They can find plans to learn to build a seltzer tablet rocket from a page maintained by Los Alamos National Laboratory. Or they can find out more about James Lovell, the commander of the ill- fated Apollo 13 lunar mission. Experiments on the Internet Dragonfly magazine, published jointly by the National Science Teachers Association and Miami University of Ohio, is another source of good science projects for students. D.C. An electronic version of the magazine features several interactive articles and experiments. Students are challenged to design a tree of their own to survive in a particular niche.
Immediate feedback tells students how well they've done.
Too often, elementary school science consists of memorizing a list of terms from a textbook which stifles curiosity. Project FeederWatch , organized by Cornell University, involves many students and teachers as volunteers, throughout North America to monitor birds at backyard feeders from November through March. FeederWatch data show how populations of winter birds are growing or shrinking, and how species distributions are changing. FeederWatch and many similar projects were discussed at an NSF-sponsored national conference in Washington D.C. last fall. The conference proceedings and descriptions of the projects, can be found on the Web .