Scientific Reasoning: No Child's Play

In Detroit, a curriculum requires elementary pupils to do the work actual scientists do.

Detroit

Primed with a few simple instructions, a group of 5th graders ventures into a rich ecosystem, alive with birds, invertebrates, and even a few mammals—like the rabbits they see, but can’t catch.

This habitat isn’t a lake, river, or forest. It’s a scruffy school courtyard in the heart of southwestern Detroit.

The elementary schoolers, wearing hooded sweatshirts and jackets on this raw April day, dig into the lumpy grass with hand shovels. One team spies an earthworm slithering for cover. “Look! Look!” a boy shouts. A classmate scoops it...