JoinAll Resources
Journal Article
Investigating Students' Ideas About the Flow of Matter and Energy in Living Systems
In this article we describe strategies for eliciting student thinking, common responses to elicitation prompts, and implications for moving students' thinking forward....
Journal Article
By using a preassessment of chemical and physical change, teachers can become better equipped to bridge conceptual gaps through instruction....
Journal Article
The Early Years: Summer Science
This column discusses resources and science topics related to students in grades preK to 2. This month’s issue discusses summer science notebooks....
Journal Article
Scope on the Skies: "I'm Your Venus"
This column focuses on astronomy throughout the year. This month’s issue centers on Venus, the Kepler Mission, and the annular solar eclipse....
Journal Article
Folding Inquiry Into Cookbook Lab Activities
Learn how to convert teacher-directed, highly structured lessons into more open-ended inquiry experiences that allow for student input, wonder, and individual exploration....
eBook
Forensics in Chemistry: The Case of Kirsten K. (e-book)
Forensics seems to have the unique ability to maintain student interest and promote content learning…. I still have students approach me from past years and ask about the forensics case and specific characters from the story. I have never had a stu...
eBook
Uncovering Student Ideas in Astronomy: 45 New Formative Assessment Probes (e-book)
What do your students know—or think they know—about what causes night and day, why days are shorter in winter, and how to tell a planet from a star? Find out with this book on astronomy, the latest in NSTA’s popular Uncovering Student Ideas in ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the shape of the Earth. The probe is designed to find out how students reconcile the idea that the Earth is round, represented by the globe that they are taught about in school...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about relative size. The probe is designed to find out how large students think the Earth is compared with the Sun. ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the changing length of daylight with the change in seasons. The probe is designed to find out if students can relate the apparent path of the Sun as seen from Earth to the length of dayli...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about why the constellations change with the seasons. The probe is designed to find out how students use the Earth’s spin and orbit to explain why different constellations are visi...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about when we can see the Moon. The probe is designed to reveal whether students recognize that the Moon can be seen at different times during the daylight hours as well as at night...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about why the Moon appears to have different shapes at different times. The probe is designed to find out if students confuse the explanation for a lunar eclipse with the explanation...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the shape of the Earth. The probe is designed to find out if students grasp the idea that the spherical Earth applies to the actual Earth beneath their feet. ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ understanding of the Earth- Sun-Moon system well enough to explain the causes of Moon phases and solar eclipses and how these two phenomena are related. ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the Moon’s motion. The probe is designed not only to find out if students know how long it takes for the Moon to make a complete rotation but also to uncover whether they thi...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about Moon phases when observed from different locations. The probe is designed to determine if students are able to take the “space point of view” when thinking about Moon phas...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about how much of the spherical Moon is lit by the Sun at any point in time. The probe is designed to reveal whether students recognize that at any point in time the Sun shines on ha...
Book Chapter
Does the Earth Go Through Phases?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about “Earth phases” and “Earth sets.” The probe is designed to find out if students understand the Earth-Sun-Moon system well enough to imagine how the Earth would appe...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about gravity. The probe is designed to determine whether students understand the role of gravity in maintaining the Moon in its orbit....
Book Chapter
What’s Inside Our Solar System?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the solar system. The probe is designed to find out if students can distinguish between objects in the solar system and objects outside of the solar system and recognize that t...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about representations of the solar system. The probe is designed to reveal students’ ideas about the overall shape of the solar system and the planets within it. ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about space travel. The probe is designed to reveal how far students think humans have traveled in space since the year 2000. The probe also gives a glimpse into students’ understa...
Book Chapter
Gravity in Other Planetary Systems
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about gravity. The probe is designed to find out if students recognize the effect of mass on gravitational attraction, and that neither a planet’s spin nor its distance from t...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about objects in the night sky. The probe is designed to uncover students’ understanding of the nature of meteors, comets, and stars. ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ understanding of stars in constellations. The probe is designed to find out whether students recognize that stars are distributed in space, that some stars are brighter than others, and th...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the size of objects in the sky. The probe is designed to see if students recognize that the Sun and other stars are much bigger than the Earth, Moon, or any of the planets but ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about how astronomers investigate the composition of stars. The probe is designed to see if students recognize that the colors from the light given off by a star (its spectrum) revea...
Book Chapter
What Happens to Stars When They Die?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about stars’ life cycle. The probe is designed to reveal what students think occurs at the end of a star’s life. ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about what happens to stars over time. The probe is designed to reveal whether students recognize that occasionally new stars are “born,” change over time, and eventually “di...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about stars and the origin of the chemical elements. The probe is designed to reveal their thinking about the role of stars in transforming hydrogen and helium into heavier chemical ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The probe is designed to reveal whether students recognize that our solar system is inside the Milky Way, that on clear moonless nights we can ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the big bang theory. The probe is designed to reveal the extent of their qualitative understanding of what is expanding according to the theory. ...
Book Chapter
Is the Big Bang “Just a Theory”?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the big bang as a theory. The probe is designed to find out if students can distinguish a scientific theory from the use of theory in everyday conversation. ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this word use probe is to elicit students’ ideas about two commonly confused words in astronomy—rotate and revolve. The probe is designed to find out if students can conceptually distinguish between the two terms and how they use ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the position of the Sun in relation to the Earth. The probe is designed to find out how students envision the Earth as a sphere in space and its relationship to the Sun by aski...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the apparent movement of the Sun. The probe is designed to reveal where students think the Sun rises and sets, and how it moves during the day. ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the Sun’s motion during the day. The probe is designed to reveal whether students know that the Sun is never directly overhead as viewed from the continental United States. ...