All Resources

Book Chapter

Camping Trip

The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students' ideas about the effect of solar radiation on Earth's temperature. The probe is designed to find out whether students realize the Earth continues to cool after sundown and up to sunrise until...

Book Chapter

Burning Paper

The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students' ideas about conservation of matter during combustion. The probe is designed to find out if students think the mass changes as paper burns inside a closed system....

Book Chapter

Ice Water

The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students' ideas about temperature in the context of phases of matter. The probe is designed to find out if students recognize that the temperature of a substance does not change when two phases are pr...

High School Middle School Physical Science Assessment Teaching Strategies

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Happy science Mother’s Day

It’s almost May and review for final exams will soon be in full swing. Mother’s Day is celebrated every second Sunday in May. Have students combine their use of science vocabulary and their love for Mom by creating scientific Mother’s Day greet...

Journal Article

The State High Biodiesel Project

Through a collaborative project in Pennsylvania, high school students developed a method for converting batches of their cafeteria’s waste fryer oil into biodiesel using a 190 L (50 gal) reactor. While the biodiesel is used to supplement the school...

Journal Article

Explaining Glaciers, Accurately

What happens when a geology graduate student and two fourth-grade teachers collaborate on lessons for the classroom? They discover interesting and practical ways to explore geology and other scientific concepts, that's what! Here they share the glaci...

Journal Article

Career of the Month: An Interview With Ice Scientist Julienne Stroeve

While most of us may never see or feel Arctic sea ice ourselves, it directly influences the climate, wildlife, and people who live in the Arctic—and because of the link to global warming, the fate of sea ice affects the rest of us, too. As an ice s...

Journal Article

EQUIPping Teachers

For many years, publications such as the National Science Education Standards (NRC 1996) and The Science Teacher (TST) have encouraged teachers to focus science classes more heavily on inquiry-based instructional practice. One way to improve our teac...

Journal Article

Shake, Rattle, and Hopefully Not Fall

Earthquakes occur across the globe, and their efforts can be felt by people regardless of location. However, a moderate earthquake in Pakistan or Turkey may cause much greater damage than a stronger earthquake in Tokyo. It is imperative to help stude...

Journal Article

Editor’s Corner: Outside the School Walls

This issue of The Science Teacher (TST) continues our tradition of devoting one issue each year to partnerships that connect students, teachers, and their communities. Science activities that take students outside school walls can combine the best as...

Journal Article

The Early Years: Hear That?

Like breathing, the ability to hear sound is often taken for granted unless it becomes impaired. Children may not wonder about how sound is generated or detected until introduced to an inquiry activity about sound. Therefore, to heighten students’ ...

Journal Article

Guest Editorial: The universe: It’s yours to discover—and to share

In 1609, Galileo turned his telescope to the sky and began a series of observations that would forever change our view of our place in the universe. This year, each and every one of us has an opportunity to follow in Galileo’s footsteps by taking a...

Journal Article

Idea Bank: Vector, Vector—That’s Our Cry!

There are all kinds of computer-based software programs and websites available to help students understand and manipulate vector quantities. But if you have the time and want to do something different, this Idea Bank describes an easy, low-tech, and ...

Journal Article

Safer Science: Biosafety—Getting the Bugs Out

Basic knowledge and adoption of biosafety guidelines, including disinfection and sterilization techniques, are a necessary component in high school biology laboratories. This is especially important if students or instructors are working with growing...

Journal Article

Integration With Big Ideas in Mind

Integrating science lessons with lessons in other content areas can be an efficient use of limited time, but not every activity can be integrated productively. Teachers must consider several factors when making decisions about which lessons to integr...

Journal Article

Teaching Through Trade Books: Sunrise, Sunset

The next time you watch the Sun rise; take a minute to think about what’s really going on. You are standing on a giant ball of rock that is hurtling through space, and the spot where you are standing is rotating in the direction of a star 93 millio...

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Space moves—Adding movement to solar system lessons

Earth and space science figure prominently in the National Science Education Standards for levels 5–8 (NRC 1996). The Earth in the Solar System standard focuses on students’ ability to understand (1) the composition of the solar system (Earth, Mo...

Journal Article

The Prepared Practitioner: An Assessment Primer

Although the title of this month’s column may make your skin crawl—read on. Everyone should understand a few basics about the “A” word. Being able to distinguish formative from summative assessment and criterion-based from norm-referenced tes...

Journal Article

Collaboration at the Nanoscale

The Maine ScienceCorps is a project sponsored by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Graduate Teaching Fellows in K–12 Education (GK–12 ) program. Through this program, the University of Southern Maine’s (USM) virology and transmission el...

Journal Article

Methods and Strategies: Keeping It Real

When teaching science, teachers must ensure that students have meaningful experiences outdoors where they use all their senses to better understand their local and easily observed environment and don’t fall into the habit of relying on computers an...

Journal Article

Perspectives: Societal Issues in Science

When students investigate local issues in science class, they gain research and critical-thinking skills while improving their attitudes toward science. However, since many societal issues are controversial, it is important to create a safe and risk-...

Journal Article

Editor’s Note: Scientists at Work in Earth Science

Working with outside resources almost always strengthens our classrooms. Whether it is taking a trip to a university lab or inviting scientists in, excitement builds as students experience the world of scientists. Whether partnering with scientists o...

Journal Article

Water You Engineering? An Activity to Develop Water-Quality Awareness

Water is one of our most precious resources. However, for many in the United States, having fresh, safe drinking water is taken for granted, and due to this perceived lack of relevance, students may not fully appreciate the luxury of having safe runn...

Journal Article

Science 101: Why are oceans salty and lakes and rivers not?

For starters, lakes and rivers do contain salt, just not as much as the oceans. A large portion of those salts and minerals washes downstream into other rivers, or through the outlet stream or river of a lake, and eventually winds up in the oceans. S...

Journal Article

Science Shorts: Word Wall Work—Supporting Science Talk

One goal of classroom teachers is for students to develop the ability to recognize and understand the vocabulary of science. Classroom teachers also understand that students “need to keep expanding their understanding of scientific terminology so t...

Book Chapter

What Is Inquiry?

If students develop an understanding of how science inquiry is done and how it contributes to understanding the natural world, they will be better prepared to analyze and interpret information throughout their lives. Merely telling students how knowl...

Journal Article

Research and Teaching: Are In-Class Peer Leaders Effective in the Peer-Led Team-Learning Approach?

Peer-led team learning (PLTL) has been widely adopted for enhanced learning in a variety of disciplines, mostly in introductory chemistry, but also in organic chemistry, as in this study (Tien, Roth, and Kampmeier 2002). This pedagogical approach for...

Journal Article

Developing and Implementing an Interdisciplinary Origins Course at a State University

A truly interdisciplinary course was successfully developed and taught that presented an overview of the historical sciences with an emphasis on the nature of scientific inquiry and its relationship to other ways of knowing. The course included contr...

Journal Article

Making the Connection

Secondary science teachers are faced with an increasing number of students whose first language is not English and charged with preparing them for federal- and state-mandated end-of-course exams. In many states, these high-stakes tests play a crucial...

Journal Article

Scope on the Skies: Star light, star bright

In astronomy, the brightness of a star is described in terms of a star’s magnitude. Stellar magnitude is expressed two different ways, using the terms apparent magnitude and absolute magnitude. For both magnitudes, the numbering scale is the same, ...

Journal Article

Classification and the Dichotomous Key

Classification is a vital science-process skill for all students to master. Understanding dichotomous keys as a means of classification enables students to better comprehend large amounts of information and understand how to organize, compare and con...

Journal Article

Science Shorts: About Form and Function

Humans have been classifying organisms since before recorded history, cataloging flora and fauna for our own species’ benefit. Recognition of particular forms—the bark of a tree, shape of a leaf, or color of a mushroom cap—could reveal importan...

Journal Article

Every Day Science Calendar: March 2009

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

Journal Article

The Prepared Practitioner: Multiple-Choice Season

Spring is almost here. Soon buds will appear on trees, and bubbled-in answers will appear on test response sheets all across America. Spring brings a spate of multiple-choice tests for many students—from SATs to AP exams to final exams to state and...

Journal Article

Idea Bank: Astronomy for Students With Sensory Impairments

The Space Exploration and Experience (SEE) Project and Yerkes Astrophysics Academy for Young Scientists (YAAYS)—both at the University of Chicago’s Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin—are designed to promote active learning in astrono...

Journal Article

Teaching With Multiple Methods in Mind

Teachers know what a daunting job it can be to ensure that all students in a class learn effectively. In addition to the usual difficulties of gaining everyone’s attention at once, instructors also run into the issue of preferred learning styles. I...

Journal Article

Health Wise—March 2009

My students are on their cell phones all the time! Do cell phones really harm the brain? And what about the teen brain? ...

Journal Article

Scope on Safety: Safety in the Science Classroom—An online resource from NSTA

NSTA’s Science Safety Advisory Board has developed a new online resource for science teachers, Safety in the Science Classroom. The document introduces the Standards of Student Conduct in the laboratory and in the Field (SSCLF)—a list of behavior...

Journal Article

Reflective Writing

Your students successfully completed a lab session, correctly filled in all of the worksheets, and collected the required data. Yet, as a science teacher, you still find yourself wondering—what did my students actually learn? And, can they apply t...