My STEAM Notebook: 150 Years of Primary Source Documents from American Scientists

My STEAM Notebook is an elementary science interactive workbook that brings the past into the future in a powerful way. Primary source documents from 150 years of American scientists provide an amazing look into the practice of keeping a science notebook. Featuring notebooks from ten scientists, students learn how to write and draw in ways that help develop their understanding of science.

The workbook helps teachers implement the Next Generation Science Standards, the Common Core State Standards for ELA, and the STEAM initiative. Historical documents are interspersed with notebook pages for students to use in recording observations.

Historical documents will:

• Emphasize the importance of writing in science and model effective writing and drawing to record observations
• Introduce students to eleven American scientists who have made lasting contributions
• Introduce students to a variety of scientific fields
• Demonstrate the importance of notebooks across a wide variety of science specialties including ornithology (birds), behavioral evolutionary biology, malacology (mollusks), botany (plants), entomology (insects), zookeeper, epidemiology (infectious diseases), agrostology (grasses), ichthyology (fish), and taxidermy (preserving specimens).

Using the interactive notebook pages, students will learn to:

• Record observations through writing and drawing
• Develop explanations and arguments based on evidence
• Write narrative and informative essays
• Understand the interconnections between drawing and writing to provide information

The notebook pages are deceptively simple in their organization. Headers encourage careful recording of important information, and a Table of Contents keeps everything at the student's fingertips. Odd-numbered pages provide a grid for math or handwriting help. Even-numbered pages are for free-form writing, drawing, or gluing in teacher-provided worksheets. Each scientist inspires suggestions for how to work in the notebook.

Sample STEAM questions--Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math--are included for each scientist. This is a nuts and bolts interactive STEAM notebook that will help elementary science come alive for students.