JoinAll Resources
Acquired Book
Thinking Strategies for Science Grades 5-12
This inspiring look at teaching science presents a specific and creative approach designed to cultivate and strengthen students' critical thinking skills. The author provides interactive techniques and a variety of activities that involve student ref...
Acquired Book
Chemistry In The National Science Education Standards, Second Edition
Chemistry in the National Science Education Standards, Second Edition, provides models for meaningful learning in the high school chemistry classroom. This valuable resource addresses the science education standards specified by the National Research...
Journal Article
Science 101: Why are there so many different models of light?
Is light a ray, a wave, or a particle? Yes, yes, and yes. An article in this issue (“The Benefits of Scientific Modeling,” p. 40) discusses the process of scientific modeling, and light is a great example of how modeling works. There are three vi...
Journal Article
Real-Time Ocean Data in the Classroom
To apply students’ savvy internet skills in the science classroom—as well as capture their interest in science and investigation, and provide opportunities for authentic research—introduce them to real-time data from ocean-observing systems. St...
Journal Article
Scope on the Skies: No place like home
At a distance of 50.1 light years, the star 51 Pegasi represents an interesting milestone. When viewed today, the light you see from this star left the same year that President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act (July 29, 1958)....
Journal Article
Every Day Science—October 2008
This monthly feature contains facts and challenges for the science explorer. ...
Journal Article
Methods and Strategies: The Crucial Role of the Teacher
In the Perspectives column of this issue, Meredith Park Rogers and Sandra Abel address the importance of teacher questions on student thinking. With school improvement efforts often focused on the curriculum, standards, outcomes, and student work, i...
Journal Article
Career of the Month: An Interview with Infant Physical Therapist Cole Galloway
From a sprained ankle to a brain injury to a total hip replacement, when something limits our ability to move or perform daily activities, life can be miserable. This is where physical therapists (PTs) step in. PTs help people—from the very young t...
Journal Article
Science Sampler: Taking steps to understand geologic time
Getting students to understand the concept of geologic time is challenging because it is difficult to imagine the vast time frame of Earth’s history. Therefore, this article describes an inquiry-based activity that uses an experiential model to hel...
Journal Article
To help promote student awareness of the connection between radio astronomy and radio frequency interference (RFI), an inquiry-based science curriculum was developed to allow high school students to determine RFI levels in their communities. The Quie...
Journal Article
Safer Science: Laboratory Relocation
The movement of hazardous chemicals found in high school science laboratories and chemical storerooms can be risky business due to the increased likelihood of an accidental spill, contamination, or other type of mishap. Prudent safety planning and pr...
Journal Article
While most would agree wholeheartedly with the benefits of getting students out more, there are numerous challenges in doing so, ranging from shrinking budgets to a standardized test-driven scholastic environment. However, the Division of Interpretat...
Journal Article
Teaching the Anatomy of a Scientific Journal Article
To promote inquiry-based learning, the authors integrate the anatomy of a scientific journal article into their secondary science curriculum. In this article, they present three classroom activities used to teach students about the function and forma...
Journal Article
The Prepared Practitioner: Shedding Light on Misconceptions
This month’s theme is classroom research—a great opportunity to discuss one of the author’s favorite studies, which took place in a single classroom, examining a single teacher, and a single instructional unit. What could one possibly learn fro...
Journal Article
The Early Years: Color Investigations
The topic of color can be a springboard to diverse topics including colors in nature, how vision works, the function of color vision in animals, and the properties of light. Learning about color addresses part of the National Science Education Conten...
Journal Article
Elementary teachers often struggle with how to design and implement inquiry instruction with their students. For many, just understanding what inquiry is can be difficult—let alone designing activities that support high levels of inquiry. In this a...
Journal Article
Editor’s Roundtable: Developing inquiry skills
Inquiry skills cannot be taught in only one grade or taught only at the start of the year; and they cannot be taught by having students memorize a set of procedures and definitions for a pencil-and-paper test on “the scientific method.” To become...
Journal Article
Health Wise: Introducing “Health Wise”
As a science teacher, do you find yourself fielding questions about everything from steroids to skin cancer to the bird flu? Tired of seeing students eat junk food in the school cafeteria? Want to help your students make healthy, informed choices? Th...
Journal Article
Science Sampler: Engendering inquiry
There is a tendency to underestimate the abilities of students to conduct inquiry due to both inferred and actual student restrictions in the traditional school setting. While some constraints exist for viable safety reasons, other constraints placed...
Journal Article
Injecting Inquiry Into Photosynthesis Investigations
This is the story of how a typical middle school lab was transformed into an open-ended inquiry experience through a few small, but very powerful, changes. By allowing students to follow their own questions, the classroom filled with enthusiasm and s...
Journal Article
The Early Years: Thinking Space
Space exploration is a high-interest topic for girls and boys. They love to play with space models (toys), pore over space images, talk about what they have seen in the sky or on television, and play astronaut. Use the activities described here to en...
Journal Article
Teacher’s Toolkit: A blueprint for cultivating inquiry
Scientific inquiry, a methodology that can trace its roots back to the time and teachings of Socrates, has been an elusive and evolving part of our education lexicon for many years. The Socratic approach to teaching, in its simplest form, can be thou...
Journal Article
This study is an analysis of the effectiveness of a faculty-designed laboratory experience about a difficult topic, cellular respiration. The activity involves a hands-on model of the cellular-respiration process, making use of wooden ball-and-stick ...
Journal Article
Guest Editorial: Building Ladders to the Stars
Young children love the stars and planets. They love the idea of leaving the Earth and traveling to the stars, of meeting aliens and exploring unknown worlds. Our goal in elementary school is to build the ladder to the stars and help students up the ...
Journal Article
As instructors of young people, we have come to look beyond unflattering fashions, unfortunate piercings, and unbelievable hair to the people beyond. Misinterpreting a resting face, however, is a more insidious problem because it is essentially autom...
Journal Article
Student Evaluations That Generate More Questions Than Answers
As a chemical educator, one of the author’s primary goals is to provide students with tools for effective learning, hopefully doing so in an engaging, motivating, and incrementally challenging experience. In her quest to figure out how to do a bett...
Journal Article
Tried and True: Helicopter seeds and hypotheses … that’s funny!
Investigating maple samaras, or helicopter seeds, can give students a “that’s funny” experience and catalyze the development of inquiry skills. In this article, the authors describe how to use maple helicopter seeds (samaras) to engage students...
Journal Article
Reading, Writing, and Rings! was created by a team of elementary teachers, literacy experts, and scientists in order to integrate science and literacy. These free units bring students inside NASA’s Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn. The authors—a...
Journal Article
The West Point Bridge Design (WPBD) building project engages students in project-based learning by giving them a real-life problem to solve. By using technology, students are able to become involved in solving problems that they normally would not en...