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With the release of the Next Generation Science Standards, the Earth and environmental sciences receive greater emphasis at all grade levels. These rigorous standards increase pressure on elementary teachers to possess strong science content and pedagogical content knowledge. They also require teachers to hold a set of beliefs compatible with the goals set out in the NGSS. Elementary teachers, who often have minimal preparation in Earth and environmental sciences and entrenched beliefs about teaching and science, may face unique challenges in adjusting to the new standards. We report on a survey of 175 preservice teachers' beliefs about Earth science topics they consider to be appropriate for children in grades K-5. Participants were surveyed on their thoughts about the appropriateness of 20 standards-based topics. Results indicate that preservice teachers are enthusiastic about topics connected to nature and the environment, but judge the appropriateness of topics based on their own interests, misunderstand the interests of children, and lack specific knowledge of the NGSS. These mixed results have implications for instruction in the Earth sciences and teacher preparation: It is important to consider not just the content preparation of preservice teachers but also the ways in which we engage their beliefs about that content.

We describe the Science Semester, a semester-long course block that integrates three science courses and a science education methods course for elementary teacher education majors, and examine prospective elementary teachers' developing conceptions about inquiry, science teaching efficacy, and reflections on learning through inquiry. The Science Semester was designed to provide inquiry-oriented and problem-based learning experiences, opportunities to examine socially relevant issues through cross-disciplinary perspectives, and align with content found in elementary curricula and standards. By the end of the semester, prospective elementary teachers moved from naïve to intermediate understandings of inquiry and significantly increased self-efficacy for science teaching as measured on one subscore of the STEBI-B. Reflecting on the semester, prospective teachers understood and appreciated the goals of the course and the PBL format, but struggled with the open-ended and student-directed elements of the course.

The papers in this collection provide compelling arguments that the use of Adapted Primary Literature (APL) in science education holds great promise for enriching inquiry science instruction at the secondary level. The integration of this genre of written text into science curricula illustrates the ways in which reasoning in reading and reasoning in science are tightly connected. I discuss three major themes that arise from a reading of the papers in this set: (1) the concept of authenticity as an adherence to scientific reasoning and practice within science education, and the ways in which APL is a welcome complication to simpler notions of "authentic" experiences for learners, (2) issues around the use of tools such as APL in science curriculum design and implementation, including the need to consider discipline-specific science reading strategies and ways to support teachers in their use of APL, and (3) the possible implications for extending the concept of APL into younger (primary age) and older (college age) classrooms than those examined in these papers.

Although reading is a critical part of science and science learning, it is no longer a part of many children's elementary science instruction. This is of concern because girls often develop strong identities as readers, but do not develop scientific identities with ease. In this study, we investigate girls' science reading to know (1) if science books were available to girls in homes and classrooms, (2) if girls were choosing to read them, and (3) what influences their choices. Forty-five third-grade girls, 29 of their families, and three of their teachers were interviewed to ascertain girls' preferences among various book genres, as well as to learn the ways in which families and teachers influence the choices girls make. We found that girls had access to science books at school, and teachers had strategies to encourage reading them. At home, parents encouraged reading, but were generally less directive than teachers as to what the girls read, and underestimated their daughters' science-related interests. The families studied rely largely on major bookstores as their primary source of books. Our findings suggest we need to understand better the way gender influences girls' engagement with science in a variety of contexts, particularly those in which girls exercise choice.

The use of trade books in science instruction, particularly in the elementary and middle school grades, invites scrutiny into the ways in which trade books represent science and its practitioners to learners. Forty-four trade books were examined for their explicit and implicit representations of science. The majority of the sample was comprised of informational texts, followed by experiment books and artistic books. Scientific knowledge was generally represented as facts, with limited connections to the producers of those facts. Scientists and their practice were represented as experiment or observation, in descriptions that blurred the distinctions between levels of participation in science, and emphasized empirical data collection over analysis or theory development. Artistic books focused on nature encouraged an aesthetic approach to nature, primarily through creative observation. These books are not likely to convey a sophisticated image of the nature of science to young children without contextualization by teachers and other knowledgeable adults. However, they have potential as tools within inquiry contexts, if used in a manner authentic to goals for scientific literacy.

The goal of this study is to analyze the images of science and scientists in science biographies written for children. We examined 12 biographies of historic and contemporary scientists written for primary/middle school children in relation to three dimensions: characteristics of scientists, nature and process of scientific knowledge, and social processes of science. Biographies of historic scientists were characterized by a relative absence of description of how scientists arrived at their knowledge especially in books addressing younger readers. Biographies of contemporary scientists showed richer descriptions of experimental science with limited attention to connections between evidence and theory. Findings reinforce the need for teachers to guide students in their critical reading of biographies and provide additional resources to help them construct a richer understanding of the nature of science.

The understandings of properties that children develop in the context of rock and mineral identification point to the challenges of observing in a manner authentic to the discipline of geology. The notebook entries of 34 third graders written during the enactment of a commercial unit on earth materials were investigated for their descriptions of rocks and minerals, and the extent to which these reflect understandings of properties in both generic and discipline-specific senses. While children were successful in observing minute details of rock and mineral samples, there were few opportunities within the curriculum for students to differentiate between geologically relevant and irrelevant properties, and there were no connections drawn between deeper geological concepts and these observations. In addition, the demands placed on young learners to write their observations in the form of descriptions raise issues of supporting students in their learning of authentic scientific writing. There are challenges faced in representing geological observation authentically, and moving children beyond simple description activities into more complex explanations. Suggestions for improvements that attend to issues of the discipline as well as the elementary context are provided.

The use of an inquiry framework to support the development of learners' scientific literacy has been supported by research on learning in science and advocated by the major science standards and policy documents. To fully engage in inquiry, however, a wide range of tools, including both activities and texts, must be employed. The successful integration of text materials requires the selection of suitable texts. This, in turn, requires an in-depth understanding of the types of science books available and their potential uses within an inquiry framework. To support preservice teachers' development of these understandings, I examined the criteria they typically employ when evaluating texts in contextualized and uncontextualized settings. In these settings, students attended primarily to visual characteristics of texts or exhibited their limited understandings of science content and text use. These results were used to develop an evaluation framework that emphasizes use in inquiry over other typical evaluation criteria.