JoinAll Resources
Journal Article
Science Sampler: Engineering—Adventures in teaching
The Adventure Engineering Academy provides teacher participants with a model of inquiry-based instruction that integrates the engineering design process as used in authentic science environments. Participants were provided with background information...
Journal Article
The Elementary Students’ Science Beliefs Tests
To help teachers guide their instruction, a university science educator who researches students’ science beliefs and a fifth-grade classroom teacher investigated how elementary students interpreted some of the ideas found within the National Scienc...
Journal Article
This monthly feature contains facts and challenges for the science explorer. ...
Journal Article
Assessing Children’s Career Aspirations
In the past several years, Science and Children has invited preservice and inservice teachers to participate in national studies of students’ ideas about scientists (Barman 1997), animals (Barman et al. 2000), and plants (Barman et al. 2003). You ...
Journal Article
Safer Science: Consumer “Science” in Chem Labs?
English, mathematics, social science, and other nonscience classes are being held in science laboratories during unassigned laboratory time. However, science laboratories are unsafe places. They contain hazardous chemicals, energy utility sources (ga...
Journal Article
A Consumer Guide to Professional Development
How can a science teacher find professional development (PD) opportunities that are meaningful, coherent, and sustained that will foster teacher and student learning? The authors believe that science teachers can and should be savvy consumers of PD�...
Journal Article
Real Science or Marketing Hype?
The Center for Nanoscale Chemical-Electrical-Mechanical Manufacturing Systems (Nano-CEMMS) at the University of Illinois, in collaboration with local Champaign-area teachers, has developed classroom activities designed to introduce nanotechnology to ...
Journal Article
Tech Trek: Make your own mashup maps
Mashup is a new technology term used to describe a web application that combines data or technology from several different sources. You can apply this concept in your classroom by having students create their own mashup maps. Google Maps provides you...
Journal Article
Motivating Students With Robotics
In recent years, the need to advance the number of individuals pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields has gained much attention. The Montgomery County/Virginia Tech Robotics Collaborative (MCVTRC), a yearlong high school ro...
Journal Article
Let’s Fight for Inquiry Science!
In today’s climate of standardized testing, the author shares his concern that colleagues who are currently implementing inquiry-based science that awakens students’ curiosity may soon be thwarted by mandated, time-consuming, packaged programs. H...
Journal Article
This monthly feature contains facts and challenges for the science explorer....
Journal Article
Diagnosing and Dealing with Student Misconceptions: Floating and Sinking
Misconceptions broadly exist in a variety of subject areas, such as physics, biology, geography, and other sciences. Among them, bringing students to an understanding of why things sink and float has proved to be one of the most challenging topics fo...
Journal Article
This monthly feature contains facts and challenges for the science explorer....
Journal Article
Perspectives: Making the Most of Professional Development
Teacher preparation programs help teachers build a foundation for entering the teaching profession. However, learning to teach science cannot be achieved in a mere four years—it is a lifelong endeavor. Teachers continue to learn new science content...
Journal Article
Science 101: How do animals communicate underwater?
Well, they often use hand signals, such as the “OK” sign, and sometimes they write on message boards. So much for how SCUBA divers (classified as animals) communicate! Other than the authors’ knowledge of sound waves and how they move air and w...
Journal Article
The analysis and activities described in this article provide high school chemistry and science teachers with hands-on lab experiments designed to make students more aware of corrosion and the processes used to prevent or control it (D’Agostino 200...
Journal Article
The “Learning Lab: The Cell” exhibit was developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Museum and the MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences (CEHS). Specially designed for middle and high school students, the Learning Lab pro...
Journal Article
Scope on Safety: Avoid surprise packages
The Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR), parts 171—180 explain what is required of a shipper to transport hazardous materials safely. The regulations cover classification, packaging, incident reporting, and handling of hazardous materials. Hazard...
Journal Article
Science Sampler: Teaming up for better teaching
Lesson study is a form of professional development that has spread across the United States from its origin in Japan (Stigler and Hiebert 1999; Lewis, Perry, and Hurd 2004). In lesson study, teachers form a collaborative team that changes both the wa...
Journal Article
Editor’s Roundtable: Professional development—A thousand kilometers wide and a micron deep!
A long-term, coherent program of high-quality professional development (PD) is the best way to foster improvement in classroom practices and student learning. Administrators and district office personnel must make high-quality professional developmen...
Journal Article
In Praise of Performance-Based Assessments
Performance-based assessments are tasks conducted by students that enable them to demonstrate what they know about a given topic. The difference between this type of “test” versus the traditional method is that students are given the opportunity ...
Journal Article
Editor’s Corner: A Community of Learners
In addition to supporting the exchange of ideas within the science teaching community, The Science Teacher (TST) also supports the notion of community in its widest sense, by including articles that connect students and teachers with the community be...
Journal Article
Teaching Through Trade Books: Taking Note of Natural Resources
The idea of “going green” or being aware of and reducing our impact on natural resources is receiving a lot of attention these days. Schools are starting to employ “green” practices and are soliciting help from the students to be aware of and...
Journal Article
This hands-on, minds-on zoo project provides a fun and safe opportunity for students to experience the world of animals and nature right in their own classroom. Students have the chance to work individually or in small groups to explore, observe, and...
Journal Article
Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K—12 (Books Published in 2007: Science and Children)
Each of these outstanding selections defies the traditional image of a child “curling up with a good book.” Yes, they can be a source of great personal reading, encouraging students of all ages to stretch their skills and their imagination as the...
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Editorial: Research and Teaching Column
The JCST Research and Teaching column will feature sound research on curriculum, pedagogy, and student learning at the college level. Topics of interest include all fields of science: chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, physics, geography, mathe...
Journal Article
Oceanography for the Visually Impaired
Amy Bower is a physical oceanographer and senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts—she has also been legally blind for 14 years. Through her partnership with the Perkins School for the Blind i...
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Science Shorts: “Knowing” Newton
Newton’s Laws seem simple and familiar. Despite their apparent simplicity, these laws are often misunderstood. In the following lesson, students will become better acquainted with Newton and his laws as they test what happens when a force is applie...
Journal Article
Career of the Month: An Interview With Cosmetic Chemist Amy Wyatt
Where do you turn when you have a bad hair day or need to cover up an unwanted blemish? From hair gels to concealers, cosmetic chemists use science and creativity to develop products that make us look and feel good. As the executive director of Chane...
Journal Article
Scope on the Skies: Tracking planets around the Sun
In earlier columns, the celestial coordinate system of hour circles of right ascension and degrees of declination was introduced along with the use of an equatorial star chart (see SFA Star Charts in Resources). This system shows the planets’ motio...
Journal Article
In this problem-based learning activity (PBL), students embark on a science trek to answer the question “Where is the science in my neighborhood?” The project serves as an excellent review of science curriculum in anticipation of Virginia’s yea...
Journal Article
Science Sampler: Wanted—Citizen Scientists
As middle school students and teachers become involved in citizen-scientist activities, their awareness of important environmental issues will be enhanced. Here the author shares her involvement in a partnership with the Great Smoky Mountains Institu...
Journal Article
Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K—12 (Books Published in 2007: Science Scope)
Each of these outstanding selections defies the traditional image of a child “curling up with a good book.” Yes, they can be a source of great personal reading, encouraging students of all ages to stretch their skills and their imagination as the...
Journal Article
Helping Students With Learning Disabilities Succeed
Students with learning disabilities (LD) frequently take general education science classes because their disabilities are very mild. Sometimes, however, it is difficult for students with LD to succeed in the classes and pass the related high-stakes a...