JoinAll Resources
Journal Article
Science 101: What causes surface tension?
This column focuses on background science information for elementary teachers. In this month’s column, learn about surface tension....
Journal Article
Flooded! An Investigation of Sea-Level Rise in a Changing Climate
Explore how melting ice sheets affect global sea levels. Sea-level rise (SLR) is a rise in the water level of the Earth's oceans. There are two major kinds of ice in the polar regions: sea ice and land ice. Land ice contributes to SLR and sea ice doe...
Journal Article
Use of Genomic Databases for Inquiry-Based Learning About Influenza
The genome projects of the past decades have created extensive databases of biological information with applications in both research and education. We describe an inquiry-based exercise that uses one such database, the National Center for Biotechno...
Journal Article
An obvious lesson means far-from-enthusiastic students. By adding a second variable, this water pressure and depth investigation provides students with a problem to solve and identify. With two variables, students had to use inquiry to determine whic...
Journal Article
Teaching Through Trade Books: Let's Try It Out in the Air
This column includes activities inspired by children’s literature. In this month’s issue, the lessons challenge students' common misconception that air is "nothing." Students participate in activities, collect evidence, and develop explanations t...
Journal Article
Tech Trek: The move to movies: Instruction that engages
Take a look at the latest classroom technology. Learn about the latest movie software for your computer that allows you to create your own instructional materials and students to present their own multimedia projects....
Journal Article
Editorial: Stuck in the Certainty Gradient
We are increasingly seeing incoming college students who haven’t experienced (or perhaps haven’t responded to) this gradual presentation of increasing uncertainty. And the author believes this is one of the profound and unrecognized disconnects i...
Journal Article
Editor's Roundtable: Sleuthing with science
Science Scope’s editor shares thoughts regarding the current issue....
Journal Article
Favorite Demonstration: The Cell Organelle Pageant
The Cell Organelle Pageant is an activity to reinforce student’s understanding of the structure and function of eukaryotic cell organelles. This activity should follow readings and a lecture presentation on cell types and structures. Students often...
Journal Article
Everyday Engineering: Windmills are going around again
Learn how to create a pinwheel to explore wind power. In this lesson, students will construct a simple pinwheel-type windmill to test the power generated by different designs. ...
Journal Article
Your Syllabus Should Set the Stage for Assessment for Learning
In this article, the authors describe how a syllabus can be used to set the stage for effective use of assessment-for-learning principles. Nearly all college instructors use a syllabus, but this document typically dwells on logistics and evaluation. ...
Journal Article
Career of the Month: An Interview With Horticulturist John Stier
Horticulture—the science and art of cultivating plants—is host to a dynamic array of careers. Horticulturist John Stier researches turfgrass to develop high-quality sports fields. At the 1994 World Cup, he watched the U.S. men's team play on the ...
Journal Article
Mythbusters, Musicians, and MP3 Players: A Middle School Sound Study
Create your own speakers for an MP3 player while exploring the science of sound. Review of science notebooks, students' intriguing cabinet designs, and listening to students talk with a musician about the physics of an instrument show that complex co...
Journal Article
Scope on Safety: Safety in the field
This column shares safety information for your classroom. In this month’s issue the author discusses how to navigate field trips safely through careful preparation and planning. The field trip is priceless and helps make science come alive for stu...
Journal Article
Milk Fireworks, Cat's Meow, Breaking the Tension--whatever you call it, this lesson will provide strategies for taking a simple, hands-on activity and transforming it into inquiry. The lesson is ideally suited for teaching important concepts in exper...
Journal Article
Who Stole the Doughnuts? An Interdisciplinary Forensics Unit
There was a doughnut thief loose and the students were determined to put their science skills to use to track down the culprit. They would use forensic science to eliminate suspects and identify the thief who stole the doughnuts. School staff take on...
Journal Article
Science 2.0: Personalizing the PC for Accessibility
Personalizing the PC for Accessibility. Students with disabilities need access to computers in the classroom—but this goes beyond the mere availability of a machine. This month's column describes some of the Apple and Microsoft computer features th...
Journal Article
Editor's Note: Moving Toward Inquiry
Science and Children’s editor shares thoughts regarding the current issue....
Journal Article
Formative Assessment Probes: The Mitten Problem
This column focuses on promoting learning through assessment. In this month’s issue, the theory of "immaculate insulation" is prevalent among students. This formative assessment probe will help students overcome this misunderstanding by allowing th...
Journal Article
Scope on the Skies: Changing of the seasons
This column focuses on astronomy throughout the year. In this month’s issue learn the astronomy behind the changing of the seaons. Students know that we mark the change of seasons with the position of the Sun over certain parts of the Earth. The sp...
Journal Article
Lose the routine, tweak your "cookbook lab," and reach a level of open inquiry with these strategies used during a unit on heat....
Journal Article
Natural Resources: Get Out There
This column helps bring the outdoors into your curriculum. This month’s issue will start you thinking of summer opportunities. For students with a special interest in the outdoors, or those with limited access to nature, summer camp might be a life...
Journal Article
Tried and True: Spooky suspects
This column provides classic demonstrations and experiments with a new twist. This month’s issue presents an option for covering biology content while engaging students in an investigation that highlights the spirit of Halloween. Students are engag...
Journal Article
Methods and Strategies: Overcoming Difficulties
This column provides ideas and techniques to enhance your science teaching. In this month’s issue, bilingual second-grade students do scientific inquiry in pairs during a lesson on leaves. To help bilingual learners overcome language difficulties, ...
eBook
Earth Science Puzzles: Making Meaning From Data (e-book)
Teachers of Earth and environmental sciences in grades 8–12 will welcome this activity book centered on six “data puzzles” that foster critical-thinking skills in students and support science and math standards....
eBook
Mastery Learning in the Science Classroom: Success for Every Student (e-book)
In these pages, Kelly Morgan presents a compelling case for implementing a mastery learning science classroom and then shows us how to do it. Using research-based student performance data, Morgan compiles impressive statistics that support her assert...
eBook
Developing Visual Literacy in Science, K–8 (e-book)
More than 50 percent of science lessons in today’s elementary textbooks use visual information to help demonstrate concepts. With Developing Visual Learning in Science, K–8, educators can help their students develop skills in interpreting photogr...
eBook
Hop Into Action: The Amphibian Curriculum Guide for Grades K–4 (e-book)
K–4 teachers, homeschoolers, camp leaders, and naturalists will find the standards-based lessons in this slim volume the perfect introduction to environmental science for young learners. Hop Into Action helps teach children about the joy of amphibi...
eBook
The Teaching of Science: 21st-Century Perspectives (e-book)
What should citizens know, value, and be able to do in preparation for life and work in the 21st century? In The Teaching of Science: 21st-Century Perspectives, renowned educator Rodger Bybee provides the perfect opportunity for science teachers, adm...
eBook
Tried and True: Time-Tested Activities for Middle School (e-book)
A compilation of popular “Tried and True” columns originally published in the award-winning journal Science Scope, this new book is filled with teachers’ best classroom activities—time-tested, tweaked, and engaging. These favorites are organi...
eBook
Predict, Observe, Explain: Activities Enhancing Scientific Understanding (e-book)
John Haysom and Michael Bowen provide middle and high school science teachers with more than 100 student activities to help the students develop their understanding of scientific concepts. The powerful Predict, Observe, Explain (POE) strategy, field-...
Journal Article
Tried and True: Earth’s reflection—Albedo
When viewing objects of different colors, you might notice that some appear brighter than others. This is because light is reflected differently from various surfaces, depending on their physical properties. The word albedo is used to describe how re...
Journal Article
Dinosaurs in the middle school classroom can be exciting. These extinct reptiles are both an exotic subject and familiar to our students. Because students are inherently interested, dinosaurs can serve as an effective portal for the integration of bi...