Five Good Reasons to Use Science Notebooks

I will preface this reflection by admitting that I have never been much of a "science person." Of course, this is not exactly shocking when my areas of specialization are questioned - reading and language arts. I spent this past semester in Block A and Children's Literature writing and writing and writing about how important childhood literacy is, and how important it is to live a language-rich life throughout elementary school. What could be more important than teaching reading? was a question often on my mind.

This article brought to my attention - or perhaps reminded me of - the amazing cross-curricular possibilities of science in an elementary school classroom. Sure, reading ties to other subject areas; I knew this. But using science as a tool to enhance literacy skills was something of a foreign concept to me. This article's support of the science notebook's ability to assist reading skills allowed for a shift in thinking about teaching for me. Reading is not the road that leads to other subjects. Rather, subjects can be connected freely and harmoniously like they are using the science notebook. "...A major benefit of using science notebooks is writing practice for students...Writing frequently in science notebooks helped students feel more comfortable with the writing process--and this practice and the skills developed during it transferred to more formal writing assignments, such as book reports or creative writing exercises" (Gilbert & Kotelma, 31).

That particular passage stood out to me because it highlighted the many things science notebooks can do within just one of those five reasons, and because it forced me to take a step back and look at my own beliefs about what science was. I don't recall ever having a true science notebook like the one described - not in elementary school, or junior high school, or even high school. Perhaps that view of science as strictly numbers and figures that you can either get write or wrong, a subject without room for questions and opinion, was what pushed me away from pursuing it further.

Reading about the benefits science notebooks was a pedagogical shift for me. Not only do they aid in the teaching of reading, but they support individual learning that can be constantly tweaked and fine-tuned by the teacher; they support differentiation in the classroom. Basically, they support positive learning environments and the teaching of science as what it truly is: a discipline of freethinking, exploration, and problem-solving.