All Resources

Journal Article

Idea Bank: Vectors on the Basketball Court

An Idea Bank published in the April/May 2009 issue of The Science Teacher describes an experiential physics lesson on vectors and vector addition (Brown 2009). Like its football predecessor, the basketball-based investigation presented in this Idea ...

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Simple machine junk cars

During the month of May, the author’s eighth-grade physical science students study the six simple machines through hands-on activities, reading assignments, videos, and notes. At the end of the month, they can easily identify the six types of simpl...

Journal Article

Point of View: A Lateral View of Darwin

Last year, we celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin (1809–1882); it has been approximately 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species on the theory of evolution by natural selection. As the authors’ cont...

Journal Article

Methods and Strategies: Science and Literacy Centers

In recent years, science has taken a backseat to reading and mathematics in many primary classrooms. Imaginative teachers have coped with this loss of science time by creatively integrating science topics into reading instructional materials (Douglas...

Journal Article

Who’s in the Zoo?

To make the concept of biomes fresh for high school students and help them achieve more conceptual depth, the author Amy Slack created the “Who’s in the Zoo?” project. Working in groups, students design a zoo that represents five of Earth’s b...

Journal Article

Picture THIS: Taking Human Impact Seriously

Unfortunately, middle school students often view human impact as an abstract idea over which they have no control and do not see themselves as contributing to the Earth’s environmental decline. How better to uncover students’ ideas concerning hum...

Journal Article

Editorial: It’s Not Just You

Does the process of gaining tenure and promotion make your stomach lurch? If your answer is “yes,” you are not alone. In this month’s column, the author recounts her personal experience related to this grueling procedure and discusses a highly...

Journal Article

Scope on the Skies: March measurements

While science is certainly language based, it is also bilingual in the sense that mathematics is also “spoken” in science classes. There are many opportunities throughout the school year to integrate the language of mathematics with science lesso...

Journal Article

Health Wise: March 2010

How can you tell the difference between cold and airborne allergy symptoms?...

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Magic termites—Exploring scientific inquiry

The objective of the termite experiment is to walk students through the process of designing and conducting an experiment while allowing them to use inquiry-based methods to infer why, in this lab, termites follow the line of blue Bic or Paper Mate b...

Journal Article

Hurricane Proof This!

While learning about the types of weather events that occur in the local area, students in grades 4–6 were asked to consider how structures can be built to withstand extreme weather conditions. Teams of students designed, constructed, and tested bu...

Journal Article

Engineering for All

As calls for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education at the elementary level become more vociferous, elementary teachers may be wondering whether engineering is meant for all students. However, the authors assert that engin...

Journal Article

Speak Up! Mini Cases in Language

This is a series of short cases useful for a variety of courses, including physiological psychology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuropsychology/neuroscience. Each of these cases depicts a breakdown in languag...

Journal Article

Unlocking Academic Vocabulary

How can we teach science to English language learners (ELLs) when even our native English speakers have trouble reading the textbook? To help science teachers meet this challenge, this article presents six text-comprehension strategies used by Englis...

Journal Article

Safer Science: Getting Students in the Safety Zone

Students coming into science labs need initial and ongoing training about safety standards and best practices. They also need to develop good attitudes about their work and the health and safety of their teachers and fellow students. The School Chemi...

Journal Article

Photovoice: A Community-Based Socioscientific Pedagogical Tool

Situating instruction in a local context, socioscientific issues (SSIs) offers students an opportunity to become active participants in the community and has the potential to encourage them to authentically and critically participate and engage in un...

Journal Article

A Study of the St. Lawrence River Ecological Habitat

Save the River, a grassroots advocacy group established in 1978, lobbies for policies to preserve the upper St. Lawrence River and uses the community’s help to keep an eye on the existing habitats. Recently, they procured the Fresh Sound Foundation...

Journal Article

Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K–12 (Books published in 2009)

What makes an outstanding book for a young reader? Although it would be hard to create a rubric for every book, experienced teachers recognize them quickly. They fascinate and captivate with both their content and style. Award-winning trade books ins...

Journal Article

Editor’s Note: STEM Careers

There is a new impetus for encouraging students to become more knowledgeable about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and perhaps encourage them to choose a career in science-related fields. Several groups and individuals, inclu...

Journal Article

The Early Years: Building With Sand

Children playing in damp sand invariably try to make a tower or a tunnel. By providing experiences with a variety of materials, alone and together, teachers set up the conditions for children to learn through their senses and ensure that a class appr...

Journal Article

Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K–12 (books published in 2009)

What makes an outstanding book for a young reader? Although it would be hard to create a rubric for every book, experienced teachers recognize them quickly. They fascinate and captivate with both their content and style. Award-winning trade books ins...

Journal Article

Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K–12 (Books published in 2009)

What makes an outstanding book for a young reader? Although it would be hard to create a rubric for every book, experienced teachers recognize them quickly. They fascinate and captivate with both their content and style. Award-winning trade books ins...

Journal Article

Tried and True: Disrupted food webs—Exploring the relationship between overfishing and dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay

This inquiry-based activity provides a real-world example that connects to students’ everyday seafood choices. In fact, many students went home and insisted to their parents that they should only buy “green” seafood choices. It was also an effe...

Journal Article

Career of the Month: An Interview With AIDS Vaccine Researcher Chris Parks

The search for an AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) vaccine is truly a global effort, with university laboratories, biotech firms, pharmaceutical companies, nonprofit research organizations, hospitals, and clinics all working together to dev...

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Project Citizen—Students practice democratic principles while conducting community projects

Project Citizen is a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education’s congressionally funded Center for Civic Education, which sponsors both domestic and international programs. The Center for Civic Education’s Civitas International Progra...

Journal Article

Research and Teaching: Transfer of Knowledge in Science Courses for Elementary Education Majors

In this article, the authors report the results of a preliminary study of preservice teachers’ ability to transfer their knowledge between their chemistry and Earth science courses. They examined whether they could answer the transfer questions cor...

Journal Article

Increasing Scientific Literacy About Global Climate Change Through a Laboratory-Based Feminist Science Course

The authors have developed and implemented a novel general education science course that examines scientific knowledge, laboratory experimentation, and science-related public policy through the lens of feminist science studies. They argue that this a...

Journal Article

Integrative Metabolism: An Interactive Learning Tool for Nutrition, Biochemistry, and Physiology

Metabolism is a dynamic, simultaneous, and integrative science that cuts across nutrition, biochemistry, and physiology. Teaching this science can be a challenge. The use of a scenario-based, visually appealing, interactive, computer-animated CD may ...

Journal Article

Science Shorts: Science Rocks!

It all began one Monday morning. Raymond could not wait to come to large group. In his hand, he held a chunk of white granite he had found. “Look at my beautiful rock!” he cried. The rock was passed around and examined by each student. “I wonde...

Book Chapter

Air Mass Matters: Creating a Need-to-Know

Air has weight and exerts a pressure of 10 N/cm2 (or 14.7 lbs/in2) at sea level. Gases are not “no thing.” Gases have mass, occupy space, exert pressure, and are composed of molecules separated by truly “empty” space. Inertia, or the tendency...