"Before there were encyclopedias, there were people curious about the world around them."-Everyday Classroom Tools homepage.
The goal of the Everyday Classroom Tools (ECT) project is to infuse the spirit of inquiry into every school subject, so that students and teachers can approach learning as a lifelong exploration of the world around us.
Located online at http://hea-www.harvard.edu/ECT/, the Everyday Classroom Tools Web site has developed the "Threads of Inquiry," an integrated, inquiry-inspiring curriculum framework that brings science and the Internet into the everyday life of the K-6 classroom.
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The Threads of Inquiry are a connected set of science explorations rooted in the direct experience of our world. Topics such as shadows, light, day and night, time, and the change of seasons are presented in a free-flowing and relaxed manner that encourages investigation, experimentation, and questioning. Each thread is based on a scientific principle and includes an activity description, a materials list, scientific background information, guidelines on age-appropriateness, and curriculum pointers from the National Science Education Standards. The Threads also help teachers make connections to other classroom subjects.
Over a three-year collaboration with Massachusetts elementary school teachers, cognitive researchers, and folklorists, ECT has been able to provide teachers with materials useful to them in teaching science as inquiry. Throughout the school year, students and teachers explore the world inside and outside of the classroom through fun activities, collecting data and building their own theories about what they are seeing. In "Long Shadows," for instance, the first of three modules, students and teachers watch the movement of the Sun, the qualities of shadows, and the nature of light to discover how and why the seasons occur.
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The medium of the Web allows educators to integrate the ideas presented in their curricula with related topics found on the Internet. For each investigation, there is a Thread of Inquiry, a page of links to sites that integrate well with students' discoveries -- topics such as social studies, math, literature, and the creative arts.
Teachers who have employed Everyday Classroom Tools testify that students learn to rely heavily on their own ideas and data, drive their own learning, and make their own theories about the world around them. Students' desire to understand and think like scientists has made them curious, skeptical, careful, and open-minded in all subjects, in and out of school.
Curator: Randolph Kim
Responsible NASA Official: Mark
Leon
Last Updated: 07/02/2002
