JoinAll Resources
Journal Article
As long as there have been roofs overhead, there have been gardens above them. Since the Ziggurats and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, man has cultivated plants for his enjoyment and nourishment. Fast forward 4,000 years to our increasingly urban wor...
By Andrew Jones, Joel Hockin,and Max Longhurst
Journal Article
For as long as people have had stories to tell, folklore and tall tales have been a part of social gatherings. Storytelling helps us convey our history and learn our languages (Bowman and Carpenter 2004; Mzimela 2016). In addition, many of these tale...
By Kimberly Ideus and Miles Engell
Journal Article
Classroom communities are more than just teachers and students. Administrators, other teachers and students, teacher aides, all school staff, families, friends, community leaders, and more influence a classroom community in different ways. Places and...
By Jonathan McCausland and Kathryn M. Bateman
Journal Article
Performance Assessment as Part of Efficient, Effective, and Equitable Instructional Practice
Since the release of the NGSS, science classrooms across the United States have shifted science learning away from a focus on decontextualized facts and concepts and toward engaging students in making sense of the world around them. Many educators ha...
By Lauren Stoll and Jill Wertheim
Journal Article
The Use of Storytelling to Model NGSS Science and Engineering Practices
An important strand of three-dimensional learning in the Next Generation Science Standards is science and engineering practices (SEPs; NGSS Lead States 2013). The SEPs also are one of four critical attributes of sensemaking (NSTA, n.d.). These practi...
By Adrienne Larocque and Anna Babarinde
Journal Article
On Teaching Electricity Through History
Electricity is a fascinating phenomenon and one of the most important driving forces in the natural world, and our understanding of it all began with a fossilized lump of tree resin and a mystical rock from ancient Turkey. For the many years that I t...
By Christine Guy Schnittka
Journal Article
Solar eclipses are excellent platforms for engaging students with astronomy and for teaching concepts like the Sun-Earth-Moon relationship through rare natural events. Traditional STEM instruction, however, highly depends on diagrammatic and visual m...
By Sóley Hyman, Wilson González-Espada, Allyson Bieryla, and Wanda Díaz-Merced
Journal Article
Making the Most of the Upcoming Solar Eclipse Double-Header
Eclipses of the Sun, where the Moon gets in front of the Sun and blocks its light, are among the most spectacular of natural events. The total eclipse visible in the United States in 2017 fascinated and involved millions of people all across the coun...
By Andrew Fraknoi and Dennis Schatz
Journal Article
The 2023 and 2024 Solar Eclipse Double-Header
North America will experience a solar eclipse “double-header” this fall. While 500 million people will see two partial eclipses (when the Moon covers part of the Sun), those fortunate enough to be in a 125-mile-wide path on October 14, 2023, will...
By Dennis Schatz and Andrew Fraknoi
Journal Article
Translanguaging as an Essential Practice in Socially Just Science Classrooms
In this interaction, Manuel and Rico (all names are pseudonyms) expertly mix Spanish and English to communicate as they collect data in a ninth grade physics lab. Your reaction to this mixture of English and Spanish, what users sometimes call “Span...
By Sarah Braden and Taylor Dexter
Journal Article
Teaching Students to Read Equations
The laws of nature are expressed in equation form in all physics courses. How these laws are taught can vary widely. In this article, I expand on previous Focus on Physics articles, particularly the March 2022 article “The Importance of Reading Equ...
By Paul G. Hewitt
Journal Article
Science concepts connect us to the wonders of the natural universe. Why is the sky blue? [Air molecules behave much like tiny little tuning forks.] Is there gravity in space? [Yes, it extends to infinity.] What do fish “breathe” underwater? [It�...
By John Suchocki
Journal Article
Promoting Learning for All Through Explore-Before-Explain
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) highlight the importance of creating more equitable learning environments and engaging all students in science (NGSS Lead States 2013). In professional learning, we target the hands-on, minds-on experience...
By Patrick Brown, Jay McTighe, and Rodger Bybee
Journal Article
Scientific Literacy: Lives could depend on it!
Carl Sagan famously said “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology” (Sagan, 1990, p. 264). As demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic, all adults ne...
By Charlotte Moser
Journal Article
Preparing for the Great American Eclipse of 2024
The Great American Eclipse of 2017 path of totality passed across the United States on Monday August 21, 2017, from Madras, Oregon to Columbia, South Carolina (NASA 2017). The Great American Eclipse of 2024 will likewise pass across the United States...
By Kurtz Miller
Journal Article
Beavers are social mammals who live in groups, known as colonies, and they construct dams and lodges, which modify the surrounding landscape. In their role as “ecosystem engineers,” beavers are considered to be a “keystone” species. A keyston...
By Jill Nugent
Journal Article
Writing these columns often requires a considerable amount of reading and then thinking—both alone and always out loud to my wife as I try to explain to both of us what I have been reading. To be honest, this column reminded me of what I used to jo...
By Bob Riddle
Journal Article
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins said, “There are those who fear reason as cold, bleak, cheerless, unpoetic. That’s not just untrue; it’s the very opposite of true. Science is the poetry of reality” (Dawkins 2016). Science is reminiscen...
By Katie Coppens
Journal Article
Outdoor Teaching and Learning in Natural Spaces and Outdoor Classrooms
On a humid, sunny day in late July, a group of middle school science teachers closed out three days of teacher professional development (PD) on a nature hike at a forest preserve. Here they engaged as learners, looking for evidence of life cycles to ...
By Samantha Lindgren, Meghan McCleary, Susan Gasper, Amanda Nieves, Kara Stengren, and Amira Shabana
Journal Article
Inheritance: It’s More Complicated Than That
For the past 60 years, teaching and learning the science of inheritance and biological variation has largely been centered in Mendelian genetics. In classrooms, genetics instruction generally focuses on traits controlled by a single gene, with genoty...
By Whitney Thwaite, Sara C. Porter, and Hilleary Osheroff
Journal Article
Using iNaturalist to Support Place-Based Learning and Data Analysis
Often, we think that to learn about nature, students must be in a “natural” place to experience the environment, but this assumption can be problematic on multiple levels. Not all schools have the resources to take hundreds of students on a field...
By Amanda V. Garner and Joshua Rosenberg
Journal Article
Questions are powerful tools teachers can use to understand and scaffold students’ thinking (Clough 2007). However, not all questions are equally effective at eliciting students’ ideas or scaffolding their thinking. For example, open-ended questi...
By Jesse Wilcox, Kean Roberts, Jacob Kaemmer, Jessica McKenzie, and Carson McClain
Journal Article
Teach Sublimation With Markers!
Sublimation, the change of state from solid to gas, is a challenging concept for many students to grasp and a curious phenomenon to investigate. Our everyday experiences teach us about melting, freezing, and evaporation, but it is rare to witness sub...
By Christine G. Schnittka and Mark Brenneman
Journal Article
How many times have you found yourself sitting in a cafeteria or classroom staring at a professional development PowerPoint being presented by someone who hasn’t been in a classroom or practiced science in years? There is another way! Teachers all ...
By Adriana E. Martinez and Alejandra O. Martinez
Journal Article
Student Uncertainty as a Pedagogical Resource (SUPeR)
As suggested in A Framework for K–12 Science Education (National Research Council 2012), “Scientific knowledge is a particular kind of knowledge with its own sources, justifications, ways of dealing with uncertainties . . . and agreed-on levels o...
By Jamie Rapkiewcz, Jongchan Park, Ying-Chih Chen, and Michelle E. Jordan
Journal Article
Differentiate Science Lessons by Using VR in Station Rotations
Blended learning strategies combined with innovative technology, for example, virtual reality (VR), can be used in science classrooms to differentiate teaching and enrich learning experiences. The positive impacts of differentiated instruction in a c...
By Michael McKenzie and Alex Fegely
Journal Article
Hearing All Voices to Promote Learning Orientation and Effective Collaboration
Motivation and collaboration intersect in important ways in a science classroom. One important motivational component of collaborative work is what students understand the goal of that work to be (Ames 1992). When students feel they are competing, es...
By Pei Pei Liu, Sharon Taylor, Ann Colwell-Johnson, Alexandra Lee, David McKinney, Christopher J. Harris, Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia, Gwen C. Marchand, and Jennifer A. Schmidt
Lesson Plan
Journal Article
Students with visual impairments are often the only students at their school who read braille. They often do not participate in science fairs, in some cases because of low expectations on the part of educators and in other cases because of accessibil...
By Tiffany Wild, Tina Herzberg, and L. Penny Rosenblum
Lesson Plan
Journal Article
Journal Article
What’s New in NSTA Journals for 2023 and 2024?
Beginning in January 2024, NSTA’s journals will be hosted on the T&F Online platform (https://www.tandfonline.com). NSTA’s journals will be an excellent addition to T&F’s world-leading education journals portfolio and will receive dedic...
By Peter Lindeman
Journal Article
Academic food security aims to provide students with sufficient access to knowledge (one key academic nutrient) in order to limit intellectual hunger. In this analogy, the student is seen as a consumer of knowledge. Academic food sovereignty, on the ...
By Thomas M. Onorato, Nathalie Oulhen, Gerardo Reyes, Stephany Foster, Cosmo A. Pieplow, Janet E. Rollins, Jacqueline A. Brashears, Claudette Davis, Ian Alberts, Ingrid D. Veras, and Gary M. Wessel
Journal Article
Quantitative reasoning, although included in most science courses, can be challenging to teach. In this article, we explore whether cooperative learning may help instructors teach quantitative reasoning and enhance students’ understanding and learn...
By Man-Yin Tsang, Lisa Tutty, and Carl-Georg Bank
Journal Article
Comparing Undergraduate Nature of Science Views in Traditional Versus Inquiry-Taught Science Courses
This qualitative study compares the views about nature of science (NOS) between students enrolled in a traditional lecture and laboratory course and students in an inquiry-based class to the view of the scientists who taught the course. We administer...
By Alex T. St. Louis and Hayat Hokayem