Mary Burcham of Kahoe Elementary School in Lincoln is among the many Nebraska teachers who tested the Wonderwise materials while they were in development. On a recent afternoon, she used the "Pollen Detective" kit with her fifth graders to investigate the work of Peggy Bolick, a University of Nebraska researcher who studies ancient pollen in paleontological digs and other sources. The students had already watched a video and read a booklet about Bolick; today they were searching for "pollen" themselves.

Working in groups and wearing goggles, they poured piles of special rocks into pans they had divided into sections with string. Hidden inside the rocks were tiny beads, each colored to represent pollen from a cottonwood tree, sunflower or other plant species. Burcham asked the students to analyze the amounts of the various sources.

"I know it's hard to hold back because you're scientists who want to discover the answer," she told the youngsters as she showed how to dissolve the rocks with plastic knives and vinegar solutions. Soon, the students were working intently in teams, revealing the secrets inside the rocks.

"Cool, I found a white bead," said one boy. Next to him, a girl read off the totals of the different colored beads her group had uncovered: "3, 2, 2, 2, 0, 0, 4." Another girl giggled as a boy pressed too hard on one of the knives and snapped it. "Ohhhhh," she told him, "you broke the shovel!"

Later, while straightening up the classroom, Burcham explained that "we're trying to take the mystery out of science." Carrying out a mock field experiment "is not as good as going out on a real paleontological dig," she said, but it's far more effective than traditional textbook lessons. "I want them to feel that when they see science on television, they're seeing something that they can learn to do themselves."