With an eye to professional development and public school reform, The National Research council offers K-12 science instructors a multidisciplinary look at how and when children best learn science and how to do it. Among other things, the 11 chapters explain that young children think both concretely and abstractly, a notion largely ignored in current curricula, and that students' implicit pre-schooling knowledge of the natural world plays a critical role in their science learning. The text concludes with recommendations for new directions in policy, practice, and research. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)