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The naturalist's journal is a collection of writings and sketches that captures selected thoughts or observations of nature and represents both immediate learning and raw material that is available for more polished work. This article talks about a naturalist's journal as an effective teaching and learning tool. Creating a naturalist's journals helps students connect to and engage with nature, as they increase their familiarity, understanding, and positive attitudes regarding the natural environment. In their journals students should use both written descriptions and drawings. Students can experiment with various modes of thought and expression to discover how they complement each other in capturing field experiences. Students should keep an open mind, but also learn to be selective. The naturalist's journal is a tool for translating students' experiences into verbal and visual language through processes that are both analytical and creative. At the same time, it can bring to the surface feelings about nature, and can serve as a vehicle to help students explore the connections between how they perceive and think about natural phenomena and how they value the natural environment. (Contains 6 figures.)

Science education blogs can serve as powerful digital lab notebooks that contain text, images, and videos. Each blog entry documents a moment in time, but becomes interactive with the addition of readers' comments. Blogs can provide a realistic experience of the peer-review process and generate evolving descriptions of observations through time. This month's column describes some steps to consider prior to starting a classroom blog. (Contains 4 online resources.)

The article discusses how science teachers can use reflective writing to examine students' critical thinking and if they can properly apply knowledge learned during instruction. The authors note how student journals can reveal student misconceptions, help teachers plan lessons and allow students to develop learning strategies. Reports based on student group discussions can reduce teacher workload. Guided reflection papers may also be assigned to students.

In this article the author, a science teacher, outlines a journal project he assigned to his physics students as they read the book "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. He comments on the processes used by both he and the students in completing and assessing the journals and discusses how his reading of the journals has helped him forge a better relationship with his students. He also provides a list of recommended science books that may be used for the journal assignment.

The article discusses the use of cloud-based journaling and note-taking in science education. Topics discussed include the use of multimedia by students in their journaling, the use of blogs as a way to start the online journaling process, and the use of tagging by students to allow them to search their online journals in the future.