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Students at Bailey’s Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences are finding out how many different kinds of invertebrates live in their schoolyard....
By Peggy Ashbrook
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A system is more than a collection—each component is related to others, and changing one component affects the others. The featured articles in this issue describe how students can learn systems thinking (as well as content concepts)....
By Mary Bigelow
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Destination Atlanta, GA for professional development in November 2012
Atlanta, Georgia is the place to be this November for professional development opportunities at two conferences—the National Science Teachers Association’s area conference November 1-3, and the National Association for the Education of Young Chi...
By Peggy Ashbrook
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What are traditional autumn activities in your program?
Pumpkins are beautiful and varied, and so are apples, plus they taste good. No wonder these fall crops are part of early childhood activities in so many programs. Accomplished early childhood teachers don’t just “do” pumpkins—they use pumpkin...
By Peggy Ashbrook
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Mini Doc Cams Capture the World Up Close
Small document cameras, or mini doc cams, are making inroads into many classrooms due to their low cost, USB power, small size, and adaptability. It is the latter feature that makes them especially attractive to science teachers....
By Martin Horejsi
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Sharing a few online and in print resources for teachers and families
I’m sharing a few free online resources that I’ve recently come across. Share a resource that you use, by commenting, below. The Fred Rogers Early Learning Environment has many short videos that families and early childhood educators can ...
By Peggy Ashbrook
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I’m conducting a professional development (PD) workshop on instructional strategies for our elementary science department, sharing some of the great ideas I learned at a conference. The teachers all know each other, so we don’t need the...
By Mary Bigelow
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In my classroom, I liked to have music playing when the students came in. It was usually classical and the students seemed to enjoy it–one student was especially fond of Mozart. From some recent tweets, I discovered several sites with a differe...
By Mary Bigelow
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Early learning experiences build toward understanding concepts that are hard to teach
We all have seen how children begin making sense of the world before they have any formal or informal teaching about a concept or topic…discovering through exploration that the world has textures, some things are for eating and some are not, object...
By Peggy Ashbrook
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The budget situation in the past few years has lead to a number of teacher layoffs and reassignments. In many cases, beginning teachers bear the brunt of these. But often overlooked are the effects of these changes on the teachers who remain (and t...
By Mary Bigelow
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And the definition is??? Defining 21st century skills
Based on many different sectors requests to have schools integrate skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving into academic subjects, the term of 21st century skills surfaced several years ago and has been promoted throughou...
By Christine Royce
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A point well taken about the Leading Edge
The Leading Edge is a blog that asks those involved in science education leadership whether that be administrators, policy makers, supervisors, state leaders to continue the conversation on something that was presented in the recent issue of The Lead...
By Christine Royce
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Supporting the Common Core-Math
There has always been a connection between science and math, and the new Framework for K-12 Science Education makes that connection even more pronounced. The featured articles in this issue focus on helping students see this connection, and they each...
By Mary Bigelow
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NSTA has been running informal polls of our members online and sharing the results — and your unvarnished comments — in NSTA Reports for about two years. One of the more interesting things I do as the paper’s editor is sift through the comment...
By Lynn Petrinjak
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At the end of the class period, my middle school students want to rush out of the room as soon as the bell rings. Sometimes, I’m in the middle of a sentence and other times they leave the lab in a mess for the next class. Any suggestions for de...
By Mary Bigelow
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Science of the Summer Olympics: maximizing the long jump of Bryan Clay
Just because the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games are over doesn’t mean the enthusiasm students brought to school in August has to be. This installment of the NBC Learn/NSF videos series Science of the Summer Olympics—Maximizing the Long Jump of...
By admin
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In Memoriam: sadly, we report the passing of Irwin Slesnick, whose many contributions to NSTA and the broader realm of science education include the NSTA Press books Adventures in Paleontology and Clones, Cats, and Chemicals....
By NSTA Web Director
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Science teachers often integrate topics in health/nutrition/wellness with science. Most children know that nutritious food and exercise are important for good health, and science classes provide opportunities for children to explore how and why....
By Mary Bigelow
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Low-budget (or no-budget) science
I recently started teaching in an elementary school. When I first walked into my classroom, I was surprised that there were no supplies or equipment for teaching science. My colleagues said that the requisitions and orders were all placed last year, ...
By Mary Bigelow
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Science of the Summer Olympics: the strength and flexibility of Oscar Pistorius
Oscar Pistorius attracted our attention in both the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. First, he fought long and hard to become the first amputee to run in Olympic events....
By admin
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The place of inquiry in the reform of science education
The National Science Education Standards use the word “inquiry” in two ways. It was to be a form of content while also being a way science must be taught....
By Robert Yager
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You never know what you'll find…
Olivia Bouler at the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art...
By Mary Bigelow
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Looking at NSTA's digital journals
If you subscribe to any of NSTA’s Journals, you probably received a note about NSTA’s Digital Journals. As NSTA members, we’ve had access to journal articles as PDF files, but now the journals are also in a digital format that can...
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
The cameras on tablets work great for general picture taking, but they also can work as magnifiers and microscopes. A good place to start is by placing additional lenses directly on the camera to see how it preforms. Low power loupes f...
By Martin Horejsi
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Science of the Summer Olympics: measuring a champion
As Official Time-Keeper of the 2012 Olympic Games, Omega’s high-tech timing devices have come a long way since the 1932 games in L.A. where athletes were timed to the nearest one-tenth of a second. The company brought thirty “official” stopwatc...
By admin
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Many of you are getting ready to start (or have already started) your first teaching assignment. Welcome to the profession! Now that you’re on your own, you may have lots of questions in your first month or two. During the last few years, the M...
By Mary Bigelow
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Science of the Summer Olympics: engineering for mobility
A record 4200+ Paralympians will compete in 20 sports at the London 2012 Games that begin August 29. Of the 20 sports included, 17 are Paralympic versions of sports played in the Olympic Games. Wheelchair rugby is one of the unique ones....
By admin
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How professional development programs can model science
No one is against Professional Development (PD) for science teachers. But, how it is typically structured remains a major problem. Not many Professional Development efforts outline how the PD can be structured as an example of science itself....
By Robert Yager
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I’m looking for project ideas or activities that fifth grade students can do to connect what they learn in science with the “real world” outside of the classroom. Do you have any suggestions? –Frank, Delaware...
By Mary Bigelow
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Does “hands-on” indicate real reforms of science teaching?
Too often the reform of science for K-12 students is described as being “hands-on.” Analyses of the “Hands-On” ideas for classrooms seem to miss how and why hands-on actually does not define needed reforms adequately. Hands-on often become me...
By Robert Yager
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Is science literacy an appropriate major goal for science education?
–Occasional commentary by Robert E. Yager (NSTA President, 1982-1983)...
By Robert Yager
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Science of the Summer Olympics: Sarah Robles and the mechanics of weight lifting
Sarah Robles punctuates the opening of every Science of the Summer Olympics video—with good reason. She’s a “super heavyweight” lifter. Sarah’s strong for sure, but her abilities rely as much on finesse as on strength. See how her technique...
By admin
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If you focus science explorations in your classroom on a yearly theme, consider water play/study. Carol M....
By Peggy Ashbrook
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Science of the Summer Olympics: designing a fast pool
We already knew Michael Phelps was good. Now Missy Franklin is a household name. But how much of their achievement might be attributed to the pool? Find out about the design and engineering of the London Aquatics Center in this installment of Science...
By admin
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Are you thinking of supplementing traditional textbooks with digital media? If you’re looking for websites and other resources for your curriculum topics, take a look at SciLinks, NSTA’s collection of vetted websites. Access to the site is free, ...
By Mary Bigelow
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Notebooks as "dinosaurs"?
With the College Board’s increased emphasis on student inquiry as part of the AP Biology curriculum revision, I am struggling with whether to require my students to keep a written and bound laboratory notebook, as is the practice in industry. The b...
By Mary Bigelow