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Book Chapter
This lab is an inquiry activity in that students have not been exposed to the idea of terminal velocity, though they are using skills that they already have to analyze the balloon’s motion. The lab is both a review of graphing and translating dista...
Book Chapter
This inquiry activity is used after students have learned how to calculate kinetic and potential energy but before they learn about conservation of energy. It is important for students to repeat the measurement three times because it is not easy to m...
eBook
Take-Home Physics: 65 High-Impact, Low-Cost Labs (e-Book)
Take-Home Physics is an excellent resource for high school physics teachers who want to devote more classroom time to complex concepts while challenging their students with hands-on homework assignments. This volume presents 65 take-home physics labs...
eBook
Assessing Science Learning: Perspectives From Research and Practice (e-book)
This book contains many essays and multiple examples of meaningful science assessment practices they explore. The collations of essays reflect work with socioeconomically and ethnically diverse populations to better understand the attributes of equit...
eBook
Exemplary Science in Grades 5-8: Standards-Based Success Stories (e-book)
Do the Standards really matter in middle school? Nine years after the National Science Education Standards’ release, just how well do science teachers in grades 5 to 8 actually use them to plan content, define improved teaching, and assess real lea...
eBook
Exemplary Science: Best Practices in Professional Development (e-book)
This collection of 16 essays is ideal for staff development providers (university faculty, district supervisors, lead teachers, and principals) as well as preservice science methods instructors. Each essay describes a specific program designed to tra...
NSTA Press Book
Activities Linking Science With Math, K-4
Science does not exist in a vacuum and, therefore, shouldn’t be taught that way. In that spirit, Activities Linking Science With Math, K-4, is a hands-on guide for preservice and inservice elementary school teachers who want to connect science inst...
By John Eichinger
Book Chapter
PISA: An Introduction and Overview
For most science teachers, the term PISA evokes images of a leaning tower in an Italian city, but PISA also is an acronym for a major international assessment of students. In 2006, the primary assessment domain of PISA was science. This chapter provi...
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Book Chapter
This simple but engaging activity about texture is for students in grades K–4. Textures are all around us, and they are important to our everyday activities—consider a piece of sandpaper, a cheese grater, or the soles of your shoes. As students b...
Book Chapter
Investigating the Properties of Magnets
In this activity, younger students encounter, discuss, and apply the basic characteristics of magnets and magnetism as they explore and elaborate on their experiences. Student groups implement some of the terminology and concepts appropriate to the s...
Book Chapter
Applying Simple Chromatography
This activity involves chemistry, mystery, colors, and measurement. Students observe the composition of various inks by separating them via water-based chromatography. Students use what they learn about chromatography to solve a mystery involving a s...
Book Chapter
Investigating Surface Tension and Soap
You students encounter soap and water every day and the activity in this chapter helps them learn something new about both substances. Students find out why water can actually overfill a cup without spilling and why soap makes dust or dirt particles ...
Book Chapter
Learning About Acids and Bases
The chemistry of acids and bases is a fundamental area of study in the physical sciences. The following activity is really two exercises in one. First, students learn to distinguish between acids and bases using various color-changing indicator solut...
Book Chapter
For this Earth science investigation, students examine the composition of soil samples taken from three different depths at the same location. Students answer questions such as “How do the three samples compare? How does the soil feel? Look? Smell?...
Book Chapter
In this activity, students examine garden variety rocks, classifying them based on observable properties. This lesson teaches students not only about rocks but also about how to take a closer look at objects and materials that they encounter every da...
Book Chapter
Students learn what evaporation is and how various factors—time, heat, surface area, and wind—affect it. They also discover that water does not always evaporate at the same rate and saltwater leaves something behind when it evaporates. Finally, s...
Book Chapter
Examining Colors, Color Perception, and Sight
Students of all ages are fascinated by color and how we perceive it. For the main activity in this chapter, your class explores colors and visual perception by mixing colors in several ways. Students learn more about colors, light, vision, and color ...
Book Chapter
Exploring the Mysteries of Fingerprints
This activity combines a variety of processes and skills into an investigation of something near and dear to your students—their fingers. Math and science blend seamlessly as students observe, compare, and apply their ideas about fingerprints....
Book Chapter
Making Prints From Fruits and Vegetables
Students may be familiar with eating fruits and vegetables, but have they ever taken a really close look at the anatomy of those specimens? In this activity, students have an opportunity to explore aspects of the internal and external anatomy of prod...
Book Chapter
What Do You See? Visual Observation
The famous New York Yankee catcher Yogi Berra once said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” This activity helps strengthen students’ skills in a fundamental aspect of mathematics and science: visual observation. Students carefully examin...
Book Chapter
Examining Serial Sections of an Apple
In this activity, students make serial sections of an apple. Students make cross-section prints of the top portion of the apple, then another print further into the apple, and so on until they get to the bottom of the apple. This serial sectioning te...
Book Chapter
Science and Math on Television
Students certainly enjoy watching television, and they traditionally favor shows about science, mathematics, and technology. Consider the popularity of MythBusters, Bill Nye the Science Guy, National Geographic Explorer, and, of course, the old favor...
Book Chapter
A One-Sided Paper Loop—The Möbius Band
What can you make from a sheet of paper that has only one side, where inside equals outside? The answer is a Möbius band, of course, the one-sided paper loop. In this activity, students in grades 3 and 4 explore a mathematical conundrum: How do we d...
Book Chapter
Students constantly notice the world around them, and to help make sense of it all, they attempt to group and categorize objects and experiences they encounter. In science, the study of classification is referred to as taxonomy. To make this subject ...
Book Chapter
Your Very Own Museum—Making Collections
Much more than childish pastimes, collections form the basis for museums of natural history, found object art projects, and personal hobbies. Furthermore, many notable scientists—Charles Darwin, for example—began their lifelong investigations wit...
Book Chapter
Creating Art Projects From Recycled Materials
Why not challenge students to design a collage, mosaic, or shadowbox entirely from “found objects”—recycled, natural, and discarded materials? The aesthetic nature of the art of salvage connects students not only to ancient, creative roots, but...
Book Chapter
Experimenting With Force and Motion Using Origami Frogs
Objects in motion and the forces that move them are the subjects of this lesson. This practical series of activities offers students a dynamic understanding of Newton’s three laws of motion. In particular, the third law is investigated as students ...
Journal Article
Factors Influencing Undergraduate Student-Teacher Interactions
A survey was conducted with undergraduate students, ranging from freshmen to seniors, who are currently enrolled at Philadelphia University to identify variables affecting classroom interactions. Data were examined using a commercially available stat...
Journal Article
College Students’ Opinions of Engaging Approaches in a Physical Science Course
Physical science courses have historically been taught from a variety of perspectives or emphases. In many cases, the instructor decides on the perspective and textbook for nonscience majors, so students rarely have a voice in the decision. This top-...
Journal Article
Class Research Projects in Ecology Courses: Methods to “Un-can” the Experience
Research-like experiences range from relatively “canned” labs that are highly controlled by the instructor (such as those described in Lord and Orkwiszewski 2006) to more individually designed projects (e.g., Switzer and Shriner 2000; Wyatt 2005)...
Journal Article
Assessment is an important component for quantifying learning in higher education. With the current trends at the state and federal level, what’s now merely encouraged may soon become a mandate. This article contains concise guidelines with example...
Journal Article
Learning Science While Constructing Learning Teams
Many science educators are proponents of cooperative learning, but struggle to find equitable and effective ways to build groups. In this article, the author describes her method for forming heterogeneous cooperative learning groups that is not only ...
Journal Article
Research and Teaching: What Do Help Sessions Accomplish in Introductory Science Courses?
Students who attended every help session earned significantly higher scores on corresponding exams than students who attended no help sessions. Students who attended some help sessions earned intermediate exam scores, and their exam scores after atte...
Book Chapter
Everyday Conceptions Across the World
In the initial phases of the process of developing items for the PISA 2006 assessment of scientific literacy, efforts were made to develop a smaller number of units called focus units. In addition to contributing to the measures of scientific literac...
Book Chapter
A Perspective on U.S. Science Teaching and Learning
This chapter presents a sketch on how PISA 2006 assessed conditions of teaching and learning in science classrooms. With selected findings from PISA 2006, similarities and differences are shown between approaches taken toward science teaching and lea...