All Resources

Journal Article

Miniature Sleds, Go, Go, Go!

Design Technology: Children’s Engineering (Dunn and Larson 1990), is a learning model that allows children to experience developmentally appropriate, hands-on instructional methods that enable them to draw, plan, design, build, test, and improve th...

Journal Article

Using the Past in Class: Learning from historical models of cell membranes

Studying the history of science shows students how science is a process that occurs over time. A sample lesson in which secondary life science students examine the history of the development of the cell membrane model is included. After discussing th...

Journal Article

Commentary: Talk of the Town

An opinion piece about the concerns highlighted at the Town Meeting at the 2001 NSTA Convention. ...

Journal Article

Quicksand Query: Using a popular fallacy to teach about density and volume

A popular misconception—quicksand sucks people under—is used to teach students about density. In a series of lab activities, students create quicksand, determine its density, and measure the density of water and irregular objects. Students learn ...

Journal Article

Tech Trek: Flash forward to problem-based science

Read about The Reconstructors, a website designed to combine aspects of problem-based learning and science standards and deliver them over the Web via interesting multimedia....

Journal Article

Comparing Common Origins: Using biotechnology to teach evolution

The field of biotechnology creates exciting new pathways for students to engage in scientific inquiry. In this article, secondary biology students use protein electrophoresis and online genetic and taxonomic databases to study evolution and biotechno...

Journal Article

Learning to Remember: Building memory cues into a geology lesson

Current neuroscience and psychology research has tremendously affected what we know about how people learn. Recent insights into the brain’s natural tendencies can help educators align strategies and activities to maximize student learning. Knowing...

Journal Article

A Bat Is Like a …

Analogies, or comparisons based on similarities between things that are otherwise dissimilar, can greatly enhance science learning for children. Analogous reasoning “is a central component of human cognition. It is involved in classification and in...

Journal Article

Note Sheets: A Reliable Predictor of Success?

Students in a large introductory-level biology course brought one page of notes to their exams. The authors scored these note sheets for their format and content. Student performance on exams showed a very limited correlation with the format or conte...

Journal Article

Bring Classification to Life

Teachers can engage their students in lively presentations that demonstrate their understanding of biological classification. Using a cooperative learning approach, student groups research and apply their knowledge of each level of classification thr...