JoinAll Resources
Journal Article
Become part of a professional learning community by pairing up to exchange ideas and lesson plans. Professional development in real-life situations and collaborations with others is part of the National Science Education Standard A: Work together as ...
Journal Article
Career of the Month: An Interview With Arborist Tchukki Andersen
If you like being outside and have a fondness for trees, this may be the career for you. Professional arborists are trained in the art and science of planting, caring for, and maintaining trees. Arborist Tchukki Andersen provides care and management ...
Journal Article
Tried and True: Teaching the practice of science, unteaching the “scientific method”
Many teachers continue to teach the scientific method not only because they too were taught to believe in it, but also because it is still emphasized in many textbooks. However, it was just such mechanical teaching of science that prompted education ...
Journal Article
The phrase “21st-century skills” suggests that our students will need a new batch of skills and tools in order to be prepared for the next century. However, many teachers would say that they already incorporate these skills in their lessons, such...
Journal Article
Editor’s Roundtable: Reading is fundamental—to science
A student’s reading level is one of the predictors of his or her overall academic success in middle school and afterwards. Science teachers, however, do not need to be reading experts to help students develop close-reading skills and effective scre...
Journal Article
While diagrams make the text more visually appealing and provide an image of the text, they also do much more. Subsequently, the authors designed a series of lessons for students to discover the many purposes of graphics in science. A particular util...
Journal Article
Institutionalizing Undergraduate Research for Geology Majors Through Creative Inquiry Experiences
The geology program at Clemson University has instituted a new, six-semester-long undergraduate research course sequence that requires student participation in ongoing departmental research projects from their sophomore through senior years....
Journal Article
“Engineering Challenge for the 21st Century,” a weeklong teacher workshop sponsored by the National Science Foundation, uses project-based learning (PBL) to help students and teachers build science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills...
Journal Article
Weaving Science and Civics Through Interdisciplinary Courses
Cross-curricular programming offers unique opportunities to connect non-majors with science. In this article, the author describes personal experiences related to a novel initiative uniting science, civics, and citizenship that may serve as a model f...
Journal Article
Science Shorts: The Challenge of Nutrition
You have no doubt seen it in your classrooms and heard it in the news: Childhood obesity is an epidemic in the United States. Obesity may predispose children to health issues later in their lifetime, including type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Weigh...
Journal Article
The University of Colorado’s Physics Education Technology (PhET) website offers free, high-quality simulations of many physics experiments that can be used in the classroom. The Circuit Construction Kit, for example, allows students to safely and c...
Journal Article
Science 101: What kind of professional development is best for teachers?
The simple answer to this question is that it depends on your needs. For elementary and middle school teachers, though, the author has found that a high percentage of teachers lack the proper background in science content to teach effectively. There ...
Journal Article
How to Create a Professional Learning Community
Devoting time to a professional learning community (PLC) can be frustrating or rewarding. The authors have experienced both of these outcomes and can share processes that may help make your PLC one that enriches your professional growth and improves ...
Journal Article
Achievable Inquiry in the College Laboratory: The Mini-Journal
The authors engage students in inquiry-based learning by presenting laboratory exercises as mini-journal articles that mirror the format of a scientific journal article, including a title, authors, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, resul...
Journal Article
Twin strategies of Institutes on the Teaching and Learning of Science and Mathematics and support for faculty through minigrants are shown to be effective in stimulating college science and mathematics faculty to modify their introductory courses to ...
Journal Article
Guest Editorial: The Root of the Problem
By providing opportunities for in-depth exploration of content and engagement of educators in modeling the instructional process, we will be able to focus on the needed differentiation in the professional development (PD) of science educators, just a...
Journal Article
Science Sampler: Annotated reading
In order to make reading assignments a more meaningful instructional strategy, the author created MP3 audio recordings of the textbook, which included commentary that was interspersed in the recording. At the start of every recording, he also modeled...
Journal Article
Tech Trek: Hang up and learn—Cell phones in the science classroom
In some schools, cell phones have to be turned off or perhaps kept in lockers to avoid misuse. But the authors hope to demonstrate in this article how they can be used under supervision to assist learning. There is no question that the uninitiated wi...
Journal Article
Point of View: Dual Enrollment—Postsecondary/Secondary Partnerships to Prepare Students
The last decade has seen an explosion of interest in dual enrollment. In dual enrollment, high school students are permitted to take college courses and, if they pass them, earn college credit. Sometimes, as in the case of dual credit, students earn ...
eBook
Nationally known science educator Page Keeley—principal author of the hugely popular, four-volume NSTA Press series Uncovering Students Ideas in Science—has teamed up with physicist and science educator Rand Harrington to write this first volume ...
eBook
The Frugal Science Teacher, 6-9: Strategies and Activities (e-book)
Teachers of all grades and disciplines often dip into their own wallets to outfit their classrooms with materials and supplies that school and district budgets can’t—or won’t—cover. Science teachers tend to find themselves supplementing their...
eBook
The Frugal Science Teacher, PreK-5: Strategies and Activities (e-book)
Teachers of all grades and disciplines often dip into their own wallets to outfit their classrooms with materials and supplies that school and district budgets can’t—or won’t—cover. Science teachers tend to find themselves supplementing their...
Book Chapter
Earth Hounds: Dr. Xargle's Book of Earth Hounds and Seven Blind Mice
Learners develop understandings of the differences between observations and inferences by analyzing Dr. Xargle's comical, yet misguided, attempts to teach his students about human babies. Learners then make observations and inferences of "mystery sam...
eBook
More Chemistry Basics: Stop Faking It! Finally Understanding Science So You Can Teach It (e-book)
Overwhelmed by orbitals? Terrified of thermodynamics? Agitated by acids and bases? Have no fear! This follow-up to the award-winning Chemistry Basics will clear up your chemistry woes. ...
NSTA Press Book
Picture-Perfect Science Lessons, Expanded 2nd Edition: Using Children's Books to Guide Inquiry, 3-6
How do you improve upon perfection? For years, new and experienced elementary school teachers alike have extolled the virtues of Picture-Perfect Science Lessons—the expertly combined appeal of children’s picture books with standards-based science...
By Karen Ansberry, Emily Morgan
eBook
Science Education Leadership: Best Practices for the New Century (e-book)
Achieving science literacy for every student is the common goal of all science educators. It requires leaders from a broad spectrum of the science education field to band together and clearly define how to achieve this goal and provide the tools for ...
eBook
Once Upon a Life Science Book: 12 Interdisciplinary Activities to Create Confident Readers (e-book)
Reading skills and life science come together in this engaging new book for middle school teachers. Once Upon a Life Science Book makes it easy for teachers to improve their students’ reading abilities and teach science content simultaneously throu...
eBook
Outdoor Science: A Practical Guide (e-book)
Research shows that environment-centered education improves student achievement. Whatever your school’s setting—urban, suburban, or rural—you can create stimulating outdoor classrooms for your students, with a little help from Outdoor Science. ...
eBook
Even More Everyday Science Mysteries: Stories for Inquiry-Based Science Teaching (e-book)
What are the odds of a meteor hitting your house? What are “warm” clothes anyway? Do you get “more” sunlight from Daylight Saving Time? Everyone loves a good mystery and these unfold in the 15 stories presented in Even More Everyday Science M...
eBook
Inside-Out: Environmental Science in the Classroom and the Field, Grades 3–8 (e-book)
Teachers seeking new ways to integrate Earth science, chemistry, physical geography, and life science into a study of the environment should just step outside! So say the authors of Inside-Out: Environmental Science in the Classroom and the Field, Gr...