SCI 385: Elementary Science Methods 

If you are needing research assistance the best times to reach Kim in her office, Library 210, are Monday afternoons, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Friday mornings.  She's at the reference desk on Monday evenings. 

Karen's office is Library 226 and she's usually there from 8:30 am to 5 pm and she's at the reference desk on Wednesday evenings.  You can also email either of them: kim.babcock@wartburg.edu or karen.lehmann@wartburg.edu to set up a consultation or fill out a consultation form online.

The library has many educational reference books that provide background information about learning theories.  Thet are located on the 2nd floor in the 370s.

There are also many print references in the sciences, especially in Ref. 500-510.  Each branch of science also has specialty encyclopedias.  Examples include:

• Scientific Thought; Ref. 500 Sci272 2009 (3 volumes)
• History of Modern Science and Mathematics; Ref. 509 H629 2002 (4 volumes)
• Science and Its Times: Understanding the Social Significance of Scientific Discovery; Ref. 509 Sci27 (8 volumes)
• The History of Science series: 2 volumes; Ref. 509.041 H174 2005
• American Men & Women of Science; Ref. 509.22 Am35 2003 (8 volumes)
• The Scribner Science Reference Series; Ref. 509.22 Scr31 (4 volumes of Biographical Portraits)
  
• Chemistry Foundations and Applications; Ref. 540.3 C42 2004  (4 volumes)
  
• Chemical Elements; Ref. 546 N482 1999 (3 volumes)
  
• The Water Encyclopedia; Ref. 553.7 W291 2007
  
• Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia; Ref. 591 G9295 2003 (17 volumes) 
  

Librarians have created guides that offer suggestions for databases and websites in each discipline: education, biology, etc.

Link here to take a further look.  Under each discipline is a guide called "Research in..."  Each one has the same tabs.

• "Overview Sources" recommends online and print references.
• "Find Articles" lists suggested subject databases
• "Websites" offers vetted sites relating to each discipline.

Background Information:

Access Science

• Over 8,500 online articles from the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology 10th edition
• Research Updates from the McGraw-Hill Yearbooks of Science & Technology
• 110,000+ definitions from the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms
• 15,000 illustrations and graphics, and bibliographies containing more than 28,000 literature citations
• Content contributed by more than 5000 researchers, including 36 Nobel Prize winners
• Biographies of more than 2,000 well-known scientists from the Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientific Biography®
• The latest news in science and technology from Science News® and ScienCentral® videos
• Continuously updated, fully-searchable, media-rich content, terms, images and videos
• added illustrations, animations, and image galleries
• questions answered in our weekly Q&A

CQ Researcher

These award-winning reports provide an in-depth, introductory overview on current topics in health, social trends, criminal justice, international affairs, education, the environment, technology, and the economy. Reports are published weekly online 44 times a year by CQ Press.

Credo Reference

 Includes the full text of over 300 reference sources including encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri and books of quotations. Users can choose to search all reference works or the following specific subjects: art; bilinguals; biography; business; conversions; dictionaries; encyclopedias; food; geography; history; language; law; literature; medicine; music; philosophy & psychology; quotations; religion; science; social sciences; and technology.

Encyclopædia Britannica Online

A scholarly general encyclopedia, Britannica is a jumping-off point to learn more about an unfamiliar topic. Your professor may not let you count it as a final source, but it's a helpful beginning in investigating a topic with which you are unfamiliar.

Oxford Reference Online

 Contains the full text of over 150 books in general reference, language, science and medicine, humanities and social sciences, and business and professional subjects published by Oxford University Press.

For Journal Articles:

Academic Search Complete (EBSCO)
An excellent starting point for finding articles in magazines and journals, mostly from current time periods. Some full-text.

ERIC (EBSCO)
Provides bibliographic information to over 1 million items from educational literature. Some full text linking is available.

JSTOR 
A multidisciplinary (includes education and sciences) digital archive of full-text articles--note that the current 3 years back are not included.

Professional Development Collection (EBSCO)
Subjects: all subjects related to education; professional librarianship, professional educators and researchers. Full text for some articles.

Project Muse 
Another full-text journal archive that includes education and science topics, with new issues as well as older ones.

PsycINFO (EBSCO) & PsycARTICLES (EBSCO)
PsycINFO, with PsycARTICLES, provides citations and abstracts to scholarly articles and research in psychology. Full text coverage is available for items cited in PsycARTICLES.

Teacher Reference Center (EBSCO) 
Provides indexing and abstracts for more than 270 of the most popular teacher and administrator journals and magazines 

For Books:

Vogel Library Catalog
Find books, scores, DVDs, journals and more housed in Vogel Library.

Experience using databases that an elementary student might actually have access to in your classroom.

Middle Search Plus (EBSCOhost)

This database provides full text for more than 140 popular, middle school magazines. All full text articles included in the database are assigned a reading level indicator (Lexiles). Full text is also available for thousands of biographies and historical essays. Middle Search Plus also contains 84,774 biographies, 105,786 primary source documents, and an Image Collection of 440,207 photos, maps and flags

Primary Search (EBSCOhost)

Primary Search provides full text for more than 70 popular, magazines for elementary school research. All full text articles included in the database are assigned a reading level indicator (Lexiles), and full text information dates as far back as 1990.