Publications

Journals

NSTA publishes four grade-range-specific journals (Science & Children, Science Scope, The Science Teacher, and Journal of College Science Teaching), as well as Connected Science Learning, which bridges in-school and out-of-school science teaching and learning.

Elementary School

Middle School

High School

Postsecondary

Informal

Books

Explore high-quality tools to transform your teaching in NSTA Press books, including lesson plans, classroom strategies, relevant professional learning, assessment, and NGSS resources for K-12 science educators

Featured Books

NSTA Press Book

Uncovering Student Ideas About Engineering and Technology: 32 New Formative Assessment Probes

New in 2020! Download and read a sample chapter from this book to learn more.Have you been wondering how well your students understand engineering and technology concepts? Have you been wishing for formative assessment tools in both English and Spani...

NSTA Press Book

Instructional Sequence Matters, Grades 3–5: Explore Before Explain

Instructional Sequence Matters, Grades 3–5 is a one-stop resource that will inspire you to reimagine how you teach science in elementary school. The book discusses two popular approaches for structuring your lessons: POE (Predict, Observe, and Expl...

NSTA Press Book

Understanding Climate Change, Grades 7–12

Get help teaching one of the hottest topics in science with Understanding Climate Change, Grades 7–12. This nine-session module is written to be practical and accessible. It provides both extensive background and step-by-step instructions for using...

Bestselling Books

NSTA Press Book

Crosscutting Concepts: Strengthening Science and Engineering Learning

Maybe you have a good grasp of disciplinary core ideas and science and engineering practices—critical parts of the Next Generation Science Standards—but you are looking for more resources about integrating crosscutting concepts (CCCs). Or maybe y...

NSTA Press Book

Disciplinary Core Ideas: Reshaping Teaching and Learning

Like all enthusiastic teachers, you want your students to see the connections between important science concepts so they can grasp how the world works now—and maybe even make it work better in the future. But how exactly do you help them learn and ...

NSTA Press Book

Picture-Perfect Science Lessons, Expanded 2nd Edition: Using Children's Books to Guide Inquiry, 3-6

How do you improve upon perfection? For years, new and experienced elementary school teachers alike have extolled the virtues of Picture-Perfect Science Lessons—the expertly combined appeal of children’s picture books with standards-based science...

NSTA Press Book

Teaching for Conceptual Understanding in Science

What do you get when you bring together two of NSTA’s bestselling authors to ponder ways to deepen students’ conceptual understanding of science? A fascinating combination of deep thinking about science teaching, field-tested strategies you can u...

NSTA Press Book

The NSTA Atlas of the Three Dimensions

New in 2020! Download and read a sample chapter from this book to learn more.A key aspect of learning in K–12 education is the idea that what students know and are able to do grows and evolves over time. Simple ideas learned in the early elementary...

NSTA Press Book

Activating Students' Ideas: Linking Formative Assessment Probes to Instructional Sequence, K-5

Science teachers face an incredible challenging task of combining research on how students learn best, the three-dimensions of the Science Education Frameworks that in themselves are complicated to understand, and instructional sequences that lead to...

NSTA Press Book

Translating the NGSS for Classroom Instruction

With the release of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), you need a resource to help you answer pressing questions about how the standards fit with your curriculum, instruction, and assessments. Rodger W. Bybee has written Translating the NG...

NSTA Press Book

Reimagining the Science Department

What if you could change the department-level factors that don’t support teaching and learning? Explore answers to this fascinating question and many more with Reimagining the Science Department. In five thoughtful chapters, the book invites you t...

View All Books

Daily Do Lesson Plans

Daily Dos are sensemaking tasks teachers and parents can use to engage their students in authentic, relevant science learning. Students actively try to figure out how the world works (science) or how to design solutions to problems (engineering) using the science and engineering practices. Engaging in these practices requires that students be part of a learning community, of classmates or family, to be able to share and evaluate ideas, give and receive critique, and reach consensus.

Latest Daily Do

Lesson Plan

How can we evaluate a solution for addressing disparities in hypertension control?

Lesson Plan

How can we use our model to explain the change in Dimorphos’s velocity post collision with DART?

Lesson Plan

Can we predict what will happen to the speed of an asteroid after a collision?

Lesson Plan

How did the direction of the applied force affect Dimorphos’s orbit?

Lesson Plan

Why do planets and asteroids have variation in the size and shape of their orbits?

Lesson Plan

What variables affect the size of the gravitational force acting on an object in space?

Lesson Plan

What causes an object to orbit another object instead of crashing into it?

Lesson Plan

Why did the path of Dimorphos change when DART collided with it?

Lesson Plan

How can we work with our families or other community members to address socio-environmental issues within our community?

Lesson Plan

How did the NWS predict Hurricane Ida’s rapid intensification and path?

Lesson Plan

How is moisture in the air measured in order to predict hurricanes?

Lesson Plan

How can we send complicated messages and images over long distances?

Lesson Plan

Why did Hurricane Ida rapidly intensify as it moved through the Gulf of Mexico?

Lesson Plan

What caused Hurricane Ida to rapidly intensify?

Lesson Plan

How is ocean temperature measured in order to predict hurricanes?

Lesson Plan

How can humans and ocean mammals communicate over long distances?

Lesson Plan

How can a UUV in the deep ocean send a message to the surface?

Lesson Plan

How did the solid and liquid propellants generate the right amount of thrust for each phase of the Ariane 5 + JWST system’s flight path?

Lesson Plan

How can we track the flow of energy when propellant is burned?

Lesson Plan

How do propellants generate thrust?

Lesson Plan

How did the Ariane 5 rocket launch and deliver the JWST to L2?

Lesson Plan

Why are Valley fever case numbers increasing over time?

Lesson Plan

How can we effectively communicate actionable public health information?

Lesson Plan

What can we do to mitigate negative health outcomes of respiratory diseases for at-risk populations?

Lesson Plan

How can we explain the differences in threats and protections between communities?

Lesson Plan

How does access to resources in a community impact health outcomes for those living there?

Lesson Plan

What factors contribute to differences in the health outcomes of respiratory diseases within the US?

Lesson Plan

How can where and how you live affect your exposure to PM2.5?

Lesson Plan

How can we investigate the relationship between PM2.5 exposure and respiratory diseases?

Lesson Plan

Why are there differences in case numbers and health outcomes of respiratory disease at the country, regional, and local levels?

Lesson Plan

How does the design of the Artemis I five-segment booster minimize energy transfer from the rocket propellant to the metal case?

Lesson Plan

How can we evaluate systems to provide breathable air in a space station?

Lesson Plan

How can we use the patterns in motion we observed to explain how the JWST was launched into space?

Lesson Plan

How can we use what we know about weight and thrust to plan a safe and successful model rocket launch?

Lesson Plan

How do you launch a heavy object like the rocket carrying the JWST?

Lesson Plan

How does something start moving?

Lesson Plan

How does gravity affect objects?

Lesson Plan

How did they get the James Webb Space Telescope into space?

Lesson Plan

Why are most auroras observed near the North and South Poles?

Lesson Plan

Taking a Zipline to School

Lesson Plan

How does reduced genetic diversity impact survival and reproduction?

Lesson Plan

Where did the different alleles come from?

Lesson Plan

Do all of the coffee varieties have these alleles?

Lesson Plan

Why might there be a future without coffee, and can we do anything about it?

Lesson Plan

How does eating beef affect climate change?

Lesson Plan

How does the knowledge of evolution and population genetics help us understand future effects of environmental changes?

Lesson Plan

Do all kinds of organisms have a lot of genetic diversity?

Lesson Plan

Do all of the high altitude populations have the same mutation?

Lesson Plan

Where did these different alleles come from?

Lesson Plan

Does everyone living in this region have these alleles?

Lesson Plan

Where did the Tibetan population's physiological strategies come from?

Lesson Plan

How is the Tibetan population able to live in low oxygen environments?

Lesson Plan

How can some people live at higher altitudes while other people get ill visiting these places?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Plan a Safe and Successful Model Rocket Launch?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Predict and Measure Weather Conditions at our Launch Site to Recommend a Safe Launch Date?

Lesson Plan

How Can Forces Exerted by Weather Conditions Affect the Flight Path of our Model Rocket?

Lesson Plan

How does where you live and work affect your risk of mesothelioma?

Lesson Plan

How can where you live affect your risk of experiencing asthma?

Lesson Plan

How does where you live affect your risk of heat-wave-related death?

Lesson Plan

Are autonomous cars a solution to the problem of distracted driving?

Lesson Plan

What makes muscle proteins so different from other proteins in our body? (Playlist Version)

Lesson Plan

How do cells know which amino acids go together to make certain proteins? (Playlist Version)

Lesson Plan

What exactly are proteins and how are the proteins we make different from those we eat? (Playlist Version)

Lesson Plan

How do people build muscles if they are not eating muscle proteins? (Playlist Version)

Lesson Plan

How can we tell if a planet is habitable without visiting that planet?

Lesson Plan

Why Is the Sea Level Rising?

Lesson Plan

Why Are Wildfires in California Getting Bigger Over Time?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Plan a Rocket Launch for Recovery System Deployment?

Lesson Plan

How Does a Rocket's Recovery System Deploy?

Lesson Plan

How Does Temperature Affect the Rate at Which People Become Infected With Mosquito-Borne Diseases?

Lesson Plan

How Can Feeding the Planet Change the Ocean?

Lesson Plan

Why Do Some Cities Currently Have Dust Storms and Others Do Not?

Lesson Plan

Should Our City's Wastewater Treatment System Produce Ammonia?

Lesson Plan

How Can Wildfires Lead to Mudslides?

Lesson Plan

How Can Computational Modeling Help Explain and Design Solutions to the Disproportionate Impact of COVID-19 on Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups?

Lesson Plan

How Can Computational Modeling Help Explain How Different Groups of People Are Affected When COVID-19 Spreads Through a Community?

Playlist

Understanding COVID-19 Disparities Using Computational Modeling

Lesson Plan

How Can Computational Modeling Help Explain the Spread of COVID-19?

Lesson Plan

How can ecosystems survive without sunlight?

Lesson Plan

How do chimneys form at black smoker hydrothermal vents?

Lesson Plan

What Causes the Disproportionate Impact of COVID-19 on Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups?

Lesson Plan

What Is a Problem You Want to Design Solutions For?

Lesson Plan

How Do NASCAR Race Cars Come to a Stop After Moving at Speeds Over 200 MPH?

Lesson Plan

Why Do NASCAR Drivers Need to React Fast? (Part 2: Sound)

Lesson Plan

Why Do NASCAR Drivers Need to React Fast? (Part 1: Sight)

Lesson Plan

Why Is Plastic Used to Build Race Cars?

Lesson Plan

Why Is Rubber Used to Build Race Cars?

Lesson Plan

Why Is Metal Used to Build Race Cars?

Lesson Plan

What Materials Are Used to Make NASCAR Race Car Parts?

Lesson Plan

How Do Things Make Sound?

Lesson Plan

How Do NASCAR Race Car Tires Take the Heat? (Part 2: Thermal Energy)

Lesson Plan

How Do NASCAR Race Car Tires Take the Heat? (Part 1: Physical Changes)

Lesson Plan

How Can Air Make a Race Car Faster?

Lesson Plan

How Can Race Car Bumpers Store Energy?

Lesson Plan

Why Are NASCAR Crashes So Dangerous?

Lesson Plan

How Do Roof Flaps Make a Race Car Safer?

Lesson Plan

How Does Being Close to the Ground Help a NASCAR Race Car?

Lesson Plan

How Does Air Affect the Motion of a NASCAR Race Car?

Lesson Plan

How Does Air Temperature Affect Race Car Tires?

Lesson Plan

How Does the Air in Tires Support a 3,300-Pound Race Car?

Playlist

Newton's Second Law

Lesson Plan

Why Is Ocean Water Warming Faster in Some Places Than Others?

Lesson Plan

How Can a Cow's Diet Affect the Climate?

Lesson Plan

What Do Cardboard Boxes Have to Do With Carbon Emissions?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Use Data to Predict the Length of a Shadow?

Playlist

Tracking COVID-19 in the United States

Lesson Plan

Are There Differences in How People Are Affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States? If So, Why Are There Differences, and What Should We Do About the Disproportionate Impact of COVID-19?

Playlist

Daily Do: Natural Resources—Water

Playlist

Daily Do: Colors (PreK)

Lesson Plan

Why is something that’s happening out in the ocean such a danger to us on the land?

Lesson Plan

Why Is a Covered Planet a Healthy Planet?

Lesson Plan

How can growing seaweed help mussels?

Lesson Plan

Why Does the Green Crab Love Climate Change?

Lesson Plan

How Can Cows on the Move Help Rebuild Entire Ecosystems?

Lesson Plan

Why do we only seem to catch carp?

Lesson Plan

Why can't I see the animals?

Lesson Plan

Why Isn't Pluto a Planet Anymore?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Make Informed Decisions to Keep Ourselves and Our Communities Safe During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Lesson Plan

Why is the Monarch Butterfly Population Changing?

Lesson Plan

What Do Plants Do in the Dark?

Lesson Plan

How does soap make dishes clean?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Pull Colors Apart?

Lesson Plan

Why Is The Image Upside Down?

Lesson Plan

What Happens When We Mix Colors?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Run Out of Water?

Lesson Plan

NSTA Daily Do: Why Are the Stars Disappearing?

Lesson Plan

Why does the ping pong ball move?

Lesson Plan

Why doesn't the snow melt?

Lesson Plan

Why Does it Sizzle?

Lesson Plan

Why Do Earthquakes Occur Where They Do?

Lesson Plan

How Are Cancer Cells Different From Normal Cells?

Lesson Plan

Why Are The Rusty Patched Bumble Bees Disappearing?

Lesson Plan

How Do Population Shifts Affect the Ecosystem?

Lesson Plan

Why Do We See Two Mountain Ranges?

Lesson Plan

How Do Hooved, Herding Herbivores Help the Soil?

Lesson Plan

When Can We See Different Objects in the Sky?

Lesson Plan

Why Should We Prepare for Earthquakes?

Lesson Plan

How Do We Get Drinking Water From Fog?

Lesson Plan

Why is Niagara Falls moving?

Lesson Plan

Why is the drawing floating?

Lesson Plan

Why Does The Can Come Back?

Lesson Plan

How Will The Plant Grow?

Lesson Plan

Why Are the Temperatures Changing?

Lesson Plan

What Happened to the Marshmallow?

Lesson Plan

How Do Kites Fly?

Lesson Plan

Why is the African Elephant Population Changing?

Playlist

Daily Do: Digestive System

Playlist

Daily Do: Pushes and Pulls

Playlist

Daily Do: Transfer of Thermal Energy (Heat)

Lesson Plan

Where Did the Water Come From?

Lesson Plan

Why Are Plane Designs So Different?

Lesson Plan

Why Do We All Have to Stay Home?

Lesson Plan

Why Does the Ice Melt Faster?

Lesson Plan

Why Are There Fish in the Desert?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Tell What Season It Is?

Lesson Plan

How Did The Moth Population Change?

Lesson Plan

How Does Air Make Things Move?

Lesson Plan

Why Does Some Food Disappear?

Lesson Plan

Who was Henrietta Lacks?

Lesson Plan

How Can a Helicopter Fly on Mars?

Lesson Plan

How can fish survive in a frozen lake?

Lesson Plan

How is COVID-19 Impacting Families and Communities?

Lesson Plan

How Do Lakes Freeze?

Lesson Plan

Why Do Some Objects Stick to the Refrigerator?

Lesson Plan

How Does Our Neighborhood Provide For Its Wildlife?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Protect Fragile Cargo?

Lesson Plan

Why Do Some Microwaves Cook Faster?

Lesson Plan

Why Does the Ocean Turn Turquoise?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Become Good Marble Players?

Lesson Plan

Why Is Our Sun So Big and Bright?

Lesson Plan

How Does Some Corn Pop?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Make a Room as Dark as Possible?

Lesson Plan

How Can Maps Help Us?

Lesson Plan

Where Does Digestion Occur?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Keep Our Vegetables Watered?

Lesson Plan

How Do Asteroids Cross Earth's Path?

Lesson Plan

Why Did COVID-19 Cause Environmental Changes?

Lesson Plan

How Do Pushes and Pulls Help Us Play?

Lesson Plan

How Can Plants Break Rocks?

Lesson Plan

Why Did the Reaction Happen So Fast?

Lesson Plan

Where Did the Plant Come From?

Lesson Plan

Why Can We See Scorpius Only in Summer?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Stay Safe When Lightning Strikes?

Lesson Plan

Why is the Water in the Glass?

Lesson Plan

How Can I Tell What's Inside?

Lesson Plan

Why Aren't the Sounds the Same?

Lesson Plan

Why Don't the Dishes Move?

Lesson Plan

How Can Containers Keep Stuff Cool?

Lesson Plan

What Happened to Our Celery?

Lesson Plan

Why Is Cancer So Rare in Elephants?

Lesson Plan

Why Are More Hurricanes Predicted This Year?

Lesson Plan

How Can Light Make Dark Shadows and Bright Reflections?

Lesson Plan

Why Do Some People Get Easily Sunburned?

Lesson Plan

How Do We Know What Stars Are Made Of?

Lesson Plan

How Does the Hot Air Balloon Take Off?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Send Messages to Someone Far Away?

Lesson Plan

How Will the Charged Objects Interact?

Lesson Plan

Why Does the Cracker Taste Sweet?

Lesson Plan

How Can We Land a Payload Safely?

Lesson Plan

How Do Seeds Get Around?

Lesson Plan

How Can Vaccinating One Population Affect Another?

Lesson Plan

What Happened to Our Ice?

Lesson Plan

Why Do They Visit the Flower?

Lesson Plan

How Do Shrimp Live in a Closed System?

Lesson Plan

Why Are Flowers So Different?

Lesson Plan

How Can Properties Help Solve Problems?

Lesson Plan

Why Is Water Sphere-Shaped in Space?

Lesson Plan

How Are They Similar and Different?

Lesson Plan

How Do We Know What Isopods Do?

Lesson Plan

Why Is Our Fruit Turning Brown?

Lesson Plan

Why Are the Bones Still Here?

Lesson Plan

How Does a Pandemic Cause Less CO2?

Lesson Plan

How Do Our Noses Smell Things?

Lesson Plan

Why Does a Part's Shape Matter?

Lesson Plan

What Can I Observe in the Outdoors?

Lesson Plan

Can water change the path of light?

Lesson Plan

Where Do 'New' Diseases Come From?

Lesson Plan

How Do Living Things Choose a Home?

Lesson Plan

How Do We Cross Bodies of Water?

Lesson Plan

How Do We Know Something Is Alive?

Lesson Plan

Why Does Population Size Change?

Lesson Plan

Why Is My Shadow Always Changing?

Lesson Plan

How Do We Find Patterns in Weather?

Lesson Plan

Why Do We All Have to Stay Home?

Lesson Plan

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