Elementary Science: A Foundation for STEM Education

Elementary science is a critical and foundational part of your students’ educational development. It’s necessary to prioritize high-quality science instruction in these early grades to build key skills and spark creativity.  

Yet, in elementary classrooms, science can get “squeezed out” of the school day due to time constraints and the demand for more classroom minutes on other subjects, such as reading, writing, and math.

Today, we’re exploring why elementary science is so important and providing you with tips on how to make these lessons more engaging to keep students interested in science for a lifetime.

• Why is elementary science so important?
• 8 ways to make your elementary science lessons more engaging
• Elementary science FAQs

[Why is elementary science so important?](id-why)

Elementary science is a critical part of students’ educational development. It’s more than just learning facts and formulas. It’s about developing essential skills, establishing a scientific mindset, and laying a foundation for future learning. Yet, it’s not always prioritized in the classroom.

The 2018 National Survey of Science and Mathematics revealed that K-2 teachers spent an average of only 18 minutes per week on science, representing a 22% decrease since 2000. In the same study, teachers in grades 4-6 reported a 13% decrease, averaging just 27 minutes per week.

Science needs to be a priority in the elementary classroom because it:

Fosters critical thinking and problem-solving skills

Science instruction helps students develop strong critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, and creativity. It encourages students to notice details and patterns, gather data, and form explanations based on evidence.

This subject encourages students to evaluate their findings and predict potential outcomes, skills that can be applied in all areas of their lives.

Problem-solving and exploration—two key elements of elementary science—are also hallmarks of STEM. They’re important for mastering more advanced subjects, such as biology, chemistry, and physics.

Promotes lifelong curiosity

Students, especially elementary-aged students, are curious. They love to ask questions and try to make sense of the world around them. Science education helps elevate this curiosity. It engages students and encourages them to become independent investigators and actively participate in their learning.

Builds a foundation for future STEM success

Giving students the opportunity to learn science in elementary school can help them build skills and a foundational knowledge for more complex science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) studies as they get older. 

Promotes scientific literacy

Learning scientific literacy—such as vocabulary, norms, and best practices—can help students become more confident and comfortable engaging in these spaces. Building science literacy also helps them better understand the background knowledge of the topics they study. This builds on their foundations as they dig into more specialized science areas.

[8 ways to make your elementary science lessons more engaging](id-tips)

Help your students get the most out of their science lessons by using these tips to make your activities more engaging:

1. Use hands-on learning and experimentation

Hands-on activities and experiments help bring complex concepts to life. Keep students engaged by letting them actively explore materials and ideas. This may involve examining specimens or using real-world tools, such as microscopes.

Even simple experiments, such as building a baking soda and vinegar volcano or observing whether certain objects sink or float, can be enough to keep your students engaged and interested in their science lessons.

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2. Try inquiry-based or project-based learning

Inquiry-based learning encourages students to ask questions, explore solutions, use evidence to support their explanations, and apply their learning. Project-based learning enables students to work collaboratively across subjects, studying a topic in depth and promoting a deeper understanding.

Both of these models are ideal for an elementary science classroom, helping students stay engaged and interested in what they’re learning. The 5E instructional model is just one way to promote this type of education. Each “E” stands for a hallmark of learning in the inquiry classroom:

1. Engage: Capture students’ curiosity and connect the current lesson with prior knowledge.
2. Explore: Students investigate a problem through hands-on activities that lead to questions and wonderings, furthering their learning.
3. Explain: Teachers guide students in understanding new concepts, like introducing discipline-specific vocabulary words or administering formative assessments.
4. Elaborate: Students apply their knowledge to new experiences and contexts.
5. Evaluate: Students show what they know through various types of assessments, like projects or presentations.

3. Integrate science across the curriculum

Integrating science across the curriculum maximizes instructional time and reinforces skills across disciplines. This cross-curricular approach is crucial for K-2 students, and it helps you inject more science learning while still building foundational skills in other subjects like reading and math.

Incorporating science literacy emphasizes the importance of a rich vocabulary, comprehension, and engaging discussions. Utilize science nonfiction texts and picture books to introduce key concepts and foster in-depth analysis. You can also include writing activities in your science lessons to tie in nonfiction writing standards and encourage reflection.

Adding science data to your lessons encourages students to think critically, make predictions, and identify trends—all key math skills. Interpreting data, pattern recognition, and model development are just a few ways to connect math and science lessons.

4. Encourage student autonomy and ownership

Encourage students to take ownership of their science learning by giving them agency to choose topics, design investigations, and ask open-ended questions. Get students to share their ideas, debate, and engage so that they’re active participants in every lesson. This type of autonomy and ownership in learning can boost motivation and a desire to discover more about a topic.

5. Make science relatable and relevant

Connecting new concepts to what your students already know and are interested in can make lessons more effective and engaging. Your elementary science lessons should connect to real life, using familiar examples like local weather patterns or the ecosystems in your town. Incorporating current events or science headlines, such as an eclipse or Earth Day, can also be helpful.

Showing how science is part of everyday life, from video games to cell phones, can also increase student engagement. You may also show students how science skills connect to various careers, inspiring them for their futures.

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6. Promote curiosity and deep thinking

Encouraging students to ask questions and participate in science lessons helps foster a culture of inquiry. 

Ask students to come up with “divergent” questions during these activities. Rather than trying to get everyone to come to a single correct answer, divergent questioning allows students to explore different paths of thinking. Through divergent questioning, students with varying learning styles and abilities can consider the same issue, develop different answers, and feel confident sharing their perspectives on the topic or experiment.

Creating a safe, open learning environment where questions are encouraged can make this happen. Try taking a hands-off approach where you don’t over-explain new topics and concepts, but instead ask questions of your students to encourage collaborative learning.

7. Incorporate collaborative group work

Science lessons and experiments are a great way to teach students how to work together and be productive as a group. Allow students to work in pairs or small groups when possible. Establish group work expectations and assign specific jobs or tasks to each student so everyone participates.

These types of working relationships can help students learn how to manage their time and responsibilities. They can also prevent common frustrations of group work, like some members not doing their share.

8. Leverage multimedia and gamification

Using visuals and audio can help you present science lessons and content in different modalities. Pictures, diagrams, graphs, music, videos, and sound effects can all enhance the lesson to take content off the page and provide real-world context. Leveraging multimedia is beneficial for students of diverse learning styles and abilities, allowing them to access content in a way that makes sense to them.

You can also use gamification to incorporate competition, design challenges, or science-related games into your lessons, providing students with alternative ways to not only absorb the material but also practice and apply it.

Elementary science FAQs

Still have questions about how you can make your elementary science lessons the best they can be? We have answers!

What are some challenges associated with teaching elementary science?

Though it has many benefits, teaching elementary science also has its share of challenges. Some of them include:

• Competing demands: Reading, writing, and math often take center stage in the elementary classroom due to falling test scores and district priorities. This may leave less time to focus on science during the school day.
• Minimal professional development: Many elementary teachers may not receive the professional learning and resources they need to teach science effectively if it’s not a district priority.
• Student engagement: Science can be a fun, exciting subject for students to explore, but if they’re not interested in the topic, you may have a hard time keeping them engaged in the lesson.

What are the must-learn skills that my elementary science students need to know?

To get students learning and thinking like scientists, there are a few key skills that you should teach and reinforce throughout your elementary science lessons. They include:

• Observation: Have students use their five senses to collect details and describe the world around them.
• Measurement: Use numbers and numerical tools, such as rulers and scales, to analyze and describe objects or situations.
• Sorting and classification: Have students group ideas or objects based on qualities, quantities, and patterns.
• Inferring: Ask students to form assumptions based on past experiences and observations.
• Prediction: Ask students to hypothesize what will happen next based on their current knowledge and understanding.
• Experimentation: Have students plan and execute investigations to test predictions and discuss results.
• Communication: Encourage students to share ideas through various methods, including talking, listening, drawing, labeling, and writing.

What topics should I cover in my elementary science lessons?

Elementary science typically covers basic concepts of life, physical, earth, and space sciences across grade levels:

• Life science: Cover topics like the characteristics of living things, major body structures and functions, life cycles, inherited traits, adaptations, and relationships in ecosystems.
• Physical science: Cover topics like the states and properties of matter, mixtures, chemical changes, energy, properties of light and sound, electricity, magnets, and forces.
• Earth and space science: Cover topics like Earth’s features, natural resources, the water cycle, weather, fossils, the solar system, and seasons.

Elementary science lessons should also include engineering design. This includes real-world problem-solving and design challenges that help students apply what they learn across common topics and themes.

How can I stress safety in my elementary science classroom?

Staying safe in science class is a great skill to teach elementary students. It can help prepare them for future science classes that use harsh chemicals or dangerous equipment. Some important safety tips for the science classroom include:

• Setting clear rules and regulations for students to follow. 
• Reading all directions before starting a science project or experiment. 
• Teaching students to report any accidents to their teacher or adult supervisor immediately.
• Wearing safety equipment if necessary.
• Avoiding eating or drinking anything used in an experiment unless given explicit permission from the teacher.
• Avoiding touching unknown materials, substances, or tools without permission.

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Teaching science and literacy is symbiotic with Newsela Science

Newsela Science uses authentic, accessible content and activities that get students reading, writing, and thinking like scientists. It’s your tool to fuse science and literacy, thanks to great features like:

• Engaging science content: Boost students’ interest in and knowledge of science concepts with real-world phenomena, timely news, and engaging videos.
• Aligned Curriculum Complements: Enhance and support the curriculum materials you already use with content aligned to top science resources.
• AI-powered tools: Use AI to generate writing prompts, main idea summaries, key terms, before-reading activities, discussion questions, and starting points for creating more specialized assessments.
• Embedded scaffolding: Make complex science texts and concepts accessible with embedded scaffolding tools like adaptive leveling and read-aloud mode.
• Skill-building resources: Support the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) with ready-to-go activities, performance tasks, and teacher supports.

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