All Resources

Book Chapter

Observing Nature

In this activity, students will be asked to review their experiments from the previous chapters. Throughout this book, the students have studied animal coloration through the use of models, rather than by investigating living animals. This activity g...

Book Chapter

Moon Tricks

The apparent daily motion of the Moon and other celestial objects through the sky is a major science concept. This story is designed to call attention to the changes in position and shape of the Moon over time. Its purpose is to motivate students to ...

Book Chapter

Pennies

The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the properties of atoms. The probe is designed to determine whether students can distinguish between the microscopic properties of an atom and the macroscopic properties of a s...

Journal Article

Idea Bank: Warming to Global Warming—Sunspots and Sea-Surface Temperature

In the problem-based laboratory activity described here, students evaluate the causality of changes on the solar surface in regard to climate change and warming in Earth’s environment. They use graphing calculators and real-time data from the inter...

Journal Article

Editor’s Note: Windows Into Understanding

In this month’s column, the editor reflects on how teacher programs in the early 1980s gave little attention to assessment. The assumption was that end-of-chapter tests in textbooks and standardized state tests provided a good idea of student under...

Journal Article

The Early Years: First Explorations in Flower Anatomy

Help children explore the idea that there are many different flower shapes, all with the function of forming seeds, by allowing children to dissect flowers after drawing them, using their fingers or plastic picnic knives. As children take apart the f...

Journal Article

Capturing the Sights and Sounds of Aquatic Life

When working with elementary students, one never knows when that moment of “magic” will happen. For the author, an environmentalist who also conducts outreach activities with elementary students, one of the best of these experiences happened duri...

Journal Article

University Partnership to Deliver Statewide Professional Development

Fort Hays State University and Emporia State University partnered with high-needs rural school districts to develop and offer a three-year professional development institute. The statewide institute was planned collaboratively to specifically meet th...

Journal Article

Teaching Students to Think Like Scientists During Cooperative Investigations

To help students think like scientists during cooperative science investigations, the author developed the “thinking roles” strategy described in this article. Thinking roles make students responsible for asking certain types of questions during ...