The approach to science teaching and learning that is the focus of this paper is termed “realist constructivism.” It utilizes state of the art technology to scaffold the delivery of science content to middle school youngsters in a way that (a) focuses on the big ideas needed to explain important phenomena like weather; and (b) involves learners in the social process of formulating and supporting the claims they make about the phenomena. We have done a series of preliminary studies testing the efficacy of this “ideas first” approach. The approach developed here has three key elements: First, the regularities accounting for phenomena such as weather (i.e., "the movement of energy") must be identified and concretized through the use of metaphor, visualization, and/or physical enactment; second, students must formulate a coherent--and testable--explanation of each regularity; and, third, students must test their explanation against scientific “fact.” These three aspects of realist constructivist teaching are scaffolded in the unit we developed using two types of technology tools: Idea tools, which take three forms (simulation tools, speculation tools, and exploration tools), and a web-based tool which is used to facilitate the social construction of knowledge.

A pre, post-test research design was used in the two preliminary studies done to date. The assessment items were content oriented (i.e., standards based) aimed at enabling us to assess knowledge and understanding of the scientific big ideas taught to middle school students with an eye toward getting at both depth of understanding and knowledge of connections between scientific phenomena.

A model unit on weather was developed to test the approach to science teaching and More than 70% of the students, on average, selected “deserts” on the pre-test; the percent opting for this on the post-test dropped to half this total and remained near that level on the 10 week follow up test. On the other hand, more than 70% of the students selected the correct choice, “oceans and lakes,” on the near and farThe remainder stuck with the third option, “mountains.” We obtained a similar pattern for other important test items. The answer to our “When is it coldest?” question is another example of remarkable retention for such a young group: Sixty-seven percent chose the most obvious choice, “midnight,” on the pretest (see below), while 75% and 68% answered correctly (“sunrise”) on the posttest and on the 10-week follow-up, respectively. Another example of remarkable retention over the ten-week interval was for the item “How does a blizzard form?” On the pretest, 81% of the fifth graders selected “two cold air masses collide” as the answer. Again, after relatively brief exposure to this content, 76% responded to the correct answer: “Warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico collides with cold, dry air from Canada.” Fifty-seven percent of the students got this answer right on the follow up test (the third foil was as wordy as the correct one so that apparently was not the determining factor).