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A challenge facing many schools, especially those in urban settings that serve culturally and linguistically diverse populations, is a disconnection between schools and students' home communities, which can have both cognitive and affective implications for students. In this article we explore a form of “connected science,” in which real‐world problems and school‐community partnerships are used as contextual scaffolds for bridging students' community‐based knowledge and school‐based knowledge, as a way to provide all students opportunities for meaningful and intellectually challenging science learning. The potential of these scaffolds for connected science is examined through a case study in which a team of fifth‐grade teachers used the student‐identified problem of pollution along a nearby river as an interdisciplinary anchor for teaching science, math, language arts, and civics. Our analysis makes visible how diverse forms of knowledge were able to support project activities, examines the consequences for student learning, and identifies the features of real‐world problems and school–community partnerships that created these bridging opportunities. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 878–898, 2001

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This forum consists of two commentaries-authored by Lisa M. Bouillion and Randi Engle, respectively-on the feature article by Ingeborg Krange, who, in turn, responds in a rejoinder. Information on how to reference the commentaries and the rejoinder is provided in footnotes.A Response to ''Students' Conceptual Practices in Science Education'' 1 Lisa M. Bouillion, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignKrange's study (2006) contributes to our understanding of students' conceptual practices as sociocultural phenomena by examining the mediating influences in those practices as they dynamically unfold over the course of time. The guiding framework in this case places questions of conceptual practice within the systems of participation that include students and their teacher interacting with each other, as well as with varied physical and representational tools. In this study, Krange focuses specifically on the intersecting influence of the knowledge domain (sequencing a DNA molecule) and a computer-supported learning environment designed to structure and support the group's problem solving practices. In this response, I offer thoughts on how the analyses in this study might be extended through a broader temporal view, as well as use of third space theorizations (e.g. Moje et al. 2004) and the related construct of hybridity.