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Journal Article

Modeling Leeuwenhoek’s Tools With Disposable-Camera Microscopes

When students design and build their own versions of instruments, they appreciate them more—and are more likely to appreciate how experimentation plays a critical role in explaining the world around them (NRC 1999). In this activity, students learn...

Journal Article

Idea Bank: Demonstrating the Self-Assembly of the Cell Membrane

Although the cell membrane is a complex structure, its basic form, and the self-organizing behavior of the molecules that produce it, can be easily simulated in a high school science classroom. One such simulation, described in this article, uses oil...

Journal Article

Scope on the Skies: Focus on Uranus

It wasn’t until 1781, when William Herschel aimed his six-inch reflecting telescope toward the skies, that our solar system quite literally doubled in size with his discovery of another planet—Uranus. In this month’s column, you’ll learn abou...

Journal Article

Editor’s Roundtable: Don’t know much about history? You should!

We should each examine our curriculum to make sure that we give ample time to the teaching of the history and nature of science. This issue of Science Scope contains a collection of activities and projects, both inquiry- and interdisciplinary-based...

Journal Article

Teaching Through Trade Books: Going Wild With Graphs

Just as words can tell a story, so can graphs. Pick up a newspaper or magazine and you will probably see several articles accompanied by graphs. Graphs are useful because they communicate information visually and can usually be read more quickly than...

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Weaving women into the science curriculum

Learning about great women in the sciences has the potential to impact mid-level students in a number of ways. These women and their work may serve as important role models, providing encouragement to younger female students. In addition, the stories...

Journal Article

What’s in a Word? How Word Choice Can Develop (Mis)conceptions About the Nature of Science

Despite over 10 years of reform efforts, research still shows that students typically have inadequate conceptions of what science is and what scientists do (McComas 2004; Lederman 2007). Many science students, as well as some teachers, use a single �...

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Two heads

This cooperative activity presents middle school students with the opportunity to explore and discover, as well as enjoy their own communications with one another. By employing reading, writing, and history as an integrated approach to teaching abou...

Journal Article

Methods and Strategies: Science Success for Students With Special Needs

Recent special education legislation such as the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) emphasizes the placement of students with mild disabilities in the general education classroom. Therefore, students with learning, behavior, and communicating d...

Journal Article

The Prepared Practitioner: Constructivism and Conceptual Change, Part I

Constructivism is the basis for standards, inquiry-based instruction, and a candidate for buzzword of the decade. But what is constructivism? This month’s column provides the answer to this thought-provoking question, and explains why it can be a c...

Journal Article

The Early Years: Counting a Culture of Mealworms

Math is not the only topic that will be discussed when young children are asked to care for and count “mealworms,” a type of insect larvae (just as caterpillars are the babies of butterflies, these larvae are babies of beetles). The following act...

Journal Article

Current Taxonomy in Classroom Instruction

The ability to sequence genes has vastly altered our understanding of higher-level relationships among organisms such as those found at the kingdom level. It is important for biology teachers to incorporate these new views and not retain outdated con...

Journal Article

Career of the Month: An Interview with Space Architect Constance Adams

Drawing knowledge from many fields—including science, engineering, and art—space architects such as Constance Adams design structures for nonterrestrial environments. In one such project at NASA, Adams works on elements for the International Spac...

Journal Article

Teaching Science Using Stories: The Storyline Approach

Storytelling is an age-old and powerful means of communication that can be used as an effective teaching strategy in the science classroom. This article describes the authors’ experiences implementing the Storyline Approach, an inquiry-based teachi...

Journal Article

Science Shorts: Sort It Out

Many children enjoy collecting items such as seashells, state quarters, and trading cards. Asking students to think about the ways in which similar items differ, how objects can be grouped by a common characteristic, and how groups can be subsets of ...

Journal Article

Tried and True: Our class periodic table

To facilitate discussions centered on the topic of chemistry, students can create a classroom periodic table. In order to accomplish this task, they research elements in the periodic table using various media (textbooks, Internet), and then create a ...

Journal Article

Launch Excitement with Water Rockets

Explosions and fires—these are what many students are waiting for in science classes. And when they do occur, students pay attention. While we can’t entertain our students with continual mayhem, we can catch their attention and cater to their des...