All Resources

Journal Article

Clickers Beyond the First-Year Science Classroom

This case study’s primary objective is to describe the implementation of the electronic response system (clickers) in a small (N = 25) second-year physics course at a large public university and to draw attention of the science faculty who teach up...

Journal Article

Science 101: How do oil and gas companies know where to drill?

Contrary to popular opinion, most oil is not discovered by a backwoods hunter shooting at some food when up through the ground comes bubbling crude (you younger people ask your parents what silly TV program the author is referring to). Neither is it ...

Journal Article

The Inquiry Flame

In the lesson presented in this article, students learn to organize their thinking and design their own inquiry experiments through careful observation of an object, situation, or event. They then conduct these experiments and report their findings i...

Journal Article

Research and Teaching: Data-Driven Implementation and Adaptation of New Teaching Methodologies

This paper describes an action research approach toward an implementation of a new teaching methodology (specifically active learning) in a preparatory college chemistry classroom. The initial implementation involved the use of process-orientated gui...

Journal Article

The Inquiry Matrix

One way to advance inquiry in the classroom is to establish a systematic strategy for reflecting on our practice and our students’ readiness to engage in increasingly complex scientific reasoning. The Matrix for Assessing and Planning Scientific In...

Journal Article

Science and the City: Community Cultural and Natural Resources at the Core of a Place-Based, Science Teacher Preparation Program

The departments of Geology and Education at Brooklyn College collaborated with five informal educational institutions in the development of a place-based graduate program for Earth science teachers. The team used “backward design” to develop a pr...

Journal Article

Exploring Osmosis and Diffusion in Cells

Guided inquiry is an instructional technique that requires students to answer a teacher-proposed research question, design an investigation, collect and analyze data, and then develop a conclusion (Bell, Smetana, and Binns 2005; NRC 2000). In this ar...

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Solar Panels and alternative energy in the eighth-grade classroom

In this solar panels and alternative energy project, students were challenged to develop a researchable question about solar energy and electronics and devise a means of answering it. Students worked cooperatively, with specific roles for each member...

Journal Article

Guest Editorial: Inquiry, Process Skills, and Thinking in Science

Inquiry is central to science education today. But understanding its many nuances is still an issue according to research (Flick and Lederman 2004). And understanding is the first step to implementations. In this article, the author identifies six qu...

Journal Article

Measurement Informs Understanding

It is common practice for elementary classes to plant seeds so that students have the opportunity to observe them germinate and grow. Beyond introducing plant anatomy, this relatively simple activity has the potential to engage children as young plan...

Journal Article

Science Pipes: A World of Data at Your Fingertips

A new online tool called Science Pipes allows students to conduct biodiversity investigations. With this free tool, students create and run analyses that would otherwise require access to unwieldy data sets and the ability to write computer code. Usi...

Journal Article

Teacher’s Toolkit: Strategies for the meaningful evaluation of multiple-choice assessments

Too many multiple-choice tests are administered without an evaluative component. Teachers often return student assessments or Scantron cards—computerized bubble forms—without review, assuming that the printing of the correct answer will suffice. ...

Journal Article

The “Magic” String

The “Magic” String is a discrepant event that includes a canister with what appears to be the end of two strings protruding from opposite sides of it. Due to the way the strings are attached inside the canister, it appears as if the strings can m...

Journal Article

Editor’s Note: Inquiry—Process Skills

We take for granted that students have some abilities in questioning, observing, predicting, planning an investigation, collecting data, interpreting information, and communicating their ideas. But, this is more than likely not the case. We must be d...

Journal Article

Transporting Students Into Thin Air: Using Science to Enhance Reading

The Into Thin Air unit, based on the book by Jon Krakauer, was designed as an interdisciplinary unit for a small group of academically gifted sixth-grade students. It included hands-on, minds-on activities that would immerse students in the scientifi...

Journal Article

Connect the Spheres with the Coal Cycle

Coal fueled the Industrial Revolution and, as a result, changed the course of human history. However, the geologic history of coal is much, much longer than that which is recorded by humans. In your classroom, the coal cycle can be used to trace the ...

Journal Article

Teaching Through Trade Books: Kitchen Chemistry

The kitchen is a wondrous place for children to make observations and explore the basics of chemistry. Seize the opportunity and help students build process skills while cooking or baking. Almost everything we eat and certainly everything that is com...

Journal Article

Tried and True: Physics fun with toy cars

According to the National Science Education Standards, students should be able to describe an object by its position, direction of motion, and speed (NRC 1996). During a unit on motion, the author decided to use Hot Wheels cars as the object students...

Journal Article

Career of the Month: An Interview With Medical Physicist John Winston

You have probably heard that radiation is used to combat cancer, but might be wondering how exactly this works. X-rays deposit a specified dose of high energy into the cancerous tissue. This damages the cancer cells’ DNA beyond repair, causing the ...

Journal Article

Self-Regulated Learning

Self-regulated learning (SRL) encourages students to learn using metacognition, strategic action, and motivation. This nontraditional approach to education relies on the student’s active role in learning and the instructor’s facilitatory role in ...

Journal Article

Science 2.0: Project Climate

For this issue’s “New Web Tools and Technology” theme, the authors thought it appropriate to showcase one innovative web project in depth. Ben Wildeboer, a science teacher in Connecticut, agreed to talk with them about student blogging and his ...

Journal Article

Science 101: How does loud noise affect hearing?

This is an appropriate question, especially in light of the recent news that the incidence of hearing loss in teens has been increased by a third. To understand how loud noise affects hearing, you need to know the basics of how your ear works. To und...

Journal Article

Beyond Predictions

By thinking about the concept of density and taking into account the research on children’s ideas about this concept, the authors were able to unpack the typical sink or float activity and realize that it has students unscientifically making compar...

Journal Article

Editor’s Roundtable: Cycles and connections

Most middle level students are too young to recognize on their own the complex relationships among the natural cycles. They seldom connect one cycle with another nor do they see the relevance of the cycles to human events and natural phenomena so it ...

Journal Article

Science Shorts: Do You Hear What Horton Hears?

“I’ve never heard of a small speck of dust that is able to yell” says Horton of a sound he hears well (Geisel 1954). It is always valuable to connect science to student’s interests and their everyday world—so what better way to teach concep...

Journal Article

Green Science: Banning the bottle

Bottled water is ubiquitous, taken for granted, and seemingly benign. Americans are consuming bottled water in massive amounts and spending a lot of money: In 2007, Americans spent $11.7 billion on 8.8 billions gallons of bottled water (Gashler 2008)...

Journal Article

Editor’s Corner: New Tools for Learning

Technology has the potential to transform science education through online social network collaboration, satellite navigation and imaging, field and laboratory digital probeware, wikis and blogs, sophisticated online data sets, student response syste...

Book Chapter

Visual Literacy: The Primer

As students try out visual literacy tools, they will begin to “see” concepts and build relationships among ideas by layering new information onto existing knowledge. This chapter is an overview of the concept of visual literacy and of the skill ...

Book Chapter

Interpreting Photographs

A single still photographic image can easily communicate a vast amount of information. A photograph can capture the meaning of a complex idea or concept that would require many pages of text to describe. This chapter provides you with strategies and...

Book Chapter

Interpreting Diagrams

Students encounter a variety of diagrams in their lives that convey a variety of scientific and technical information. This chapter reviews the skills and techniques necessary for analyzing and interpreting diagrams of several levels of complexity. ...

Book Chapter

Creating Visual Thinking Tools

When we help students discover tools and techniques for organizing the vast amount of information presented to them, they will be much better prepared to recall, retell, or make meaning from text. In this chapter, the authors examine brainstorm webs...

Book Chapter

Three-Dimensional Graphic Organizers ("Foldables")

A foldable is a three-dimensional graphic organizer that allows learners to record and process new words and concepts in a hands-on, kinesthetic way. It helps increase students’ visual-spatial learning, which research has shown to be critical to lo...

Book Chapter

Visual Literacy in Life Science: Insect Metamorphosis

The authors invite you to come with them on a learning journey. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 are designed to help you practice your visual literacy teaching strategies. Even though each of these chapters follows the same format, each one addresses a differen...