All Resources

Journal Article

The New Teacher’s Toolbox: When Silence Is Not Golden

Silences can be quite uncomfortable, and in front of a classroom of students, 10 seconds can feel like an eternity. Class participation is tricky because it depends on several complicated dynamics. Ideally, many students will consistently volunteer i...

Journal Article

Every Day Science: November 2010

This monthly feature contains facts and challenges for the science explorer....

Journal Article

Tried and True: Save the penguins—Teaching the science of heat transfer through engineering design

Engineers, scientists, and environmental groups around the globe are hard at work finding solutions to mitigate or halt global warming. One major goal of the curriculum described here, Save the Penguins, is to help students recognize that what we do ...

Journal Article

Point of View: A Case for Narrative Writing in Science Courses

Some time ago, the author participated in a faculty seminar on Writing in the Disciplines with colleagues from the sciences. This seminar was very productive for all participants and resulted in a number of creative strategies for helping science stu...

Journal Article

The Impact of Science Fiction Films on Student Interest in Science

Science fiction films were used in required and elective nonmajor science courses as a pedagogical tool to motivate student interest in science and to reinforce critical thinking about scientific concepts. Students watched various films and critiqued...

Journal Article

The Early Years: Documenting Learning

Children’s work documents their thinking and the details they note as they learn more. Over time, by drawing, dictating, or writing about their observations, children can reveal and deepen their understanding of science concepts. Documenting work t...

Journal Article

Instructing Students in Academic Integrity

Plagiarism is a great temptation to students in this digital age, in areas ranging from the purchase of term papers on the internet to improper citing of sources in reports to the inappropriate use of clickers in the classroom. The authors have explo...

Journal Article

Research and Teaching: Redesigning the Preexam Review Session

In a large enrollment, multiple-section course, review sessions enable efficient and consistent delivery of information to all students. A redesigned review session has been implemented to increase attendance and improve effectiveness. The new design...

Journal Article

Learning English, Learning Science

Using science notebooks effectively in the classroom can encourage students who are learning English to keep up and keep interested. English language proficiency might head the list of content areas that schools can teach properly and effectively thr...

Journal Article

Sugar-Cube Science

Many first-year chemistry students have memorized the steps of the “scientific method” and can recite them without any prompting. But when introduced to controlled, independent, and dependent variables, they hit a brick wall. Therefore, the autho...

Journal Article

Career of the Month: An Interview With Applied Chemical Technology Professional John Engelman

Applied chemical technology professionals (ACTP) are key members of laboratory teams. From pharmaceutical testing to environmental monitoring and basic research to complex projects, they work in a variety of settings and assume many different respons...

Journal Article

Safer Science: Computer Safety in the Lab

Today, it is common to find desktops, laptops, netbooks, and specialized handheld devices in the science lab, and the internet is often used for research and collaboration between learners. The pervasive use of computer technology in high school labs...

Journal Article

Interactive Reflective Logs

The authors created an interactive reflective log (IRL) to provide teachers with an opportunity to use a journal approach to record, evaluate, and communicate student understanding of science concepts. Unlike a traditional journal, the IRL incorporat...

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Metric-asaurus—Conceptualizing scale using dinosaur models

For middle school students who have seen only pictures of dinosaurs in books, in the movies, or on the internet, trying to comprehend the size of these gargantuan animals can be difficult. This lesson provides a way for students to visualize changing...

Journal Article

Building Models to Better Understand the Importance of Cost Versus Safety in Engineering

While some disasters involving engineered structures are due to events in nature (e.g., tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes), others may be caused by inadequate materials, design flaws, and poor maintenance. These catastrophes result in the loss of hu...

Journal Article

The Effectiveness of a Case Study-Based First-Year Biology Class at a Black Women’s College

The authors used a case study-based approach in the introductory biology course at Spelman College. The course taught to entering freshmen was divided into three modules—ecology, evolution, and biodiversity, each designed around a case study. They ...

Journal Article

Society for College Science Teaching: Finding Your Voice

In this month’s column, the author briefly outlines a few of the benefits of having a Society of College Science Teaching (SCST) membership. She hopes that college science faculty looking for a professional society to support and promote their inte...

Journal Article

Implementation of an Explicit and Reflective Pedagogy in Introductory Biology Laboratories

Students need to reflect on the practice of science to fully understand the nature of science (NOS), which is an important component of scientific literacy. In this paper, the authors describe how to implement an explicit and reflective pedagogy in c...

Journal Article

Using a Classroom Response System for Real-Time Data Display and Analysis in Introductory Biology Labs

Clickers were used for real-time data collection in two introductory biology laboratory courses so that students could perform statistical analysis on large data sets. Student attitudes toward this use of clickers were surveyed and students were admi...

Journal Article

Teaching Through Trade Books: Unusual Creatures

Triops, also called tadpole shrimp, are tiny aquatic animals that are easy to raise and fun to watch. Their rapid growth rate, underwater acrobatics, and entertaining feeding behaviors make these inexpensive and readily available animals well-suited ...

Journal Article

A Template for Open Inquiry

This article provides an instructional approach to helping students generate open-inquiry research questions, which the authors call the open-inquiry question template. This template was created based on their experience teaching high school science ...

Journal Article

Methods and Strategies: Developing Persuasive Voice in the Science Classroom

This article examines the role of argument in the science classroom and how it can be used to help students develop science process skills (e.g., using evidence to defend a point of view) and literacy process skills (e.g., using language precisely to...

Book Chapter

How Do We Know What the Climate Was Like in the Past?

In this Data Puzzle, students interpret a multiparameter graph of pollen data from a sediment core collected in the northeastern United States to assess changes that occurred in the tree community over a period of about 7,000 years. By comparing the ...

Book Chapter

How Do We Decide ''Weather'' Or Not To Proceed With a Trip?

In this Data Puzzle, students will observe how temperature, dew point, pressure, and wind direction change over time, and they will interpret this suite of related changes as due to the passage of a cold front. They will recognize relationships among...

Book Chapter

What Does an Earthquake Feel Like?

In this Data Puzzle, students examine real newspaper accounts of the August 10, 1884, earthquake in the northeastern United States and gain firsthand experience applying the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale to the event. Students gain insight into ...

Book Chapter

Is the Hudson River Too Salty to Drink?

In this puzzle, students examine three different sets of salinity data collected from the Hudson River estuary in New York. The puzzle includes data collected along the length of the estuary on the same date; data collected over a span of days that...

Book Chapter

Where Did the Water Go?

In this Data Puzzle, students calculate the amount of precipitation that fell in a watershed over the course of one year and the amount of water that exited from that watershed via the outflow stream. They then compare these two values and draw on th...

Book Chapter

How Much Heat is Released by a Seafloor Hydrothermal Vent?

In this Data Puzzle, students compare the amount of heat given off by a hydrothermal vent with the amount of heat needed to bring a kettle of water up to boiling temperature. Recognizing that the heat released from one vent in an hour would heat a cu...

Book Chapter

How the Brain Visually Perceives the World

These classic activities explore how our eyes and brain receive and process visual information. Each activity requires approximately five minutes. For a richer experience with these activities, consult a neuroanatomy guide with labeled images of the ...