After-school and out-of-school programs-as well as home schooling-have been growing steadily for nearly a decade, but instructors are still searching for high-interest content that ties into science standards without the rigidity of current classroom canon. The author draws on more than 20 years of experience doing hands-on science to facilitate tinkering: learning science while fooling around with real things. In this book, you'll learn: * Tinkering techniques in key science areas * How to let kids learn science with hands-on tinkering * Engaging techniques for science learning at home, in school, or at a makerspace or library * Stepbystep instructions for activities that don't end with a single project, but that provide many paths for "tinkering forward".

Curt Gabrielson runs the Watsonville Environmental Science Workshop and works with science education in East Timor. He has been a science educator for more than 20 years, with positions in the California public schools, the National University of East Timor, and San Francisco’s Exploratorium Teacher Institute.