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Journal Article

Science Sampler: Self-assessment helps classroom focus on learning and understanding

In our science classrooms, teachers are the science practitioners demystifying our practice—from reading, inquiry, and problem solving to test taking, and even note taking. Placing learning and understanding in an explicitly prominent position in t...

Journal Article

Idea Bank: Asking Authentic Questions with Tangible Consequences

For physics teachers, it seems irresponsible to teach energy without asking students hard, relevant questions such as, “What will we do when oil becomes prohibitively expensive?” Therefore, in the fall of 2005, the author asked senior-level physi...

Journal Article

Perspectives: Making Time for Science Talk

Cognitive scientists (Donovan and Bransford 2005) conclude that when teachers “simply give students the knowledge to incorporate, the practice and skill development of doing one’s own mental search is shortchanged”, but when students engage in ...

Journal Article

Teaching through Trade Books: Into the Woods

In today’s electronic age of video games and mp3 players, children are not spending as much time outdoors as past generations did. Many fear that as a result children are becoming increasingly alienated from the natural world. This month’s trade ...

Journal Article

Using Video Games to Understand Thermoregulation

Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, a research project was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of video games as inquiry-based learning experiences for the science classroom. As a result, the video game, Creature Control: The Quest for H...

Journal Article

Scope on the Skies: Conjunction functions

This spring, as the school year starts to wind down, there will be many opportunities for students to observe bright planets and to wrap up the year with some great conjunctions and close occultation with the Moon, planets, bright stars, and star clu...

Journal Article

A Natural Integration

A five-week study taught students how to write a field guide that identified the plants in a small wooded area they passed through on their way to their school playground. By creating this authentic genre of science writing, students came to understa...