryan, P., & Walking-Woman, L. (2000). Linking Writing to the Process of Scientific Inquiry: Strategies from Writing Teachers in the Disciplines. Paper presented at Annual Meeting of Conference on College Composition and Communication. This paper encourages teachers to help students use writing as a tool of inquiry. In the disciplines of science, there is benefit for students when completing “hands-on” activities to use writing as a tool of thinking. Rather that just giving answers, students should use writing to show evidences, synthesize data and make conclusions. Writing, when associated with inquiry, can require students to find data and develop skills for dealing with methods of reporting.

Wolf, D. P. (1987). The Art of Questioning. Academic Connections, 1-7.This article attends to the issue that teachers need to develop positive questioning strategies in the classroom. Teachers have the ability, through their range of questioning, to guide students to discover new information. Some of these methods of questioning include inference, (going beyond the available information), interpretation (filling in missing information), hypothesis (predictions & testing), and reflective (what do I know?). If teachers use questions to provoke an atmosphere of inquiry and personally process “when to ask,” “who to ask,” and “how to ask and respond,” then classrooms will provide students with more learning possibilities.