By decorating and personalizing their own science notebooks, students develop a sense of ownership over their learning, establishing routines to record observations and reflections as they learn.

Students peruse sample pages from the notebooks of many different scientists, including scientists their own age, high school scientists, science teachers, and field scientists dating back to 1905. They consider how scientists have used notebooks over the last several hundred years, and start to think about how they'll use their own.

Students draw their idea of "a scientist doing science." This exercise surfaces students' prior understandings of the nature of science and the demographics of scientists, serving as a launching point for discovering that students, in fact, can be scientists.

Students pop open their science notebooks and get them ready for learning by inserting a Table of Contents, numbering the pages, and completing their first reflective entry.