All Resources

Journal Article

Perspectives: A (Mis)Understanding of Astronomical Proportions?

Misconceptions are ideas formulated by children as they try to make sense of the world. By focusing on students’ ideas, using the strategies suggested in this article, teachers can help students move toward more accurate understandings of the solar...

Journal Article

Tried and True: Taking flight with an inquiry approach

This paper airplane lesson has been used with sixth-grade students to introduce scientific terms and concepts that students need to know before they design and conduct their own inquiry experiments. In addition to science concepts, mathematics skills...

Journal Article

Research and Teaching: Characterizing the Level of Inquiry in the Undergraduate Laboratory

Discrepancies abound in use of the word “inquiry.” In this paper, the authors propose a quantitative rubric designed to characterize the level of inquiry in laboratory activities and laboratory curricula. They do not wish to answer the question, ...

Journal Article

Research and Teaching: A Teaching Intervention to Increase Achievement of Hispanic Nonscience Majors Taking Physical Science Courses

This quasi-experimental pilot study of nonscience majors taking a physical science course at a university in South Texas was conducted on Hispanic undergraduate students, and is theory based—an application of attribution theory. That the treatment ...

Journal Article

No Child Left Inside!

Earth Science Week (ESW) 2008 encourages people around the globe to open doors and investigate new opportunities. This year’s theme, “No Child Left Inside,” is a call to explore our natural environments. The celebration urges everyone—especia...

Journal Article

Using Natural History Interpretation as an Authentic Assessment Tool

Natural history interpretation offers college science instructors an educationally challenging alternative or complement to traditional evaluation methods, such as multiple-choice testing. Because it asks students to draw connections among varied con...

Journal Article

Editor’s Corner: Working Wages

Because of teacher retirement and other factors, our nation will need almost a quarter of a million new middle and high school science teachers over this decade (NSB 2006). If we want to recruit and retain the most talented individuals, science teach...

Journal Article

Every Day Science Calendar: September 2008

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

Journal Article

A Message from the NSTA President: Science Education—The Times They are A-Changin’

Inspired by her favorite Bob Dylan song of 1964, “The Times They Are A-Changin,” NSTA President Page Keeley’s presidential theme during her 2008—2009 tenure will be “From Transition to Transformation—Striving for a Science-Literate Nation...

Journal Article

Materials Repurposed

Few teachers find themselves with the support to purchase all of the materials they ideally need to supply their classrooms. Buying one or two simple, ready-made items can put a serious strain on anyone’s budget. However, materials for science in t...

Journal Article

Society for College Science Teachers: I’m in the “Thinking Business”

Teaching through inquiry doesn’t come automatically—professors have to think of instruction in a different way. Instead of describing information that students should know, they must challenge students to think at a higher, critical-thinking leve...

Journal Article

Coupling Scientific Journalism and Poster Sessions as Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Tools in the Nonmajors Science Classroom

Scientific journalism, by definition, is writing concise, scientifically accurate, and engaging articles for nonexpert or lay audiences. When coupled with in-class poster sessions, it is a powerful and efficient mechanism for engaging and assessing s...

Journal Article

Science Books for Professional Pleasure Reading

The next time you hear someone say, “I was never good at science” or “I don’t know enough about science to teach it well,” share this list. There’s bound to be something there for everyone. After all, Science and Children readers love sci...

Journal Article

The Nature of Science in Popular Nonfiction

To help make science relevant to student’s everyday lives, the authors required their 10th-grade summer school students to read selections from a popular nonfiction science book. By doing so, they were able to promote literacy and provide an authen...

Journal Article

Environmental Service Learning: Relevant, Rewarding, and Responsible

At Georgia Southern University (GSU), a regional university of 17,000 students, environmental science is a required introductory course for all students. Consequently, environmental-biology class sizes are large, often approaching 1,000 students each...

Journal Article

Realize Your Mentoring Success

How successful will you be in guiding a new teacher’s professional development? While your success will be influenced by how you and your mentee conceptualize teaching, learning, and the nature of science, research indicates that your success is al...

Journal Article

Every Day Science: August 2008

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

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Node graph visualizations for eighth-grade mathematics students using a virus transmission simulation

Because eighth-grade curriculum standards focus in part on systems analysis and graphing, a lesson was created to enhance students’ analytical skills with the introduction of a type of graph, the node graph, which can be used to represent the inter...

Journal Article

Teaching Through Trade Books: Growing a Garden

Many people look forward to planting their own garden and enjoying its fruitage throughout the summer months. Gardening can be an excellent learning experience in many ways because it offers opportunities to learn about plants and to observe changes ...

Journal Article

Focusing on Function: Thinking Below the Surface of Complex Natural Systems

Structure-Behavior-Function (SBF) thinking considers the different levels of a system in terms of structures, behaviors, and functions, and how these are interconnected (Goel et al. 1996). This article presents an example of helping middle school st...

Journal Article

ISS EarthKam: Taking Photos of the Earth from Space

NASA is involved in a project involving the International Space Station (ISS) and an Earth-focused camera called EarthKam, where schools, and ultimately students, are allowed to remotely program the EarthKAM to take images. Here the author describes ...

Journal Article

Science 101: How does wireless internet work?

Let’s see … first you head to a coffee shop and order a mocha caramel chai latte with an extra shot of espresso. Then you turn on your computer, hit the connect button, and start surfing the web. For those who want more detail, read on. To unders...

Journal Article

Scope on Safety: Middle school science labs—A safety audit

In August 2007, a report titled “The State of Middle School and High School Science Labs in the Kansas City Region” was issued by the Kauffman Foundation, which is committed to improving student achievement in mathematics, science, and technology...

Journal Article

Systems Concepts Effectively Taught Using Systems Practices

This article describes two lessons within the authors’ education module entitled, Ecological Networks, that successfully teaches introductory systems content to middle and high school students. To catch students’ attention when teaching these new...

Journal Article

Editor’s Note: We Resourceful Teachers

Many things have changed in education in recent decades. There is an obsession with standards and assessments, for example. But one thing hasn’t changed: Teachers rarely have the resources to do their jobs. One thing a resourceful teacher can do is...

Journal Article

A Dialogue of Life: Integrating Service Learning in a Community-Immersion Model of Preservice Science-Teacher Preparation

Dubbed a “dialogue of life,” community immersion in preservice science-teacher education aims at providing a true-to-life and empowering opportunity for prospective science teachers (both elementary and secondary) to become active participants in...

Journal Article

Lights, Camera, Reflection! Digital Movies: A Tool for Reflective Learning

At the end of a biology course entitled Ecology, Evolution, and Genetics, students were asked to consider how their learning experience had changed their perception of either ecology or genetics. Students were asked to express their thoughts in the f...

Journal Article

Editorial: Why I Want to Slug My Neighbor

“So, are you enjoying your summer off?” This innocuous question can be a source of frustration for educators during the summer months. It implies that educators are tranced-out in their mp3 feed while munching on fair-trade chocolate if they are ...

Journal Article

The Prepared Practitioner: Learning Science Beyond the Classroom

Have you ever learned science outside of school, free of fact-based standards and tests? Were you at a museum, national park, or maybe in front of a TV? Science educators refer to this kind of learning as free-choice learning or informal learning. Th...

Journal Article

Safer Science: Making Adjustments for Mobility-Impaired Students

Students’ mobility impairments need to be addressed for access to and safety in science laboratories. Typical accommodations for mobility-impaired students include workstations, sinks, fume hoods, and safety eyewashes and showers, in addition to ot...

Journal Article

Career of the Month: An Interview With Oyster Wrangler Stephanie Reynolds

Did you know that oysters, simply by eating, filter the water they live in? An adult oyster can filter up to 225 L of water every day! In addition, oyster reefs play the important role of sheltering many fish and crab species. Today, the Chesapeake B...

Journal Article

You <em>Can</em> Get What You Want

Many teachers regularly use their own money during the year to pay for miscellaneous teaching materials or to help individual students in need. In this article, the author explains how to secure funds and resources for anything science teachers want ...

Journal Article

Perspectives: Mentoring New Teachers

Beginning teachers have much to learn about teaching (Odell 1990), including navigating their own classrooms and learning new school procedures and policies. Mentors can assist beginning teachers in making the difficult transition from student to tea...

Journal Article

Reading Aloud

Many resources are available to elementary teachers who wish to support science learning with literature. Unfortunately, somewhere between middle school and high school, the emphasis on using literature to teach science content—particularly the exe...

Journal Article

Research and Teaching: Implementing Inquiry-Based Learning in Teaching Serial Dilutions

The 5E model of inquiry-based learning was incorporated into a sophomore-level microbiology laboratory to increase student understanding of serial dilutions, a concept that is often difficult for most students to comprehend. Quantitative and qualitat...

Journal Article

Teaching Science Through a Systems Approach

Based on the recommendation of the AAAS and the NRC, middle level science is the rightful introduction for a systems approach, including the study of its parts, subsystems, interconnections, and interrelationships. Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax provides an...