NSTA - National Science Teachers Association

Featured This Month

• Why Science?

  
  Prize-winning scientist and bestselling author James Trefil contends that in order to participate fully in the democratic process, people must understand fundamental scientific concepts. In Why Science? Trefil details the concepts needed in order to be...  [view full summary]
  Prize-winning scientist and bestselling author James Trefil contends that in order to participate fully in the democratic process, people must understand fundamental scientific concepts. In Why Science? Trefil details the concepts needed in order to be “scientifically literate.”
  
  The concepts he explores range from understanding natural selection to grasping Maxwell’s Equations governing electricity and magnetism; from recognizing that the surface of the earth is constantly in flux to grasping the basic concepts of physics and chemistry.
  
  In addition, Trefil describes the state of science knowledge today; explains why he believes today’s science education is insufficient for tomorrow’s needs; confronts headline issues, including stem cell research, global warming, cloning, and “intelligent design;” and suggests a middle way between the two prevailing approaches to science education: “deep and narrow” vs. “broad but shallow.”[hide full summary]
  • Member Price: $11.17
  • Nonmember Price: $13.97

Teaching TechniquesView more in this category

• Everyday Physical Science Mysteries: Stories for Inquiry-Based Science Teaching

  
  What can make a ball roll faster? Does the temperature of wood affect the heat of a fire? How can old-fashioned tin can telephones teach today’s students about sound and technology? By presenting everyday mysteries like these, this book will motivate...  [view full summary]
  What can make a ball roll faster? Does the temperature of wood affect the heat of a fire? How can old-fashioned tin can telephones teach today’s students about sound and technology? By presenting everyday mysteries like these, this book will motivate your students to carry out hands-on science investigations and actually care about the results. The 21 open-ended mysteries focus exclusively on physical science, including motion, friction, temperature, forces, and sound. The stories come with lists of science concepts to explore, grade-appropriate strategies for using them, and explanations of how the lessons align with national standards. They also relieve you of the tiring work of designing inquiry lessons from scratch.
  
  “What makes this book so special is the unique way science is integrated into the story line, using characters and situations children can easily identify with.”—Page Keeley, author of the NSTA Press series Uncovering Student Ideas in Science [hide full summary]
  • Member Price: $20.76
  • Nonmember Price: $25.95

Activities and Field TripsView more in this category

• Brain-Powered Science: Teaching and Learning With Discrepant Events

  
  • How can a long metal needle pass through a balloon without popping it?
  • How can water flow at very different rates through two identical funnels?
  • How can a stick, placed on a table under several sheets of newspaper and extended over...  [view full summary]
  • How can a long metal needle pass through a balloon without popping it?
  • How can water flow at very different rates through two identical funnels?
  • How can a stick, placed on a table under several sheets of newspaper and extended over the edge of a table, snap when quickly struck—without lifting or tearing the paper?
  
  Author Thomas O’Brien takes these and 30 more science inquiry activities to a higher level in this book for educators who love to surprise and challenge their students with unanticipated results. Using experiments based on the science of a “discrepant event”—an experiment or demonstration in which the outcome is not what students expect—O’Brien shows how learners can be motivated to reconsider their preconceived notions and think more closely about what has actually occurred and the underlying scientific explanations.
  
  What makes this volume more valuable than a mere activity book is the addition of a science education component to the extensive science content found in each activity. Each discrepant event is shown to be analogous to a pedagogical principle. Speaking directly to teachers, O’Brien writes: Your participation as teacher-as-learner-experimenter (rather than simply passive reader) in these minds-on activities will lead you to question, and help you to revise, your implicit assumptions about the nature of science, teaching, and learning. At the same time, you will develop expertise with activities that you can use with your own students. The dual-purpose activities thus allow you to unlock two doors with one key—the doors to your own learning and to your students’ learning. The detailed analogies between the activities and science learning make the book an ideal resource for middle and high school teachers, science teacher educators and their preservice students, and professional development specialists alike.
  
  This thorough and thought-provoking text includes more than 200 up-to-date internet resources, as well as extensions to each of the physical science, biology, and chemistry activities—bringing the total number of inquiry activities to nearly 120. Most important, the author reminds teachers that the study of science is full of surprises and should be both meaningful and fun for students.
  
  “The internet resources alone are worth the price of the book!”
  —Walt Woolbaugh, grades 6–8 science teacher, Manhattan, Montana, and adjunct assistant professor of graduate science education, Montana State University
  
  “This book is an excellent text for college of education teachers to use with their prospective teachers grades 5–12.”
  —Janice Crowley, science department chair, Wichita (Kansas) Collegiate Upper School, and former secondary science methods instructor, Wichita State University [hide full summary]
  • Member Price: $27.16
  • Nonmember Price: $33.95

InterdisciplinaryView more in this category

• Even More Picture-Perfect Science Lessons: Using Children’s Books to Guide Inquiry, K–5

  
  “The number one compliment we hear from teachers is that the lessons are complete and ready to take back to their classrooms and use.”
  —Emily Morgan and Karen Ansberry, coauthors of the Picture-Perfect Science Lessons series
  
  Since...  [view full summary]
  “The number one compliment we hear from teachers is that the lessons are complete and ready to take back to their classrooms and use.”
  —Emily Morgan and Karen Ansberry, coauthors of the Picture-Perfect Science Lessons series
  
  Since the debut of the Picture-Perfect Science books and workshops more than 10 years ago, authors Emily Morgan and Karen Ansberry have learned one thing for certain: Elementary school teachers are constantly clamoring for even more ways to engage children in reading and science through picture books! To meet that demand, the 15 all-new lessons in Even More Picture-Perfect Science Lessons bring you:
  
  • Even more convenience: You can cover reading and science content simultaneously and save time with ready-to-use student pages and assessments.
  • Even more confidence in your own expertise: You get relevant science concepts and reading comprehension strategies to keep your teaching on track.
  • Even more ways to entice even reading-phobic children: Each lesson makes students yearn to learn science from such captivating fiction and nonfiction picture books as Houdini the Amazing Caterpillar; Captain Kidd’s Crew Experiments With Sinking and Floating; and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.
  
  Plus: This latest volume even connects the lessons to A Framework for K–12 Science Education and the English Language Arts and Literacy Common Core State Standards.
  
  Just as teachers like you have been hoping, Even More Picture-Perfect Science Lessons delivers the whole package: teacher-friendly lessons, strong standards-based science content, and a kid-magnet formula that will get your students engrossed in science while they improve their reading skills.[hide full summary]
  • Member Price: $30.36
  • Nonmember Price: $37.95

BiologyView more in this category

• Diagnosis for Classroom Success, Teacher Edition: Making Anatomy and Physiology Come Alive

  
  “When I entered the teaching profession, I was stunned by the lack of interest my high school students had in science education. The traditional model of teaching science, often referred to as ‘chalk-and-talk’ with the occasional laboratory mixed in,...  [view full summary]
  “When I entered the teaching profession, I was stunned by the lack of interest my high school students had in science education. The traditional model of teaching science, often referred to as ‘chalk-and-talk’ with the occasional laboratory mixed in, was not working. The vast majority of my students were not going home and reading the textbooks. I knew I had to make the most of our face-to-face time.”
  —Author Nicole Maller
  
  After conducting research at a rigorous medical school, your students arrive for their first day of hospital duty only to be confronted with four sick patients, each with a different mystery ailment. How can your teams of student-physicians come up with the correct diagnoses? This attention-grabbing narrative and the corresponding role-plays are the basis of Diagnosis for Classroom Success: Making Anatomy and Physiology Come Alive. This high school curriculum gets your students deeply involved in inquiry-based science as it acquaints them with major body systems, sickle cell anemia, HIV, pregnancy, and diabetes. This Teacher Edition (which includes the Student Edition) spells out the book’s relevance to the Framework for K–12 Science Education and provides rubrics, answer keys, and prep tips to use before, during, and after the lessons. By blending the power of story with engaging investigations, Diagnosis for Classroom Success will cure what ails your lecture-weary biology classes. [hide full summary]
  • Member Price: $23.16
  • Nonmember Price: $28.95

ChemistryView more in this category

• Forensics in Chemistry: The Case of Kirsten K.

  
  Forensics seems to have the unique ability to maintain student interest and promote content learning…. I still have students approach me from past years and ask about the forensics case and specific characters from the story. I have never had a student...  [view full summary]
  Forensics seems to have the unique ability to maintain student interest and promote content learning…. I still have students approach me from past years and ask about the forensics case and specific characters from the story. I have never had a student come back to me and comment on that unit with the multiple-choice test at the end.”
  — from the Introduction to Forensics in Chemistry: The Murder of Kirsten K.
  
  How did Kirsten K.’s body wind up at the bottom of a lake—and what do wedding cake ingredients, soil samples, radioactive decay, bone age, blood stains, bullet matching, and drug lab evidence reveal about whodunit? These mysteries are at the core of this teacher resource book, which meets the unique needs of high school chemistry classes in a highly memorable way. The book makes forensic evidence the foundation of a series of hands-on, week-long labs. As you weave the labs throughout the year and students solve the case, the narrative provides vivid lessons in why chemistry concepts are relevant and how they connect.
  All chapters include case information specific to each performance assessment and highlight the related national standards and chemistry content. Chapters provide:
  • Teacher guides to help you set up
  • Student performance assessments
  • A suspect file to introduce the characters and new information about their relationships to the case
  • Samples of student work that has been previously assessed (and that serves as an answer key for you)
  • Grading rubrics
  
  Using Forensics in Chemistry as your guide, you will gain the confidence to use inquiry-based strategies and performance-based assessments with a complex chemistry curriculum. Your students may gain an interest in chemistry that rivals their fascination with Bones and CSI. [hide full summary]
  • Member Price: $20.76
  • Nonmember Price: $25.95

Earth & Space ScienceView more in this category

• Earth Science Puzzles: Making Meaning From Data

  
  Teachers of Earth and environmental sciences in grades 8–12 will welcome this activity book centered on six “data puzzles” that foster critical-thinking skills in students and support science and math standards.
  
  Earth Science Puzzles...  [view full summary]
  Teachers of Earth and environmental sciences in grades 8–12 will welcome this activity book centered on six “data puzzles” that foster critical-thinking skills in students and support science and math standards.
  
  Earth Science Puzzles presents professionally gathered Earth science data—including graphs, maps, tables, images, and narratives—and asks students to step into scientists’ shoes to use temporal, spatial, quantitative, and concept-based reasoning to draw inferences from the data. For the teacher, each puzzle is supported by an extensive Pedagogical Content Knowledge Guide with background information, required skills, common student misconceptions, an answer key to the questions in the student section, and a bank of resources for further exploration of the topics.
  
  Paleoclimate, weather forecasting, earthquakes, estuaries, watersheds, and hydrothermal vents are all covered. The time-efficient puzzles—taking approximately one period to complete—can be the beginning of an exciting, data-rich classroom environment. [hide full summary]
  • Member Price: $22.36
  • Nonmember Price: $27.95

Physical ScienceView more in this category

• Companion Classroom Activities for Stop Faking It! Force and Motion

  
  Never has it been so easy for educators to learn to teach physical science with confidence. Award-winning author Bill Robertson launched his bestselling Stop Faking It! series in 2002 with Force and Motion—offering elementary and middle...  [view full summary]
  Never has it been so easy for educators to learn to teach physical science with confidence. Award-winning author Bill Robertson launched his bestselling Stop Faking It! series in 2002 with Force and Motion—offering elementary and middle school teachers a jargon-free way to learn the background for teaching physical science with confidence. Combining easy-to-understand—if irreverent—explanations and quirky diagrams, Stop Faking It! Force and Motion helped thousands of teachers, parents, and homeschoolers conquer topics from Newton’s laws to the physics of space travel.
  
  Now Companion Classroom Activities for Stop Faking It! Force and Motion proves an ideal supplement to the original book—or a valuable resource of its own. The hands-on activities and highly readable explanations allow students to first investigate concepts, then discuss learned concepts, and finally apply the concepts to everyday situations. Robertson’s wit and humor are sure to keep students and teachers entertained while they tackle topics such as acceleration, speed, and gravity. Each activity includes an objective, materials list, National Science Education Standards addressed, approximate completion time, and detailed step-by-step instructions. Student pages for recording observations and student evaluation questionnaires to help assess understanding are also provided. [hide full summary]
  • Member Price: $20.76
  • Nonmember Price: $25.95

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Using NSTA Press books in your classroom is easier than ever! NSTA's ClassPacks, each sufficient for a class of 28 students, are lesson-specific collections of materials that complement some of our most popular books, including Picture-Perfect Science Lessons, Outdoor Science, and Dig In! An unmatched time-saver and a great deal.
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