JoinAll Resources
Journal Article
Citizen Science: Birds, Binoculars, and Biodiversity
This column highlights formal and informal science research projects that students can join and contribute to by gathering and sharing data. Count birds and contribute to citizen science with the Great Backyard Bird Count....
Journal Article
Disequilibrium: Why Is Regular Soda Denser Than Diet Soda?
This column shows how to use discrepant events to confront misconceptions. This month’s discrepant event helps students visualize the difference between the densities of diet and regular soda and learn about the nutritional differences between the ...
Journal Article
Listserv Roundup: Technology tools for paperless formative assessment
This column shares recent conversations taken from the NSTA listserv community about current science education topics. This month’s column focuses on technology tools that NSTA e-mail listserv members use for formative assessment....
Journal Article
Science for All: Encouraging Academic Talk
This column shares strategies for increasing student engagement. Strategies for engaging all learners in classroom conversations....
Journal Article
Teacher to Teacher: The Steps of a Conceptual Storyline
This column provides practical advice from your peers. This month describes the steps involved in writing a conceptual storyline, a sequence of lessons designed to clarify relationships between concepts....
Journal Article
Scope on the Skies: Timely Motions of the Earth and Moon
This column focuses on astronomy throughout the year. During the first few days of January, the Earth reaches perihelion, the closest it will come to the Sun each year. The Earth’s perihelion does not occur on the same day or time. When the Earth r...
Journal Article
Data Modeling for Preservice Teachers and Everyone Else
Although data modeling, the employment of statistical reasoning for the purpose of investigating questions about the world, is central to both mathematics and science, it is rarely emphasized in K–16 instruction. This article focuses on developing ...
Journal Article
Providing Opportunities for Argumentation in Science Exam Settings
This article explores undergraduates’ efforts to engage in scientific argumentation during exam settings....
Journal Article
Integration, Authenticity, and Relevancy in College Science Through Engineering Design
An engineering design problem-solving framework was used to create a general chemistry lab activity focused on an important environmental issue—dead zones. Dead zones impact over 400 locations around the world and are a result of nutrient pollutio...
Journal Article
Physics Meets Art in the General Education Core
This article describes a general education course offering, Physics and the Arts. During the development of this course, physics and arts faculty collaborated closely. Goals of the course are to increase students’ engagement with physics and to dev...
Journal Article
Recruitment and retention in the sciences is both difficult and crucial, especially in the community college setting. In this study, the resources used by General Chemistry I students at two different public, predominantly two-year colleges in two s...
Journal Article
Case Study: Skinny Genes? An Interdisciplinary Look at a Complex Behavioral Disorder
This column provides original articles on innovations in case study teaching, assessment of the method, as well as case studies with teaching notes. This directed case study uses a progressive disclosure model to expose students to the multiple facet...
Journal Article
Research and Teaching: Assessing the Effectiveness of Sustainability Learning
This study investigated the interaction of disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning in a team-taught, first-year, interdisciplinary sustainability course. We surveyed (pre/post) both STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and non...
Journal Article
In this article, the authors describe their approach to flipping the General Chemistry sequence at two different colleges within the City University of New York, a large, urban public university system. Our results indicate that the flipped model le...
Journal Article
Research and Teaching: Many Paths Toward Discovery: A Module for Teaching How Science Works
Improving students’ understanding of how science works requires explicit instruction. Here, the authors test the efficacy of a module based on two previously published activities (the Cube Puzzle and the case study Asteroids and Dinosaurs) that tea...
Journal Article
This study describes the development and implementation of an iterative diagnostic and intervention routine designed to elicit and quantitatively describe aspects of student metacognition, affect, and study habits in a first-year undergraduate biolog...
Book Chapter
Beyond the Egg Drop: Infusing Engineering Into High School Physics (Book Sample)
Problem: You’re eager to expand your physics curriculum and engage your students with engineering content but you don’t know how. Solution: Use the approach and lessons in Beyond the Egg Drop to infuse engineering into what you’re already teach...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students are challenged to construct a cantilever that supports the greatest weight at the greatest distance from the edge of a desk using only the materials provided. This selection highlights the core engineering concepts of desig...
Book Chapter
Cards to the Sky Gummy Bear Tower
In this activity, students use playing cards to build a tower that can withstand wind such that gummy bears can stand on top of it. This selection highlights the core engineering concepts of design and analysis. It includes the Table of Contents, Pre...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students use tape, string, and 20 strands of spaghetti to build the tallest tower that will support one large marshmallow on top. This selection highlights the core engineering concept of design. It includes the Table of Contents, P...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students create a mathematical model to predict the time it will take for a soda can punctured with holes of different sizes to drain. This selection highlights the core engineering concept of models. It includes the Table of Conten...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students will predict and analyze how different materials will behave in a wind tube, then design and test a hovercraft that can stay in the wind tube for 10 seconds. This selection highlights the core engineering concepts of design...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students create a Rube Goldberg device that includes at least three energy transfers and eventually pops a balloon. This selection highlights the core engineering concepts of systems. It includes the Table of Contents, Preface, Summ...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students use limited materials to design a balloon-powered cart that travels three meters in less than five seconds. This selection highlights the physics concepts of distance, time, velocity, Newton’s laws, and energy, as well as...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students use a toothbrush, a small motor, and some wire to make a bristlebot, then optimize it for maximum displacement. This selection highlights the physics concepts of distance, time, velocity, and vectors, as well as the core en...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students design a mousetrap-powered car that goes the fastest down a narrow racetrack. This selection highlights the physics concepts of motion and force, as well as the core engineering concepts of design, systems, and models. It i...
Book Chapter
Amusement Park Engineer—Bumper Cars
In this activity, students use PhET simulation to create a proposal for a design of a set of bumper cars that are safe, fair, and fun for children, teenagers, and adults. This selection highlights the physics concept of momentum, as well as the core ...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students design a vehicle that successfully lands an egg dropped from a height of two meters. They use force plates, motion detectors, and other tools for analysis along the way. This selection highlights the physics concept of impu...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students design a vehicle that successfully lands an egg dropped from a height of two meters. They use force plates, motion detectors, and other tools for analysis along the way. This selection highlights the physics concept of impu...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students use mathematical models to create solutions for a successful bungee cord for different conditions. This selection highlights the physics concept of energy formation, as well as the core engineering concepts of design, analy...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students design a wearable and usable insulating glove that can slow the temperature drop that occurs when it is placed in ice water for three minutes. This selection highlights the physics concepts of heat transfer and thermal equi...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students analyze and predict behaviors of a designed system using Coffee Joulies. They use graphic models to explain and communicate the effectiveness of the product and conditions tested. This selection highlights the physics conce...
Book Chapter
Pendulums—And the Beat Goes On
In this activity, students build a pendulum that acts as a metronome to keep pace with the beat of a song. This selection highlights the physics concepts of period, frequency, and simple harmonic motion, as well as the core engineering concepts of de...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students design a board game that uses mirrors and lenses and demonstrates students’ understanding of optics concepts. This selection highlights the physics concepts of refraction and reflection, as well as the core engineering co...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students build a functioning speaker using common household items. The winning speaker is determined by both the volume of sound and the quality of sound. This selection highlights the physics concepts of electromagnetism and sound ...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students design school spirit memorabilia using at least three LEDs, a battery, and a switch. This selection highlights the physics concept of circuits, as well as the core engineering concepts of design, analysis, and systems. It i...
Book Chapter
Lights Out! Zombie Apocalypse Flashlight
In this activity, students use some simple household items to design a working flashlight that can be operated with one hand. This selection highlights the physics concept of circuits, as well as the core engineering concepts of design, analysis, mod...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students read an article about using magnets to influence the behavior of bees, and then consider the physics principles for this “magnet” instrument and what engineers must consider to design this apparatus. This selection high...
Book Chapter
Newton’s Third Law Paper Trampoline
In this activity, students learn about Newton’s third law by testing fabrics and other materials for a trampoline designed to provide the highest possible bounce of a steel ball. This selection highlights the physics concepts of Newton’s third la...
Interactive E-book Kids
The Light Explorers Go on a Campout
The Light Explorers Go on a Campout allows learners to take an active role in exploring with characters Liz and Sam as they investigate the anchor phenomena: light is needed to see things and some objects make their own light. The backyard campout is...