Sciences for All Students

Science educators face the challenge of providing quality science instruction to all students in inclusion settings. This study will investigate whether students with and without disabilities from two urban, low socio-economic K-5 elementary schools (experimental and control), who receive modified science instruction in inclusive classrooms, will improve in tasks requiring language, learning, academic, and social skills. The focus of this study is to obtain quality instruction without "watering down" the curriculum while measuring students' achievement through the following dependent variables: SOL tests, chapter tests, and teacher made tests. Teachers working with the experimental group from one of the schools will be trained to modify science lessons in four training sessions. Attempting to model collaboration between general and special education, this study is a collaborative project conducted by a special education professor and a science education professor.