All Resources

Journal Article

Every Day Science: September 2009

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

Journal Article

Research and Teaching: Assessment of the Impact of Case Studies on Student Learning Gains in an Introductory Biology Course

Student performance in lecture-based versus case study-based instruction was compared in this study. Case-based teaching that emphasized problem solving and discussion significantly improved student performance on exams throughout the semester and en...

Journal Article

Going Bananas Over Fruit: Using Habits of Mind to Foster Nutritional Literacy

Science literacy for all students is an education goal in the United States, as well as in many other parts of the world. Habits of mind are the skills and attitudes that students need to develop in order to understand science as a way of thinking. I...

Journal Article

Developing Patterns for Learning in Science Through Reflection

The process of the development of critical thinking and knowledge application requires more than rote memorization and the ability to get correct answers on lab reports or on a multiple-choice test. Purposeful, guided reflection may be an opportunity...

Journal Article

The Prepared Practitioner: Alternative Conceptions in Chemistry

Despite its importance, chemistry can be difficult for some students to learn. Many concepts are abstract, and students cannot always relate the ideas in this subject to their own experiences. Researchers examining learning in chemistry often referen...

Journal Article

Teaching Students to Create Undiscovered Ideas

Science curricula often guide us to teach students just the facts, but our students need to be prepared for life in the 21st century. Since technology is developing rapidly, we do not know what new technologies, resources, and information our student...

Journal Article

Teaching With Crystal Structures

Classifying a particle requires an understanding of the type of bonding that exists within and among the particles, which requires an understanding of atomic structure and electron configurations, which requires an understanding of the elements of pe...

Journal Article

Teacher Research: Challenging Our Assumptions

Teacher research—often called “action research”—is an intentional and systematic inquiry into one’s own classroom practice with the goal of improved student learning (Cochran-Smith and Lytle 1993). In this article, the authors present a tea...

Journal Article

Embracing Learner’s Ideas About Diffusion and Osmosis: A Coupled-Inquiry Approach

Learning about osmosis and diffusion is often a challenging task for middle school students. Here the authors present a lesson that was converted from a “cookbook” lab (McLaughlin and Thompson 2007) into a more inquiry-oriented lab that uses inqu...

Journal Article

Editor’s Corner: The Central Science

Of all the subjects, chemistry should arguably be the most enjoyable; it is filled with things that bubble, change color, burst into flame, and otherwise provide visual and intellectual intrigue. As the paradigmatic laboratory science, it may also be...

Journal Article

Growing Seeds and Scientists

How do young children develop their ideas about science and scientists’ work in their first year of school? How do we teach them to believe they are real scientists? In this article, the authors—a university science educator, a kindergarten teach...

Journal Article

Editor’s Roundtable: Nurturing Scientific Habits of Mind

Science process skills and content knowledge are not enough to produce the scientists and scientifically literate citizens we need in the 21st century....

Journal Article

Incorporating Authentic Scientific Research in an Introductory General-Education Course for Nonmajors

Nonscience majors enrolling in introductory science courses may not have a chance to conduct authentic scientific research and therefore may develop a distorted view of science. This article describes how authentic research activities were incorporat...

Journal Article

Favorite Demonstration: Demonstrating Emergent Properties in Dynamic Systems

This demonstration was developed for an introduction to a soil science class to show how emergent properties are an essential behavior endemic to dynamic systems; explanations for their existence are not dependent on external forces. Emergent propert...

Journal Article

Point of View: The Nuclear Road Ahead—A Science, Technology, and Society Issue

Many undergraduates can often be motivated by the opportunity to explore issues requiring them to develop at least a modest understanding of the underlying science. For many students, “just in time” science makes good sense. There are many issues...

Journal Article

Science Sampler: How do we know what we know? A look at schemas

A schema is like a file folder in the mind, a knowledge structure that holds all of a learner’s experiences with a given topic. Schemas are thought to be organized, hierarchical representations of information that can help an individual to adapt to...

Journal Article

Tried and True: Looking for Questions

During the first day of school, eighth-grade students often receive hour after hour of specific rules and classroom procedures. However, the author takes a different approach in science class. Here she describes an activity that is designed to engage...

Journal Article

Forest or Field?

An open field—with its wildflowers, grasses, and vole tunnels—became an instant classroom. Students’ senses were awakened there, and upon entering a nearby forest, they immediately detected a difference: less light and cooler air. “Why are th...

Journal Article

The Early Years: Planting Before Winter

Planting flower bulbs is a wonderful activity for many reasons: learning about the life cycle of a plant bulb teaches children about seasonal changes and the environmental needs of plants, and children can observe and measure plant growth over time a...

Journal Article

What Grows There?

Even though students see plants all around them, they tend to ignore them. Animal studies usually get all the “press.” As a naturalist, children’s book author, and coordinator for an educational science website for teachers, the author knows fr...

Journal Article

What Happens to Cemetery Headstones?

A group of high school students and chaperones boarded a bus for historic Oakland Cemetery located in downtown Atlanta. Students explored the site and made observations of the gravestones, many of which were old and run-down....

Journal Article

Science Shorts: Gourd-ous Decomposition

While pumpkins are an iconic symbol in the classroom that represent fall, harvest time, and Halloween, they are also an ideal subject for teaching elementary students the fundamentals of scientific inquiry and plant decomposition. In a second-grade c...

Journal Article

Scope on Safety: Rethinking the Use of Hand Sanitizers

Recent concerns about Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and swine flu have prompted many parents to demand that hand sanitizers be made available in schools to protect their kids. In response, schools began installing alcohol-based h...

Journal Article

Career of the Month: An Interview with Industrial Hygienist Mark Nicas

As Mark Nicas was inspecting an aluminum recycling plant, he observed loads of oily scrap aluminum being dumped into furnaces to melt. Sparks shot out and clouds of black smoke billowed into the room as the scrap collided with molten metal. Chlorine ...

Journal Article

Teaching through Trade Books: A Habitat Is a Home

We all have our own habitats, and this month students spend time thinking about what other organisms need to survive, what types of habitats they live in, and how to set up a habitat for a classroom animal....

Journal Article

Taking Science Online: Evaluating Presence and Immersion Through a Laboratory Experience in a Virtual Learning Environment for Entomology Students

A 3–D virtual field trip was integrated into an online college entomology course and developed as a trial for the possible incorporation of future virtual environments to supplement online higher education laboratories. This article provides an exp...

eBook

Science Teacher Retention: Mentoring and Renewal (e-book)

“Some forty percent of all new science teachers leave the profession within five years, and too many science teachers are wedded to their textbooks and the routines they acquired during their collegiate years." What can be done to retain new scienc...

eBook

Teaching Science in the Two-Year College: An NSTA Press Journals Collection (e-book)

Two-year colleges are critical to science education’s future—in fact, some data indicate that half of future science teachers will take their first years of science at a two-year school. To address the unique challenges of this special setting, T...

eBook

NSTA Pathways to the Science Standards: Guidelines for Moving the Vision into Practice, Second High School Edition (e-book)

This must-have tool for applying the Standards in real classrooms has been fully revised for 21st century high schools. Of course, the best parts haven’t changed! Our top-selling practical guide still demonstrates how you can bring to life the visi...

eBook

The NSTA Ready-Reference Guide to Safer Science, Volume 1 (e-book)

As a science educator, you know the importance of using best safety practices to protect your students physically during hands-on science instruction. But do you also know how to protect yourself legally even in aging facilities and crowded labs? Lea...

eBook

Mixing It Up: Integrated, Interdisciplinary, Intriguing Science in the Elementary Classroom (e-book)

This book—a compilation of 25 practical articles from NSTA’s elementary school journal, Science & Children—offers a wealth of lesson plans and idea starters using interdisciplinary, integrated, and thematic approaches. Discover how a language a...

eBook

NSTA Pathways to the Science Standards: Guidelines for Moving the Vision into Practice – Elementary School Edition (Second Edition) (e-book)

Your job: taking lofty educational goals and achieving them in the real world. Your best source of help: The Pathways books--one for elementary, middle, and high school--are brimming with practical guidance for putting the Standards into action. Pack...