This is a phenomenological study of the relationships between university supervisors, in-service and pre-service teachers (triads). Two triads participated in a joint pre-service and in-service professional development project. Multiple indepth interviews were completed with each triad member to better record and resolve the varied experiences of the participants. Through using positioning theory as a lens for interpreting data, triad dynamics were explicated to understand relationships within these groups and the factors surrounding these relationships. The following are the key research findings: (1) when triads were engaged in projects that promoted participants' synthesis of products as they enlist what they are learning, collaborative positioning occurred; (2) adequate time for interactions led to another influential social force: the establishment of trust and relationships; and (3) uncertainty in expectations can act as an inhibitive social force for collaborations.

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Environmental education aims to increase awareness and knowledge about the environment, resulting in positive changes in attitude and increased personal involvement in environmental issues (Bogner, 1998; UNESCO and UNEP, 1977). Integrating environmental education into an elementary school curriculum can be an effective way of meeting these goals because children are excited about learning and are still developing attitudes about the world around them (Iozzi, 1989; Jaus, 1982). Furthermore, elementary school children are capable of forming opinions about the environment and understanding environmental stewardship (Bryant and Hungerford, 1977; Barratt Hacking et al., 2007). Involving youth in environmental education programs has the potential to create a positive feedback loop in which learners are more likely to involve themselves in positive environmental action in the future (Schusler et al., 2009). Successful environmental education programs for youth have found that combined classroom and field-based instruction is more

Early elementary teachers are under great pressure to teach all children to read and write at highly proficient levels while simultaneously emphasizing STEM instruction to prepare students for the 21st century. Traditionally, literacy skills are taught in isolation from science instruction. However, reading and writing are the perfect tools to use for inquiry and reasoning, for creating a hypothesis, and for gathering, evaluating, and analyzing data. In this article, the authors describe how literacy and science instruction can be merged to create innovative, stimulating, and enriching learning experiences for young children.

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