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The article explores how fifth-grade students in the U.S. act as stewards of the environment and learn valuable skills. It mentions about collection of data by testing the water quality in pond and surveying the level of goose droppings. It also mentions about the LaMotte water quality test kits for testing water quality and kits provide easy-to-use equipment and procedures to test for multiple water quality indicators like nitrogen, phosphorus, dissolved oxygen, temperatures, and turbidity.

The article reports that many schools are reexamining the science materials they are using. Textbook companies and kit developers are eager to meet the demand for NGSS-aligned teaching materials with the release of the Next Generation Science Standards. They are changing their teaching to be in alignment with the NGSS and using the resources, tools, and materials used by real scientists.

The article discusses several assessment strategies that can be used for inquiry-based science units. Dissecting owl pellets is a common inquiry activity used in elementary classrooms, in which students pull apart the pellets to discover what the owl ate. It is stated that formative assessment that is embedded throughout the unit gives teachers feedback about students' learning during the activity.

The article focuses on the improvement of group discussions in science education. It says that some students are interested in science experiments but when it comes to discussions of findings, analyze results and conceptual understandings many are not participative. It notes that group discussions should arouse the interest of students to express their ideas in which the teacher can know the learning obtain by students. It highlights several suggestions for teachers on how to make students participate in group discussions from traditional classroom discourse to alternative classroom discourse.

The article describes an activity program for middle school education which allows students to explore the chemical properties of sodium polyacrylate that is present in disposable diapers.

The article presents the author's views on the problems faced by the teachers in getting an access to the materials required for inquiry-based science teaching. According to the author, challenges pertaining to where to get supplies from, how to pay for them, how to organize and store the materials, and how to distribute the materials efficiently during the lessons, are constantly faced by the teachers in the elementary classroom. For this purpose, the author has organized the article into two areas; one focusing on managing of materials for schoolwide sharing, and the other focusing on managing of materials in the classroom.