Dr. Amanda Foster

Teaching the scientific method to elementary students can feel like asking 7-year-olds to follow a recipe they cannot yet read. I have watched teachers struggle with this exact challenge, and I have seen what works in real classrooms. This guide gives you a clear, kid-friendly version of the 6 steps, age-appropriate modifications for K-2 and … Read more

If your child is staring at a blank worksheet for a science fair project, you are not alone. Learning how to help kids write a testable hypothesis is one of the most common challenges parents and teachers face, because the word “hypothesis” sounds a lot harder than the idea itself really is. A hypothesis is … Read more

When my daughter came home with a science fair project last spring, she was confused about one word on her worksheet: controlled variable. She kept switching it with the thing she was supposed to change. I sat down with her and we worked through three plant pots on the kitchen windowsill to figure it out … Read more

How to teach kids to record observations in a science notebook is one of the most common questions I hear from elementary teachers and homeschool parents. The good news is that with the right setup, modeling, and a few simple routines, almost any child can learn to document their scientific work with confidence. I’ve spent … Read more

I have walked into classrooms where the science budget was a single line item labeled “miscellaneous,” and I have watched those same classrooms produce the loudest, most engaged engineering I have ever seen. The truth is that you do not need a robotics kit or a chemistry set to run a hands-on STEM lesson with … Read more

If you have ever watched a kindergartner build a tower from paper cups and then knock it down on purpose, you have already seen an engineer at work. I have spent the last three years helping K-8 teachers bring engineering design challenges into their classrooms, and the same question always comes up first: how do … Read more

If you have ever watched a child carefully spoon flour into a measuring cup, you have seen the spark of real learning. Teaching measurement and units through kitchen science turns an abstract math lesson into something a learner can see, smell, and taste. Our team has spent years running kitchen workshops with families and classrooms, … Read more

Science journaling becomes a daily classroom habit when teachers anchor it to an existing routine, keep entries short (about 5 minutes), and rotate simple frameworks like the 3-3-3 method. Our team has seen classrooms go from sporadic journaling to consistent daily practice in under a month by treating the journal like a bell-ringer activity rather … Read more

Science classrooms are rarely tidy. You might have 28 students ranging from a child who already reads grade-level data confidently to another who struggles with measurement tools. When the experiment starts, one finishes early and looks bored while another shuts down after step two. That gap is exactly why teachers need to know how to … Read more

Girls perform as well as boys in science and math through elementary school, yet something shifts between ages 11 and 15. By the time they reach college, women hold only about 35% of STEM degrees, and in fields like computer science and engineering, that number drops below 20%. At March for Science SV, we hear … Read more