NSTA - National Science Teachers Association

Featured This Month

• Science by Design: Construct a … Boat, Catapult, Glove, and Greenhouse

  
  Launch a new generation of students into catapult- and boat-building—plus glove- and greenhouse-making—with this newly refreshed resource. Four sets of well-loved activities have been repackaged in one convenient volume that seamlessly combines hands-on...  [view full summary]
  Launch a new generation of students into catapult- and boat-building—plus glove- and greenhouse-making—with this newly refreshed resource. Four sets of well-loved activities have been repackaged in one convenient volume that seamlessly combines hands-on experience with intriguing engineering concepts.
  
  Perfect for inspiring interest in STEM topics, the activities encourage high school classes to learn by doing. The activities will get your students fully engaged in meaningful explorations of concepts such as
  • buoyancy and friction (through boats);
  • torsion and elasticity (catapults);
  • heat transfer and insulation (gloves); and
  • plant biology, thermodynamics, and energy transfer (greenhouses).
  
  Best of all, Science By Design is written with the needs of time-starved teachers like you in mind. Each of the four units provides thorough explanations, materials lists, cost and timing estimates, and teaching suggestions. You also get ideas for assessment and student portfolios, plus lists of connections to national standards. And if those aren’t enough, don’t miss the bonus resources called “side roads”—off-the-beaten-path investigations that let you and your students delve further into the links between inquiry and design. [hide full summary]
  • Member Price: $21.25
  • Nonmember Price: $26.57

Teaching TechniquesView more in this category

• Scientific Argumentation in Biology: 30 Classroom Activities

  
  
  “Individuals who are proficient in science should be able to understand the language of science and participate in scientific practices, such as inquiry and argumentation. Empirical research, however, indicates that many students do not develop this...  [view full summary]
  
  “Individuals who are proficient in science should be able to understand the language of science and participate in scientific practices, such as inquiry and argumentation. Empirical research, however, indicates that many students do not develop this knowledge or these abilities in school. One way to address this problem is to give students more opportunities to engage in scientific argumentation as part of the teaching and learning of science. This book will help teachers with this task.” —Authors Victor Sampson and Sharon Schleigh
  
  Develop your high school students’ understanding of argumentation and evidence-based reasoning with this comprehensive book. Like three guides in one, Scientific Argumentation in Biology combines theory, practice, and biology content.
  
  It starts by giving you solid background in why students need to be able to go beyond expressing mere opinions when making research-related biology claims. Then it provides 30 thoroughly field-tested activities your students can use when learning to:
  • propose, support, and evaluate claims;
  • validate or refute them on the basis of scientific reasoning; and
  • craft complex written arguments.
  
  Detailed teacher notes suggest specific ways in which you can use the activities to enrich and supplement (not replace) what you’re doing in biology class already.
  Scientific Argumentation is an invaluable resource for learning more about argumentation and designing related lessons. You'll find it ideal for helping your students learn standards-based content; improve their biological practices; explain, interpret, and evaluate evidence; and acquire the habits of mind to become more proficient in science. [hide full summary]
  • Member Price: $31.16
  • Nonmember Price: $39.95

Activities and Field TripsView more in this category

• Predict, Observe, Explain: Activities Enhancing Scientific Understanding

  
  John Haysom and Michael Bowen provide middle and high school science teachers with more than 100 student activities to help the students develop their understanding of scientific concepts. The powerful Predict, Observe, Explain (POE) strategy, field-tested...  [view full summary]
  John Haysom and Michael Bowen provide middle and high school science teachers with more than 100 student activities to help the students develop their understanding of scientific concepts. The powerful Predict, Observe, Explain (POE) strategy, field-tested by hundreds of teachers, is designed to foster student inquiry and challenge existing conceptions that students bring to the classroom.
  
  The POE strategy allows students to reflect on their experiences with and understanding of a subject before making a prediction about the outcome of an experiment and discussing the prediction with classmates. Following up this discussion with observations and then scientific explanations of the outcome gives students a more in-depth understanding of the subject at hand. Furthermore, the authors’ POE strategy helps teachers gain insight into students’ thinking throughout the learning process. Practicing the POE strategy also serves preservice teachers who need to develop strong pedagogy as they attempt to engage students in science learning and understanding.
  
  The 15 chapters cover topics such as force and motion, temperature and heat, light, chemical change, and life processes in plants. Lessons include worksheets, scientific explanations of the concepts being studied, summaries of student responses during the field tests, synopses of research findings, and lists of necessary materials. In Predict, Observe, Explain, Haysom and Bowen make it easy for novice and experienced teachers alike to incorporate a teaching method that helps students understand—and even enjoy—science and learning. [hide full summary]
  • Member Price: $27.96
  • Nonmember Price: $34.95

InterdisciplinaryView more in this category

• Activities Linking Science With Math, 5-8

  
  Science does not exist in a vacuum and, therefore, shouldn’t be taught that way. In that spirit, Activities Linking Science With Math, 5-8, is a hands-on guide for preservice and inservice elementary and middle school teachers who want to connect...  [view full summary]
  Science does not exist in a vacuum and, therefore, shouldn’t be taught that way. In that spirit, Activities Linking Science With Math, 5-8, is a hands-on guide for preservice and inservice elementary and middle school teachers who want to connect science instruction with other areas of study—including visual arts, social sciences, language arts, and especially math.
  
  The 20 discovery-based and academically rigorous activities provided in this volume enrich students’ awareness of the world around them, encourage their natural curiosity, and promote the development of their problem-solving skills. The lessons—such as Studies in Symmetry, The Tower Challenge, and Determining the Size and Shape of the Blind Spot—are teacher friendly, too, requiring no advanced expertise in any subject area and using only inexpensive and easily accessible materials. Each includes a list of needed materials, a step-by-step procedure, discussion questions, and assessment techniques.
  
  Activities align with the latest national standards for both science and math and cover topics from all scientific disciplines.
  [hide full summary]
  • Member Price: $23.16
  • Nonmember Price: $28.95

BiologyView more in this category

• Uncovering Student Ideas in Life Science, Volume 1: 25 New Formative Assessment Probes

  
  2012 Winner of the Distinguished Achievement Award from Association of Educational Publishers!
  
  Author Page Keeley continues to provide K–12 teachers with her highly usable and popular formula for uncovering and addressing the preconceptions...  [view full summary]
  2012 Winner of the Distinguished Achievement Award from Association of Educational Publishers!
  
  Author Page Keeley continues to provide K–12 teachers with her highly usable and popular formula for uncovering and addressing the preconceptions that students bring to the classroom—the formative assessment probe—in this first book devoted exclusively to life science in her Uncovering Student Ideas in Science series.
  
  In this volume, Keeley addresses the topics of life and its diversity; structure and function; life processes and needs of living things; ecosystems and change; reproduction, life cycles, and heredity; and human biology. Using the probes as diagnostic tools that identify and analyze students’ preconceptions, teachers can easily move students from where they are in their current thinking to where they need to be to achieve scientific understanding. At the same time, use of the probes deepens the teacher’s understanding of the subject matter, suggests instructional implications, and expands assessment literacy. Using the student-learning data gained through the probes to inform teaching and learning is what makes the probes formative.
  
  Each probe is supported by extensive Teacher Notes, which provide background information on the purpose of the probes, related concepts, explanations of the life science ideas being taught, related ideas in the national science standards, research on typical student misconceptions in life science, and suggestions for instruction and assessment. [hide full summary]
  • Member Price: $23.96
  • Nonmember Price: $29.95

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

• Project Earth Science: Astronomy, Revised 2nd Edition

  
  How well can your students …
  • Illustrate the reason for Earth’s seasons?
  • Explain how far a light year is?
  • Simulate the phases of the Moon?
  • Describe the effects of greenhouse gases?
  • Connect astronomy to other Earth...  [view full summary]
  How well can your students …
  • Illustrate the reason for Earth’s seasons?
  • Explain how far a light year is?
  • Simulate the phases of the Moon?
  • Describe the effects of greenhouse gases?
  • Connect astronomy to other Earth system science?
  
  Project Earth Science: Astronomy, Revised 2nd Edition, involves students in activities that focus on Earth’s position in our solar system. How do we measure astronomical distances? How can we look back in time as we gaze across vast distances in space? How would our planet be different without its particular atmosphere and distance to our star? What are the geometries among Earth, the Moon, and the Sun that yield lunar phases and seasons? Students explore these concepts and others in 11 teacher-tested activities. Background materials for students and teachers, detailed and illustrated procedures for doing activities, and supplemental resources provide students and teachers with tools to understand Earth as one planet among many in our solar system—and universe. [hide full summary]
  • Member Price: $26.36
  • Nonmember Price: $32.95

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

• Books
• e-Books
• Book Chapters

• SciGuides
• Science Objects
• SciPacks

• Journal Articles
• NSTA Gear

See what's currently on sale from NSTA.

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.
View all the ClassPacks »