All Resources

Journal Article

Idea Bank: ExploraVision—Extracurricular Research and Development

The ExploraVision model encourages students to use their knowledge and creativity to solve real-world problems. It gives any student, at any grade level, the opportunity to participate in scientific collaboration. This Idea Bank introduces the Explor...

Journal Article

Big Ideas at a Very Small Scale

The purpose of this article is to share a learning-cycle sequence of lessons designed to convey the particulate nature of matter through use of physical models and analogical thinking. This activity was adapted from Conceptual Chemistry, a long-runni...

Journal Article

Safer Science: Taking Responsibility for Safety

In science classes and labs, it is the teacher’s professional responsibility to ensure student safety by seeking out safety information that is independent of what is found in the lab manual and making informed judgments. Therefore, teachers must u...

Journal Article

Why Static Clings

Using Wiggins and McTighe’s (1998) concept of Big Ideas, the authors planned and designed an electricity investigation to address common student misconceptions about static electricity. With Styrofoam plates and transparent tape, elementary student...

Journal Article

Every Day Science: December 2009

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

Journal Article

More Than Meets the Eye

On a partly sunny afternoon, a fourth-grade class at the Marietta Center for Advanced Academics in Marietta, Georgia, was gearing up to explore key concepts regarding the nature of light. Armed with translucent beads and white pipe cleaners, the clas...

Journal Article

Editor’s Note: Seeing in the Dark

It seems like such a simple concept, seeing an object; light leaves its source, is reflected off an object, and travels into our eyes. Without light, we cannot see. Light and electricity may seem to be simple concepts, but don’t be fooled. Assess s...

Journal Article

Seeing the Light

Conceptually, students are typically introduced to light as a type of wave. However, children struggle to understand this model because it is highly abstract. Light can be represented more concretely using the photon model. According to this scientif...

Journal Article

Working Model Hearts

Despite student interest, the heart is often a poorly understood topic in biology. To help students understand this vital organ’s physiology, the author created this investigation activity involving the mammalian heart and its role in the circulato...

Journal Article

Editor’s Corner: STEM Beyond the Classroom

One of our most important tasks as science educators is to encourage students to consider careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). So, how do we encourage more students to consider STEM careers? It is a multilayered proble...

Journal Article

Shoe Box Circuits

Students’ eyes grow wide with wonder as they get a motor to work or make a bulb light for the first time. As these daunting feats of electrical engineering remind us, teaching electricity is invariably rewarding and worthwhile. In this inquiry-base...

Journal Article

Using Powers of 10 to Help Students Develop Temporal Benchmarks

One of the greatest challenges for middle school Earth science teachers is helping our students get a feel for the magnitude of the long spans that make up Earth’s history. The intent of the strategy presented here is to help middle school students...

Journal Article

Teacher’s Toolkit: Building a vision of effective science instruction—How an observation guide supports dialogue

To help establish common language, to shape a common vision for a science program, guide individual and group reflection on instruction, and support partner teachers in eliciting the involvement of their colleagues, the North Cascades and Olympic Sci...