In 2010, the United Nations and your fellow science professionals have invited citizens of the world to recognize the value of biodiversity. The theme of biodiversity is ideal for a personal program of reading and discovery. We’ve again asked the reviewers of NSTA Recommends to assist in assembling some of their suggestions based on the books they have examined. This year, many of those we’ve recognized focus on the beauty of our world and ways in which we can help students explore and appreciate it.
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Mendel and his peas. Goodall and her chimpanzees. Bentley and his snowflakes. Pasteur and his sheep. Not only do these stories intrigue students, but they also demonstrate the trials and tribulations associated with scientific inquiry. Using scientists’ biographies piques student interest while providing an added dimension to their understanding of scientific inquiry and the nature of science. In the unit presented here, students learn about important skills used in scientific undertakings while developing positive dispositions necessary for employing them. Moreover, by reading about scientists’ struggles and challenges and the impact of their scientific discoveries, students develop an awareness of science as a human endeavor that takes place in a historical and cultural context.
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A student’s reading level is one of the predictors of his or her overall academic success in middle school and afterwards. Science teachers, however, do not need to be reading experts to help students develop close-reading skills and effective screen-based reading strategies. Strategies to meet science-specific reading challenges—such as dealing with new vocabulary, working through complex concepts and relationships, and understanding sequences—must be implemented regularly to improve science reading comprehension. This issue of Science Scope presents articles that will help you teach reading skills to your science students.
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The perfect American lawn—green, lush, weed- and pest-free—is pursued by millions of Americans, who expend a massive amount of resources to attain this ideal. Americans spend an estimated $25 billion a year on lawn care, and a one-acre lawn costs approximately $400–$700 a year to maintain (Bormann, Balmori, Geballe 1993; EPA 2009a). While lawn care seems to be just part of everyday life, the effects of lawn maintenance on the environment are not minor. This article will address the myriad effects of lawn maintenance and environmentally friendly alternatives.
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One exercise that challenges students’ stereotypical perception of scientists is the Scientist Match-Up Activity. In this interactive lesson, students are asked to match a person to a profession based on three sets of clues. These clues include a picture, a description of particular skills, and personality traits/accomplishments. A wide array of scientists and nonscientists (actors, sports stars, and less famous professionals such as teachers, journalists, and so on) are included to highlight the similarities among working professionals and to exploit potential misconceptions students have about the perceived traits of scientists. In addition, this lesson informs the teacher about students’ knowledge of science and science-related careers and serves as a teaching tool for introducing specialized scientific disciplines.
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In order to make reading assignments a more meaningful instructional strategy, the author created MP3 audio recordings of the textbook, which included commentary that was interspersed in the recording. At the start of every recording, he also modeled text preview strategies that help promote greater reading comprehension. This method, which is entitled “Annotated Readings,” is described in this article.
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While news articles are commonly used as resources for teaching and learning in language arts classes, their use in science classrooms is often limited. In this article, the authors share their experiences (in Ming’s class) using a newspaper report to help a class of grade 6 students appreciate the relevance of what they had learned about food webs, habitats, and the environment to a current and real-life issue, the declining bee population. This article is written in the voice of author Fui Ming Toh.
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The phrase “21st-century skills” suggests that our students will need a new batch of skills and tools in order to be prepared for the next century. However, many teachers would say that they already incorporate these skills in their lessons, such as global awareness, creativity, media literacy, and cross-cultural skills, to name just a few. While all of these skills seem to be inherent in our lesson plans, the new framework attempts to provide a greater emphasis on global education and creative problem solving. This article describes how teachers at an independent, college preparatory school strive to prepare their students for the challenges and opportunities that await them in the 21st century by using an interdisciplinary collaboration and communication among its teachers.
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To teach scientific literacy to eighth graders, the authors created a yearlong project that emphasizes the various components and skills required to be a scientifically literate citizen. This project is broken into four separate components: skeptical thinking (pseudoscience), current-event article analysis, fiction and nonfiction literature, and long-term observations (observing your world).
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NSTA’s Science Safety Advisory Board recently launched the Safety in the Science Classroom portal, which contains safety resources for teachers, supervisors, and administrators. This month’s column provides a partial listing of the resources middle school science educators can expect to find through the portal.
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In addition to offering great opportunities for planet viewing, this summer is also a god time for observing Earth-orbiting satellites, or “bird-watching.” There are several thousand satellites (not counting our Moon) in orbit around our planet. However, not all are as easily visible as the International Space Station, the space shuttle, the Hubble Telescope, or Iridium Communication Satellites. There are several websites that provide viewing information such as when and where to look, how high above the horizon, and an estimate of how bright the satellite will be (see Resources).
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It often seems that as the school year draws to a close, students lose their enthusiasm for learning. So the question becomes, how do we design meaningful curricula that places students at the heart of the learning? After all, intrinsically motivating young adolescents can be a challenge. In this article, the author describes how she addressed this challenge by designing a unit that takes into account students needs for socialization by utilizing a project-based, technology-supported space unit that incorporated student-centered instruction and hands-on exploration with blogging.
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Many teachers continue to teach the scientific method not only because they too were taught to believe in it, but also because it is still emphasized in many textbooks. However, it was just such mechanical teaching of science that prompted education associations and scientists to explicitly repudiate the concept of a “one size fits all” scientific method. This article explains how using inquiry-type activities in middle school to challenge and encourage students to question as well as co-construct with their peers their own methods of resolving science questions helps promote and develop scientific thinking and practices.
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While diagrams make the text more visually appealing and provide an image of the text, they also do much more. Subsequently, the authors designed a series of lessons for students to discover the many purposes of graphics in science. A particular utility of these interdisciplinary lessons is that they are used with any science text featuring visual images.
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