TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT NATURE

The Lockwoods may live on a suburban lot in New Mexico, but that has not stopped them from exploring nature. Family members just put on their old jeans and dig right into the backyard compost pile.This unusual tradition began last year when Megan, nine, and Laura, six, teamed up on their science fair project: a study of the types of insects and other crawlies they could find in the compost pile.

DIG ARCHAEOLOGY

Living in the foothills of the Rockies, the Schneider family has had the chance to watch archaeologists at work in nearby dinosaur digs. Her sons' fascination with the excavations made Lindy Schneider, an artist who home-schools her kids, think that an at-home dig would be a good way to teach Jeremy, 14, Aubrey, 12, Calvin, nine, and Ryan, four, about artifacts and what they reveal about past civilizations.

Since digging up her yard was impractical, Lindy worked on a smaller scale, making, as she says, "a molehill out of a mountain". She picked up four big banana boxes from the grocery store, filled them with sand from the sandbox, and buried objects she had been collecting at local tag sales. Among other items, she hid pottery, feathers, arrowheads, fossils, jewelry, tools, coins, and old chicken bones.

Armed with a spoon, a paintbrush, and a notebook to record their findings, the children carefully recovered the items in their boxes and speculated what that civilization might have been like. When one son discovered a carved rabbit, for example, the boys debated whether it was a religious icon or simply a tribute to that culture's favorite food. The dig prompted the boys to read up on other civilizations, a surprise development that pleased Lindy. "I wanted to make history come alive for them, and it really did," she says.

Over time, they've found earwigs, worms, beetles, larvae and spiders. The girls collect the creatures they find in jars, study them with magnifying glasses, look them up in bug books and keep a notebook of their findings. For this year's fair, Megan and Laura (with help from sister Krista, four) are charting the changes in the compost population over the course of a year.

MAKE A SCIENCE SCRAPBOOK

When Mary Sauber left her job as a science teacher to raise her daughters, Emily and Megan, now eight and five, respectively, she wanted to find a way to share her love of science with them. So she gave each girl a special notebook and helped them both decorate the covers with drawings, magazine pictures and feathers and added pockets to the front for pens and rulers. Now, whenever the family heads outdoors, the girls bring their scrapbooks.

They've categorized rocks and tracked the rainfall in their backyard in Wichita, Kansas. They've preserved flowers and leaves and identified birds and butterflies. They've also measured seedling growth and done experiments to see what would float in their pool. On a recent trip to the zoo, the girls brought along their notebooks and sketched the animals they saw. Certain details encouraged speculation: Why do giraffes have long necks? Or zebras stripes? Mary helps the girls write if need be and doesn't focus on perfect answers. "Science isn't about memorizing; it's about learning to observe and draw conclusions," she says.