All Resources

Journal Article

The P.O.E.T.R.Y. of Science

Writing about inquiry-based science experiences can provide students with opportunities to communicate their questions, observations, and reflections while expanding our instructional and assessment options as teachers. But how can teachers encourage...

Journal Article

Idea Bank: Performance-Based Assessment

Performance-based assessment is appropriate to use in a project-based, problem-based, or inquiry-based science classroom because it is consistent with the way students learn—by investigating a question or problem using tools and materials (i.e., pe...

Journal Article

Methods and Strategies: Making Time for Science

Some may argue that little can be done to improve the amount of time available for science until policy makers and administrators provide support. Such support is certainly needed. However, individual teachers can make important changes that maintain...

Journal Article

Health Wise—November 2008

A student recently asked me about the bird flu. Is it still a threat?...

Journal Article

Editor’s Note: Literacy Skills

Our science and literacy issue is always one of the most popular issues of the year, and we’re betting this jam-packed issue will be no exception. Why? There are many probable reasons. Many elementary teachers are more comfortable with teaching s...

Journal Article

Tried and True: Cell organelle employment advertisements

Are you looking for a creative way to teach the functions of cell organelles? If you answered yes, then organelle employment advertisements are just what you need. During this project, students must create an employment ad for a cell organelle and gi...

Journal Article

Investigating Invasives

Invasive species, commonly known as “invasives,” are nonnative plants, animals, and microbes that completely take over and change an established ecosystem. The consequences of invasives’ spread are significant. In fact, many of the species that...

Journal Article

The Science and Literacy Framework

Carefully selected trade books can introduce science concepts, develop background knowledge, reinforce hands-on lessons, support science-process skills, and at the same time enhance related literacy-process skills. They can also provide inspiration a...

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Sculpt-A-Scientist—Confronting negative stereotypes of scientists

Career choice is a process, not an event. Interest in science is a preliminary step toward and prerequisite for a career in science. Once interest in science is established, training and education can then provide the critical links between labor-for...

Journal Article

Idea Bank: Science in Politics

All teachers face the classic struggle of convincing students that material learned in class is important and relevant. However, science teachers are fortunate because much of the material they teach comes up in everyday life. For example, the scienc...

Journal Article

The Herpetology Project

In this article, the authors describe their ongoing experience with the Herpetology Project. Through this field study, students catch and track amphibians and reptiles in the Assabet River area, record and analyze data, share their findings with the ...

Journal Article

Teacher’s Toolkit: Linking proportionality across the science and mathematics curricula through science literacy maps

Proportionality should be a central focus of the middle-grades science and mathematics curricula and concepts such as density can be introduced and taught in both disciplines, highlighting for students the connections between science and mathematics....

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Using sheltered instruction to teach English Language Learners

Sheltered instruction is not a commercial program but is a set of instructional practices used specifically with English Language Learners (ELL). It embeds existing instructional strategies such as wait time, visual organizers, group work, and allowi...

Journal Article

Problem-Based Learning Tools

One way of implementing project-based science (PBS) is to use problem-based learning (PBL), in which students formulate their own problems. These problems are often ill-structured, mirroring complex real-life problems where data are often messy and i...

Journal Article

Teaching Through Trade Books: It’s About Time

“Is it time yet?” is a cry heard from many a student’s mouth. Is it time for lunch? Is it time to go home? Is it time for recess? Is it time for science? (we can always hope)… and the list can go on and on. Students often equate time with an ...

Journal Article

Every Day Science—November 2008

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

Journal Article

How Do Geckos Stick?

Understanding how geckos—small lizards belonging to the family Gekkonindae—can “defy gravity” and walk across a ceiling provides a fascinating frame through which students can not only learn valuable content about electrostatic forces, but al...

Journal Article

Designing the Perfect Plant: Activities to Investigate Plant Ecology

Plant ecology is an important subject that often receives little attention in middle school, as more time during science classes is devoted to plant biology. Therefore, the authors have developed a series of activities, including a card game—Design...

Journal Article

Career of the Month: An Interview With Aeronautical Engineer Paul Moller

Engineers are inventors, designers, and creators—they apply science, math, and imagination to make dreams a reality. As they work to craft technical solutions to consumer and societal needs, engineers bridge the gap between scientific ideas and com...

Book Chapter

Now You “Sea” Ice, Now You Don’t

Increasing air temperatures in the last 50 years have dramatically altered the Antarctic Peninsula ecosystem. In this interdisciplinary inquiry, learners use a cooperative approach to investigate changes in the living and nonliving resources of the...

Book Chapter

The Fission Vision: Teacher and Student Editions

Although they may have heard the term many times, students often have difficulty conceptualizing the process of nuclear fission. The kinesthetic simulation, as well as the two suggested applets, are worthwhile activities for clarifying the process o...

Book Chapter

Active Evolution Instruction

To help elevate your level of active instruction, this chapter provides a sampling of the kinds of hands-on activities that promote understanding of evolutionary processes. These particular activities are structured according to the BSCS 5E Instructi...

Book Chapter

Scales and Number Distributions

Statistics is a branch of science that deals with the collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of numerical data. We use statistics every day to solve problems. Geneticist Gregor Mendel, for example, experimented with pea plants, which ...

Book Chapter

Central Tendency and Variability

This chapter presents two important interrelated topics in statistics: central tendency and variability. Measures of central tendency show how similar the data points in a set of data are, while measures of variability show how much the data points v...

Book Chapter

Standard Scores

In this chapter, the authors will discuss the following types of standard scores: percentile ranks, z-scores, and T-scores. All are based on concepts—such as the mean, the normal distribution, and the standard deviation—already familiar to you fr...

Book Chapter

Correlation

This chapter will discuss the concept of correlation, which is used in later chapters that will explain the concepts of validity and reliability. Here, the authors introduce the Pearson correlation coefficient, a statistic that is used with ratio or ...

Book Chapter

Validity

In this chapter, the authors will describe the four types of validity: construct validity, content validity, concurrent validity, and predictive validity. Depending on the test and the rationale or purpose for its administration, and understanding of...

Book Chapter

Reliability

In essence, reliability is the consistency of test results. To understand the meaning of reliability and how it relates to validity, imagine going to an airport to take flight #007 from Pittsburgh to San Diego. If, every time the airplane makes the f...

Book Chapter

Grading

Many criticisms have been launched against grades in general because of their perceived failure to portray student achievement accurately. In many instances, these criticisms are just. But, if student grades are reflections of measurable instructiona...

Journal Article

Scope on the Skies: The view from Earth

A practical method for either observing or modeling the view we have of other planets is to focus on planets near the horizon, specifically morning or evening planets and their location relative to the Sun. Planets rising ahead of the Sun are seen ab...

eBook

NSTA Tool Kit for Teaching Evolution (e-book)

Teaching evolution is part of the core biology curriculum, and this new resource provides a teacher-ready summary of the scientific, legal, and ethical talking points for discussion of the topic....

eBook

The Story of Science Classroom Companion: Einstein Adds a New Dimension (e-Book)

The Story of Science Classroom Companion is a boon for teachers who choose master storyteller Joy Hakim’s Einstein Adds a New Dimension as a primary or supplemental physics text. Hakim’s newest title in The Story of Science series brings to life ...