Available June 2009.

Take-Home Physics is an excellent resource for high school physics teachers who want to devote more classroom time to complex concepts while challenging their students with hands-on homework assignments. This volume presents 65 take-home physics labs that use ordinary household items or other inexpensive materials to tackle motion and kinematics; forces and energy; waves, sound, and light; and electricity and magnetism. The result: Students learn background knowledge, reinforce basic process skills, practice discovery, and bridge classroom learning with real-world application—all while getting excited about homework. Teachers can also integrate science and literacy by requiring the use of lab notebooks with formal write-ups. Materials lists and safety notes, as well as both student activity pages and teacher notes are included.
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Science does not exist in a vacuum and, therefore, shouldn’t be taught that way. In that spirit, Activities Linking Science With Math, K-4, is a hands-on guide for preservice and inservice elementary 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 Digging Into Soil, Exploring the Mysteries of Fingerprints, and What Makes a Boat Float?—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.

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This well-researched book provides a valuable instructional framework for high school biology teachers as they tackle five particularly challenging concepts in their classrooms—meiosis, photosynthesis, natural selection, proteins and genes, and environmental systems and human impact. The author counsels educators first to identify students’ prior conceptions, especially misconceptions, related to the concept being taught, then to select teaching strategies that best dispel the misunderstandings and promote the greatest student learning.

The book is not a prescribed set of lessons plans. Rather it presents a framework for lesson planning, shares appropriate approaches for developing student understanding, and provides opportunities to reflect and apply those approaches to the five hard-to-teach topics. More than 300 teacher resources are listed.

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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.

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Whether we are imagining microbes or mammoths, dinosaurs or diatoms, molecules or stars, people of all ages are fascinated with the very large and the very small. New technologies have enabled scientists to investigate extremes of science previously unknown. An understanding of scale and scaling effects is of central importance to a scientific understanding of the world.

Help your middle and high school biology, Earth science, chemistry, physics, and mathematics students develop quantitative evaluation with Extreme Science. Authors Gail Jones, Amy Taylor, and Michael Falvo offer a detailed look at types of scale, measurement, powers of ten, estimation and models of scale, surface area to volume relationships, limits to size, and behaviors at different scales.

Scaling conceptions are one of the four recommended unifying themes in the AAAS Benchmarks for Science Literacy. A knowledge of scaling will serve as a solid framework for students to anchor further learning and allow them to make cross-curricular connections between seemingly disparate topics.

The investigations in this book are designed to help students develop a comprehensive and flexible sense of scale through experiences with the quantitative units and tools of science. Investigations build on our research that has documented how people learn scale. To aid in comprehension, Extreme Science uses the 5Es (engage, explore, explain, extend, and evaluate) to illustrate each topic. By using this learning method, the activities help students learn to invent scales, develop benchmarks, estimate, and apply body rulers (estimating using fingers, arms, or pacing off distances). In so doing, students will come to understand scale on an intrinsic level and will appreciate that no problem is too big or too little to be scaleable. Comprehending scale at the largest and smallest levels is where a quantitative understanding of the world begins.


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As urbanization and populations increase, it becomes increasingly more important that we understand the given relationships between the trends in our behavior and the ecological impacts they impart. Of particular importance is the fragile state of a great number of our watersheds, which provide not only drainage areas from our rivers and streams, but also drinking water for human and animal populations alike.

Watershed Investigations: 12 Labs for High School Science provides high school educators with a series of broad-based, hands-on experiments designed to help students understand the relationships between human impact and local hydrology. Covering a range of disciplines—including geology, chemistry, Earth science, botany, and biology—this volume gives educators lesson plans that will interest the student and meet a wide array of state and national curricular standards.

The book includes twelve customizable labs, each with extensive background and reference information designed to allow students to share the excitement of discovery along with the methods of scientific research and relevant examples of textbook subject material.

Labs include:

• Modeling Glacier Features with Sand
• Glacial Features of a Watershed
• Plant Identifications
• Wetland Delineation
• Measuring Plant Allelopathy
• Stream Channel Morphology
• Calculating Stream Discharge
• Flood Frequency Analysis for a River
• Comparison of Phosphorous Levels in Stream Sediments
• Macroinvertebrate Identification
• Factors that Affect Eutrophication
• Groundwater Contamination

The flexible formats of these labs can be customized to fit any teaching style and can be adapted to fit either inquiry-based or traditional methods based on the given class and situation. Additionally, the book contains helpful reference materials and appendices that include a history of the watershed, resources for additional information, and rubrics for writing classroom laboratory reports.

An exceptional example of proactive ecological education, Watershed Investigations will give students real-world experiential learning opportunities to understand abstract environmental concepts with concrete scientific detail.

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What must we teach students to enable them to fully participate in a world community where science and technology play an increasingly significant role? That’s a question that science educators continually face and that the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) helps answer.

Beginning in 2000 and every three years since, PISA has assessed the reading, mathematical, and scientific literacy of 15-year-olds in some 65 countries. In 2006 the assessment concentrated on science, and researchers evaluated students’ knowledge and skills by measuring the depth of scientific literacy attained rather than the elements of curricula mastered.

PISA Science 2006 provides a thorough examination of the assessment—including chapters on creating a framework for scientific literacy, test design and development, and frequently answered criticisms—plus more than a dozen essays on important themes for science teachers and the study’s implications for teaching science in the future. Comprehensive, thought-provoking, and indispensable, this book provides educators with a top-down view of where we stand today in science education and what this means for students and educators.


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Wouldn't it be helpful to know what your students' ideas are about a science concept before launching into a new lesson or unit? Newly released Uncovering Student Ideas in Science, Volume 4, offers 25 more formative assessment probes to help reveal students' preconceptions of fundamental concepts in science, bringing the total to 100 probes for the popular series by author Page Keeley. Teachers of grades K-12 will find short probes with grade-band specifics that provide easy-to-follow suggestions for addressing students' ideas by promoting learning through conceptual-change instruction. Volume 4 adds to the probes in physical, life, and Earth and space science with a new category called "unifying principles." Also covered is a discussion on balancing formative assessment with summative assessment.

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Biology teachers, you’re in luck—BSCS (Biological Sciences Curriculum Study) presents a wealth of current information in this new, updated edition of the classic The Biology Teacher’s Handbook.

No matter the depth of your experience, gain insight into what constitutes good teaching, how to guide students through inquiry at varying levels, and how to create a culture of inquiry in your classroom using science notebooks and other strategies. In addition, learn tactics for including controversial subjects in your courses, promoting scientific discussion, and choosing the right materials—information that would benefit the teacher of any subject.

BSCS experts have packed this volume with the latest, most valuable teaching ideas and guidelines. Their suggestions include designing your courses around five questions—all answered in the book’s five sections: What are the goals of the program for my students and me? How can I help students understand the nature of science? How do I teach controversial topics? How can I create a culture of scientific inquiry in my classroom? Where has biology teaching been, and where is it going?

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Where do rotten apples go after they fall off the tree? Does the temperature of the wood affect the heat of the fire? Can you make water boil faster? How large a mirror do you need to see your whole body? This second volume of 15 mystery stories examines more science concepts and reinforces the value of learning science through inquiry. Each mystery presents opportunities for students to create questions, form hypotheses, test their ideas, and come up with explanations. Focused on concepts such as weather and climate, thermodynamics, interdependency of living things, adaptation, life cycles, properties of matter, reflection and refraction, and chemical bonds, these mysteries draw students into the stories by grounding them in experiences students are familiar with, providing them with the foundation for classroom discussion and inquiry.

“These stories are bound to reveal the wonderful ideas all students have, give them the confidence to explore their own thinking, and provide opportunities for them to ‘do’ science rather than have science ‘done’ to them.” —Page Keeley, NSTA President 2008–09
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What would it take to move your school or district closer toward a culture that supports and sustains professional learning communities (PLCs)?

This thought-provoking collection of stories detailing seven successful approaches to developing PLCs will inspire you to find answers to this question and others. From one school taking the initiative to create its own collaborative environment to a network of 500 universities and schools, the accounts explain the advantages of PLCs for teachers and their students. The volume editors begin with the argument that in a PLC environment, teachers receive continuous professional development, therefore improving their teaching skills to the benefit of student learning. Later chapters recount the origins of schools as professional learning communities, define the characteristics of professional learning communities, and review research on the subject.

Teachers and school administrators will particularly appreciate the reflection questions at the end of each chapter that encourage you to relate your learning to the chapter’s specific story. An appendix provides even more resources about developing PLCs.

Professional learning communities have value in more than just school contexts, as supported by a growing body of research. In sharing the experiences of educators who have embraced the principles of PLCs and integrated them into schools and district, regional, and state initiatives, the editors hope to inspire new contributions to the transformation of science education.

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Science teachers aiming to foster inquiry in their classrooms will find the sixth title in the Exemplary Science monograph series, Inquiry: The Key to Exemplary Science full of helpful advice and new techniques.

The 18 chapters in this monograph illustrate various forms of inquiry, offer detailed examples of planning and execution, and provide case studies highlighting successful implementation of inquiry. Student learning, development of positive attitudes, the ability to use concepts and skills in completely new situations are all demonstrated for use in your classroom.

The National Science Education Standards call “for every student (every year) to experience the richness and excitement of knowing and understanding the natural world.” Editor Robert Yager notes that “in one sense, inquiry can be used as a synonym for science. Both include starting with questions, collecting evidence concerning the explanations offered, and arguing with others about the validity of the explanations. Science is a continuing quest for better understanding of the natural universe. This quest is inquiry!


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Drawing from the author’s own work as a lab developer, coordinator, and instructor, this one-of-a-kind text for college biology teachers uses the inquiry method in presenting 40 different lab exercises that make complicated biology subjects accessible to major and nonmajors alike. The volume offers a review of various aspects of inquiry, including teaching techniques, and covers 16 biology topics, including DNA isolation and analysis, properties of enzymes, and metabolism and oxygen consumption. Student and teacher pages are provided for each of the 16 topics.
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The authors have successfully transformed typical high school science classrooms into student-led scientific communities in which learners take ownership of their projects and mimic real-world exploration. Now, in response to requests from science education professionals, they have created the perfect vehicle for implementing and assessing this concept of whole-class inquiry in your classroom. This volume provides first-hand descriptions of Joan Gallagher-Bolos’s aims, observations, and impressions, as well as introspective analysis, as she moves her chemistry class toward the ultimate goal of whole-class inquiry. In addition, two included DVDs enable you to watch the subtle details and methods involved in the transformation as the class completes three different projects onscreen. This is a must-have package for preservice and inservice middle and high school science teachers who are interested in exploring, learning to use, and vicariously experiencing this rewarding and proven approach.
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Science education reform can seem a daunting task to high school science teachers. So, you might ask, why should I be bothered? The answer is that today’s students simply do not have the skill sets necessary for life in our global economy.

Reforming Secondary Science Instruction offers detailed advice for changing your methods of teaching so that students are prepared for life and work. Follow along as your fellow teachers learn about inquiry, implement change strategies, try out innovative instructional materials, build professional learning communities and partnerships, use data from student assessments, and address the needs of linguistically diverse learners.

The underlying message, as one author puts it, is “science education reform will not occur by simply adding occasional new activities to your teaching repertoire. Reform requires thought, work, and persistence.”

Every chapter offers you the opportunity to assess your own teaching techniques and find room for improvement. Whether you are early in your career or a seasoned professional, Reforming Secondary Science Instruction will help you craft a workable plan for giving your students the tools they need to succeed beyond your classroom.

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What is assessment?
How do you assess your students’ progress?
How do they assess themselves and their peers?
How do you assess the effectiveness of your own teaching?

College Science Teachers Guide to Assessment provides busy professors with a quick reference for promoting student reflection after exams, encouraging student-led teaching models, and looking at exam corrections from both instructor and student perspectives.

This guide is divided into four sections, comprising 28 peer-reviewed chapters, and covers general assessment topics (such as validation of survey instruments) and traditional and alternative assessment techniques in both science and science education classrooms. A series of how-to assessment practices that have been successfully utilized in the field and practical tips to enhance assessment in the college science classroom are also included.

For college science professors, this handy reference will help you:

• Use multiple choice questions to assess comprehension and expose faulty thinking
• Gain an intrinsic understanding of assessment techniques in a variety of settings, including the laboratory, online classes, and large undergraduate science courses
• Learn ways to teach assessment techniques to preservice teachers
• Explore alternative assessment techniques such as electronic portfolios, scientific posters, and Wetscience
• Realize the value of peer assessment, student reflection, exam corrections as a means of assessment, and student-led teaching models
• Avoid the practices that jeopardize meaningful student assessment
• Determine sensible and fair ways of assessing students


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Are you properly evaluating the results of the tests you give to students? Can you explain the difference between classroom assessment and standardized assessment? Are you on solid ground with your grading system? Demystify—and even use—statistics to answer these important questions and more in this clear, easy-to-use text for preservice and classroom science teachers and methods professors.

The text’s practical approach helps teachers understand how to interpret student assessments statistically and how to measure and explain the validity and reliability of those assessments. Included are a global history of testing to its present state and valuable instructions for using graphing calculators for easy computing. This nonthreatening framework for measuring and interpreting assessment results is a must-have for your professional development library.
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Designed as a ready-to-use survival guide for middle school Earth science teachers, this title is an invaluable resource that provides an entire year’s worth of inquiry-based and discovery-oriented Earth science lessons, including 33 investigations or labs, and 17 detailed projects.

This unique collection of astronomy, geology, meteorology, and physical oceanography lessons promotes deeper understanding of science concepts through a hands-on approach that identifies and dispels student misconceptions and expands student understanding and knowledge.

In addition, this field-tested and standards-based volume is ideal for university-level methodology courses in science education.
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Climate Change From Pole to Pole: Biology Investigations offers timely, relevant, biology-based case studies and background information on how to teach the science of climate change. The six painstakingly researched and field-tested activities, which build on four content chapters, give students the opportunity to solve real-life scientific problems using guiding questions, graphs and data tables, short reading assignments, and independent research.

This volume provides an authentic and rigorous way to engage students in science and environmental issues—scientific methods, evidence, climate, and biological effects of climate change—and is a unique and essential resource for your high school or college-level classroom.
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Teaching evolution is part of the core biology curriculum, and this new resource provides a teacher-ready summary of the scientific, legal, and ethical talking points for discussion of the topic. Compiled by NSTA with input from the National Center for Science Education, the NSTA Tool Kit for Teaching Evolution pulls together historical facts, scientific data, legal precedent, and other invaluable information for answering the all-too-common question of “Why teach evolution?” Biology and life science teachers will appreciate this resource, complete with classroom activities, for its ability to help you cover a relevant issue with depth and pedagogical support.
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“Almost all careers in the 21st century require a working knowledge of science and mathematics,” says Steve Metz, The Science Teacher field editor, in his introduction to All in a Day’s Work, 2nd edition. “The pending retirement of 78 millions baby boomers can only add to the need for science and mathematics training, as companies begin recruiting replacement workers in science fields, sometimes—believe it or not—as early as middle school!”

This expanded second edition will help you give students an exciting look at the vast array of jobs built on a foundation of science, including:

• the expected—high school science teacher, microbiologist, and radiation therapist,
• the unexpected—bomb investigator, space architect, and musical acoustics scientist, the adventurous—astronaut, deep-cave explorer, and dinosaur paleontologist, and
• the offbeat— shark advocate, roller coaster designer, and oyster wrangler

All in a Day’s Work, 2nd edition is a compendium of 49 of the popular “Career of the Month” columns from the NSTA high school journal The Science Teacher. Each column profiles a person in a science-related job and can be reproduced and shared with your high school students as they make career and education plans. Each profile includes suggestions about how to find additional career information, including links to websites and relevant professional organizations and interest groups.


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The National Science Foundation-funded research projects described here show the strong link between assessment and improved student learning; the essays invite science teachers to reflect on their practices and priorities and to consider a variety of productive assessment strategies and frameworks. The central ideas around which the chapters are based—and which provide compelling data to fuel conversations about assessment purposes and opportunities—include the:

• Roles of assessment in teaching and learning

• Characteristics of meaningful assessment items

• Need for research to validate assessment practices

• Significance of assessing both student knowledge and their misconceptions

• Value of assessing students’ ability to apply their knowledge

• Importance of assessment-focused professional development

In addressing assessment as a central element of teaching practice, Assessing Science Learning explores the various forms assessment can take, including student journal entries, feedback on lab reports, observations of students engaged in activities, whole-class discussion, and large annual tests.
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If you’re teaching an introductory science education course in a college or university, Readings in Science Methods, K–8, with its blend of theory, research, and examples of best practices, can serve as your only text, your primary text, or a supplemental text. If you’re a preservice teacher, you’ll want a copy for its insights into how you can effectively teach science. If you’re a practicing teacher, this book will refresh what you already know—and could lead you into new and fruitful approaches. And if you’re an administrator, this is the perfect professional development tool as a reference for your staff.

The book is a generously sized compendium of articles drawn from NSTA’s middle and elementary level journals, Science Scope and Science and Children. Editor Eric Brunsell teaches his methods courses using only the articles—the “voice of the classroom teacher,” he says. Brunsell has chosen the best journal articles, tested each in the classroom, and organized them into seven sections—each supplemented with its own insightful introduction and “action steps.”

• The Nature of Science and Science Inquiry

• Teaching Science

• Science for All

• Science-Teaching Toolbox

• Teaching Life and Environmental Science

• Teaching Physical Science

• Teaching Earth and Space Science
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Behind the stereotype of girls’ not doing well in science are some reasons, mostly based on one fact: They are often—and most often inadvertently—treated differently in the classroom. The authors of Girls in Science engaged in years of working under a grant funded by the National Science Foundation on this all-too-real problem of gender-equitable science teaching. What they found through working with students, teachers, and scientists— the three elements of the Triad community in which their research started—can change the way you teach and level the playing field of science education for girls.

The Triad refers also to the Student Goals, the Teaching Goals, and the Science Goals – there are five in each area—that lie at the heart of the book. Each of the 15 goals is supported by an essay, strategies, and brief vignettes that will help teachers and students reach the goal. The vignettes, written by teachers and scientists involved in the project, illustrate the strategies. They illuminate problems and provoke the reader to find remedies through the use of reflection questions and links to similar vignettes. For the Student Goal of “Confidence to Explore,” for instance, one of the three strategies is “Knowing that I learn when I make mistakes.” The five vignettes supporting the strategies include “After the Initial Eewww,” “No Longer the Same,” and “No Step-by-Step Instructions.”

Girls in Science is valuable for more than issues of gender equity. As their work progressed, the authors realized what they were learning could be adapted to help with equitable teaching for other groups of students; special-needs students, English language learners, and ethnic and racial minorities, for example.


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Taking science education beyond the classroom provides learning opportunities and experiences for students that just aren’t available within school walls, and Science Beyond the Classroom has a wealth of ideas on how to do it successfully. These carefully selected articles from the NSTA journals Science Scope and Science and Children were gathered into a compendium because of the value of informal science education in providing access to those experiences and in tapping into student interests.

Science Beyond the Classroom provides an overview of information and ideas—many of them include step-by-step, teacher-tested instructions and guidelines—that can be easily modified and adapted by teachers and others—scout leaders, club sponsors, parents, and home schoolers among them—who want to nurture enthusiasm for science. An introduc¬tion providing background and ideas for using the articles and a list of additional articles and web sites leads each of the five sections:

• Extending Science Learning Beyond the Curriculum: Projects and Challenges

• Extending Science Learning Beyond the School Building Walls: Using Local Sites

• Extending Science Learning Beyond the School Day: Clubs, Camps and Science Expositions

• Extending Science Learning to the Family: Take-Home Projects and Family Science Events

• Extending Science Learning to Informal Institutions: Museums, Zoos, and Other Field Trips

With its potential for engaging student interest, this book aims also at encouraging more students to enter academic fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
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