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The impact of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandated state science assessment on elementary teachers' beliefs about teaching science and their classroom practice is relatively unknown. For many years, the teaching of science has been minimized in elementary schools in favor of more emphasis on reading and mathematics. This study examines the dynamics of bringing science to the forefront of assessment in elementary schools and the resulting teacher belief and instructional shifts that take place in response to NCLB. Results indicated that teachers' beliefs about teaching science remained unchanged despite policy changes mandated in NCLB. Teacher beliefs related to their perceptions of what their administrators and peer groups' think they should be doing influenced their practice the most. Most teachers reported positive feelings and attitudes about science and reported that their students had positive feelings and attitudes about science; however, teachers reported teaching science less as a result of NCLB. Implications for elementary science education reform and policy are discussed.

The purpose of this phenomenographic study was to: (a) gain an understanding of the meaning of inquiry held by beginning science teachers and their instructors in an Alternative Teacher Certification Program (ATCP); and (b) compare science teachers' views of inquiry with what they learned in their ATCP. Participants were four beginning science teachers and two faculty members involved in teaching science methods courses in the ATCP. Semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, field notes, and written materials were the data sources. The primary data sources for the study were six to 15 hours of classroom observation of teaching and learning and approximately 8 hours of interviewing with each teacher. Interviews with each faculty member were also completed. These interviews required 60-75 minutes. A phenomenological data analysis approach [Uljens, M. (1996). "On the philosophical foundation of phenomenography." In G. Dall'Alba & B. Hasselgren (Eds.), "Reflections on Phenomenography--Toward a methodology?" (pp. 105-130). Goteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis] was used to complete qualitative analyses and categorical summaries of the data. The results showed that the teachers held rather incomplete views of inquiry-based teaching [National Research Council. (2000). "Inquiry and the national science education standards." Washington, DC: National Academy Press], and these views were highly discrepant with the views of teacher education faculty. Implication of the findings for science teacher education and future research on the development of inquiry-based practices are discussed. (Contains 2 notes.)

The authors engaged nonscience majors enrolled in an integrated science course with a prototype activity designed to change their mindset from cookbook to inquiry science. This article describes the activity, the Warm Little Pond, which helped students develop essential understanding of basic statistics, significant figures, and the idea that scientific knowledge is a constructed model of reality. (Contains 4 figures.)