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Third-grade teacher Debbie Young reserves Friday mornings for out-of-the-box science lessons in her class at Richardson Elementary School.

And her lessons are literally out of a box.

Flowing Wells Unified School District piloted a program with seven teachers last school year to use Full Option Science System, or FOSS, kits in their K-6 classrooms.

Each box contains a different eight-week unit and contains all the materials and resources needed to teach science.

FOSS is a science curriculum developed by the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California at Berkeley some 20 years ago out of a growing concern that elementary-age students were not receiving adequate science instruction.

The district's decision to pilot the program, and subsequently distribute the kits to all six of its elementary schools this school year, occurred at a time when the district was revising its science curriculum.

Flowing Wells also had surveyed its teachers and learned they wanted more hands-on science activities as part of a new curriculum.

Additionally, science is now part of the AIMS exam, which students take in the fourth, eighth and tenth grades.

So instead of buying a science textbook, Flowing Wells partnered with Tucson Unified School District to lease the FOSS kits for about $35,000 per year, which would have been about what it would have cost to buy new textbooks.

"We were looking at how we can encourage students to ask better questions and be better problem-solvers," said David Baker, Flowing Wells associate superintendent for educational services.

Kids do hands-on work

FOSS kits are both inquiry-based and provide for activity-based assignments.

"I'm not just doing a demonstration," Young said. "They get to be scientists."

Kits include science stories and have related reading and writing prompts. Math also can be part of a lesson.

The district has about three or four of the kits for each grade level.

TUSD maintains the kits and delivers them to the district.

"The best part is, everything is there for you," Young said. "You don't have to go out and spend time and money to do the experiment."

Lessons are not superficial, Young said — students aren't just reading from a textbook and answering questions.

"They are not activities. They are truly taking kids through the scientific process," she said.

Young was one of the first teachers in the Flowing Wells district to use the kits in her classroom.

TUSD offered Flowing Wells teachers professional development this summer so they could familiarize themselves with the kits. Forty-six teachers attended the training. Another 44 attended a training session on inquiry-based instruction through the Flowing Wells district.

State standards are a focus

The kits are designed to meet the state's science standards.

For instance, in the third grade as part of the scientific testing concept, the state says students should plan and conduct investigations and record data.

Young reminds her students before lessons that scientists take good notes. Investigation also involves demonstrating safe behavior and appropriate behavior when students handle things such as magnifying glasses and minerals.

Young's students were careful when handling minerals during a "Take it for Granite" lesson as part of a larger unit on Earth Materials.

In their FOSS kit, the students had a granite rock and five minerals. The students had to determine which was the rock.

Jared Kimball and his partner, Kassandra Olea-Tovar, correctly picked out the granite rock among calcite, quartz, mica, hornblende and feldspar minerals.

"A rock is made of mostly minerals. We think this one is made out of mostly minerals," Jared said as he held up the granite.

Jared and Kassandra, who are both 8, look forward to Fridays.

"I learn a lot of stuff and in science I can have a better career," Kassandra said. "If we did a lot more science, we can be a lot more smarter."

Jared knows what he'd like to learn about next: "For one science lesson, I really want to learn about fossils," he said. "I know a lot, but I want to learn more."

Other districts use kits too

Before the kits, Young created and prepared her own lessons, complete with some type of hands-on activity, but now that she uses the kits, she has more time to focus on what she wants her students to learn rather than on having to prepare a lesson.

Content and instructional goals include wanting the students to develop critical thinking skills, Baker said.

On the Northwest Side, Marana and Amphi school districts also use FOSS kits, but they aren't at the center of those districts' science curriculums.

In her fourth-grade class Butterfield Elementary School teacher Michelle Castillo uses a science textbook, which the Marana Unified School District adopted about two years ago, but it's not something she likes to depend on.

The textbooks come with hand lenses, thermometers, scales and other equipment.

Science is meaningless unless you can relate it to the students in an engaging way, Castillo said.

"You have to make it fun for the students," she said. "It needs to be realistic."

Her students receive about 45 minutes of science four days a week, and Castillo makes it a point to incorporate hands-on activities into her lessons.

On Monday, her students were learning about erosion and natural resources.

Castillo used trays of sand and had her students drizzle water over the dirt to demonstrate how water wears away sand.

Nature itself can cause erosion but Castillo told her students humans can cause erosion as well.

Water, air, sunlight and wood were some of the natural resources her students could name.

Ryan Konieczny jumped out of his seat when he informed the class that some resources, such as coal, gas and oil, are known as nonrenewable resources.

Ryan, 10, gets excited about learning science.

"I like learning about science because I learn new things. I learn how people make stuff and I learn not to waste stuff," he said.