All Resources

Book Chapter

Habitable Zone: How Distance and Temperature Are Related

Earth is the only planet we know of in the solar system that supports life. In this activity, students will investigate the way distance from a light source affects temperature—one of the many reasons why Earth is “just right” in its ability to...

Book Chapter

Creature Feature: Comparing Earth to Mars and Venus

Mars and Venus are Earth’s closest neighbors. The differences between them are striking. In many ways, Earth can be thought of as the happy medium between the two extremes that Mars and Venus represent. In this activity, students create Martians an...

Book Chapter

The Water Cycle

Water is such an integral part of human existence that it makes up nearly three-quarters of Earth’s surface and has a profound effect on all life on Earth. Water vapor in the atmosphere accounts for just one-thousandth of 1% of all the water on Ear...

Book Chapter

Measurements and Molecules Matter: Less Is More and Curriculum "Survival of the Fittest"

Many famous scientific discoveries have been made when an experimenter noticed something unusual or a mistake and followed up on the serendipitous discrepancy rather than ignoring it as others had done. This free activity serves as an engaging intro...

Book Chapter

The Virus Debate

The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about characteristics of life. Viruses are used as a context to uncover students’ ideas about what determines whether something is considered a living or a nonliving thing. This sa...

Book Chapter

What Is a Light Year?

Distances to stars and galaxies are so great that communicating the measurement in kilometers is cumbersome and difficult to comprehend. So, astronomers use a larger unit of measure called the “light year.” It is the distance that light travels i...

Book Chapter

Human Excretory System

The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the human excretory system. The probe is designed to see if students recognize that the human excretory system removes metabolic wastes, rather than undigested food or other no...

Journal Article

A Coprolite Mystery: Who Dung It?

Discover the secrets contained in fossilized feces. Few topics in middle school classrooms capture students' enthusiasm and interest as do coprolites. These trace fossils offer classroom opportunities for integrated life and Earth sciences study, a s...

Journal Article

Research and Teaching: Incorporating Active Learning Techniques Into a Genetics Class

We revised a sophomore-level genetics class to more actively engage the students in their learning. The students worked in groups on quizzes using the Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IF-AT) and active-learning projects. The IF-AT quizzes all...

Journal Article

First-Year Students Benefit From Reading Primary Research Articles

Primary research articles discuss aspects of scientific inquiry that are important in understanding the nature of science. Yet, most introductory science courses use textbooks that ignore the scientific process; opportunities for explicit discussion ...

Journal Article

The Green Room: School Gardens

A School Garden fits nicely within the guiding principles for sustainable schooling. As the sustainability coordinator at St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School, this column author's most fulfilling, inclusive, well-received, and challenging project was ...

Journal Article

Taming the Testing/Grading Cycle in Lecture Classes Centered Around Open-Ended Assessment

Testing strategies centered around open-ended assessments are generally thought to result in deeper learning compared with close-ended questioning. However, the time requirements involved in grading open-ended assessments on exams often limit the fea...

Journal Article

A Twenty-Year Survey of Science Literacy Among College Undergraduates

First results from a 20-year survey of science knowledge and attitudes toward science among undergraduates are presented. Nearly 10,000 students taking astronomy as part of a general education requirement answered a set of questions that overlap a sc...

Journal Article

Does Active Learning Improve Students’ Knowledge of and Attitudes Toward Research Methods?

We incorporated an active, collaborative-based research project in our undergraduate Research Methods course for first-year sports medicine majors. Working in small groups, students identified a research question, generated a hypothesis to be tested,...

Journal Article

Lose the Recipe

First graders experience inquiry during a lesson on seed germination and plant growth. Although limited inquiry is used in the beginning while students are planting, once the seeds germinate, students take control! Students were able to construct the...

Journal Article

Science Vocabulary for All

Teaching new biology concepts to ninth graders can be tough, and teaching students with disabilities even tougher—but we are accountable for all students. These authors used a cooperative learning strategy called Collaborative Strategic Reading in ...

Journal Article

From "Adding Inquiry" to "Doing Science"

Students get outside and wonder about trees. This leads to many questions, and one particularly interesting one: "Why do leaves change color?" Student inquiry guides and empowers this investigation!...

Journal Article

Editor's Corner: Our Science Report Card

Despite some gains, significant disparities in achievement remain a major challenge for educators and schools. In this month's column, TST's Field Editor presents the results of the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress—the "Natio...

Journal Article

The Early Years: Inquiry Follow-Up

This column discusses resources and science topics related to students in grades preK to 2. In this month’s issue, young children go birding to observe and document their natural world. Children will not only practice reflecting on their experience...

Journal Article

A Thoughtful Approach to Instruction: Course Transformation for the Rest of Us

Faculty often wish to devote time and resources to improve a course to be more in line with principles of how people learn but are not sure of the best path to follow. We present our tested approach to research-based course transformation, including ...

Journal Article

Point of View: When Problems on Exams Are Harder Than the Identical Problems in the Homework

Have you ever had a student approach you after an exam, asserting that the problems on the exam were much harder than the homework you assigned—yet the test problems were taken directly from the homework? (OK, maybe some numbers were changed to pro...

Journal Article

Research and Teaching: The Development of a Novel Measure of Scientific Reasoning Growth Among College Freshman—The Constructive Inquiry Science Reasoning Skills Test

The development of students’ science reasoning abilities is a goal of science education. Researchers measure science reasoning using a variety of instruments, each with limitations and restrictions. In this study, contrasting instructional modes we...

Journal Article

A Learning Cycle for All Students

The National Science Education Standards are designed to provide a vision of scientific literacy for all students—regardless of age, race, ethnic background, English-language proficiency, socioeconomic status, disability, or giftedness. One of the ...

Journal Article

Every Day Science Calendar: March 2011

Facts and challenges for the science explorer....

Journal Article

Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12 (Books Published in 2010)

Science is passion, science is wonder. The best books about science stir the minds and hearts of readers in very special ways and this impression can last for years. These books published in 2010, identify the best in science trade books for young re...

Journal Article

Five Strategies to Support All Teachers

Five strategies are outlined that have been used with elementary school teachers as they moved from a "cookbook" approach in science to an approach that is inquiry based. Suggestions to get off the slippery slope of "cookbook" science teaching....

Journal Article

Myths, Misconceptions, and Misunderstanding: Alien Contact: Proof positive or a case of let's play pretend?

This column identifies and corrects misinformation in the classroom. This month’s issue explores claims of extraterrestrial life and our efforts to communicate with inhabitants of worlds outside our solar system. Even though there's no "proof posit...

Journal Article

Students’ Perceptions of Using Personal Response Systems (“Clickers”) With Case in Science

The authors explored whether a new pedagogy using personal response systems (clickers) along with case study teaching improved students’ perceptions of their understanding of science in large introductory biology classrooms. Twelve faculty from nin...

Journal Article

Guest Editorial: Inquiry Is Essential

An opinion piece about teaching children science as inquiry and the challenges to elementary teachers. One specific challenge is incorporating full inquiries as part of the school science program. With the process described here, elementary teachers ...

Journal Article

Teaching Science to ELLs, Part II

Despite the burgeoning numbers of English language learners (ELLs) in our schools, many science teachers have little training in meeting their specialized needs. By the year 2010, it is estimated that 40% of K–12 classrooms in the United States wil...

Journal Article

Case Study: In Case You Are Interested—Results of a Survey of Case Study Teachers

Case study teaching had a long tradition in law and business before it made the jump to medical school education in the form of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in the 1970s. Today, both the University of Delaware’s Clearinghouse and the University of ...