ABSTRACT:Teaching literacy in inquiry-based science-teaching settings has recently become a focus of research in science education. Because professional scientists' uses of reading, writing, and speaking are foundational to their work, as well as to nonscientists' comprehension of it , it follows that literacy practices should also be central to science teaching. Science as a vehicle through which to develop literacy skills is an attractive alternative that some teachers choose in order to include science in their curriculum. In this paper, we present descriptions of three elementary teachers' efforts to teach literacy practices through science. Our descriptions, through which we illustrate a range of ways in which teachers link science and literacy instruction, are grounded in these teachers' accounts and our observations of their teaching. We end with a comparison of these teachers' approaches, and draw from this analysis considerations for implementing literacy instruction in elementary science education.

This paper offers an analysis into low-income, urban middle school children's sense of place and what and how their sense of place matters in science learning by focusing on the following questions: In what ways is students' sense of place leveraged in a science classroom? How does the content and context of science class shape how students leverage their sense of place? What learning opportunities emerge when sense of place is leveraged in class? Drawing from an ethnographic investigation into an environmental statistics class in a mid-sized public middle school, we examined sense of place events from their source, process, and outcome perspectives. Our findings are presented from two aspects of sense of place events, (1) characterizing students' sense of place by exploring sources of the sense of place events, and (2) examining processes of how students' sense of place is being leveraged in the episodes. We also examine two kinds of tensions that emerge in the class when sense of place is leveraged by students and acknowledged by the teacher: epistemological tensions (related to what the students are learning) and procedural tensions (related to how they are learning).

We conducted an evaluation of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's conservation education programs to determine to what extent they promote participants' environmentally responsible behavior and reduce teachers' perceived barriers to teaching about the bay. We assessed outcomes of five youth-and two teacher-education programs through pre-, post-, and retention-tests and mail questionnaires from samples of current and past participants. Based on improvements in characteristics that promote environmentally responsible behavior, such as perceived knowledge of issues and actions, environmental sensitivity, and-particularly-intention to act, we concluded that the education programs increased some youths' and many teachers' environmentally responsible behavior. We also concluded that the teacher-education programs facilitated teaching about the bay by reducing teachers' constraints. As a result of our evaluation, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation implemented several changes that administrators of similar conservation education programs may also want to consider. These changes include focusing programs to target specific, suitable goals; coordinating programs to provide experiences that build on one another; and conducting periodic evaluations. Evaluación de los Programas de Educación en Conservación de la Fundación Chesapeake BayResumen: Evaluamos los programas de educación en conservación de la Fundación Chesapeake Bay para determinar hasta donde promueven conductas ambientalmente responsables de los participantes y reducen las barreras percibidas por profesores para enseñar sobre la bahía. Evaluamos los resultados de cinco programas educativos para jóvenes y dos para profesores por medio de pruebas pre-, post-y de retención y cuestionarios por correo en muestras de participantes actuales y pasados. Con base en mejoras de las características que promueven conductas ambientalmente responsables, tal como el conocimiento percibido de asuntos y acciones, sensibilidad ambiental, y particularmente, intención de actuar, concluimos que los programas de educación incrementaron la conducta ambientalmente responsable de algunos jóvenes y de muchos profesores. También concluimos que los programas de educación para profesores facilitaron la enseñanza sobre la bahía al reducir apremios de los profesores. Como un resultado de nuestra evaluación la Fundación Chesapeake Bay instrumentó varios cambios que quizás también quisieran considerar programas de educación en conservación similares. Estos cambios incluyen orientar programas para alcanzar metas específicas y pertinentes; coordinar programas para proporcionar experiencias que se sirvan de base para otras y llevar a cabo evaluaciones periódicas.

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