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Journal Article

Science Sampler: Using science journals to encourage all students to write

It seems that everyone is using science journals or notebooks lately. As middle school science teachers, the authors use science journals as a tool to enhance students' knowledge and understanding of content and reinforce students' writing skills. He...

Journal Article

Project-Based Science Instruction: A Primer

Project-based science (PBS) instruction can simply be defined as a student-centered science teaching approach, in which students produce tangible learning outcomes by posing and answering research questions that are relevant to their own lives and co...

Journal Article

Becoming a Spider Scientist

In this integrated unit, third grade students become spider scientists as they observe spiders in their classroom to debunk some common misconceptions about these intimidating creatures. Charlotte’s Web is used to capture students’ interest. In a...

Journal Article

Learning to Write and Writing to Learn in Science: Refutational Texts and Analytical Rubrics

Most middle school science teachers are familiar with the idea of reading and writing across the curriculum. We, as science teachers, understand that our students need time, practice, and lots of encouragement in order to learn how to read and write ...

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Science SLAMS—A reading strategy for answering open-ended questions

The SLAMS (Sentence, Lines, Answer, Mechanics, Support) (Crowell and Kolba 2006) strategy is a basic and relatively simple technique used to guide students to answer open-ended questions when reading nonfiction. This strategy gives students the oppor...

Journal Article

Scientific Journals: A Creative Assessment Tool

The typical use of science notebooks is for students to record information as they complete an investigation, writing down their procedure, observations, data, results, graphs, and any other factual information pertaining to their experiment. The aut...

Journal Article

Safer Science: Building Safety with Engineering Controls

Before conducting any laboratory activities, science teachers need to be in the know about the OSHA-required hierarchy of defense in the laboratory. At the top of OSHA's list are engineering controls, which are designed to reduce exposure to a chemic...

Journal Article

Science 101: How do atomic clocks work?

You might be wondering why in the world we need such precise measures of time. Well, many systems we use everyday, such as Global Positioning Systems, require precise synchronization of time. This comes into play in telecommunications and wireless co...