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Journal Article
In this month’s Ask the Experts column, the following questions are addressed: I’ve heard that the two sides of my brain are specialized for different tasks (language vs. reasoning, etc.). If I listen to a science lecture on my iPod using only on...
Journal Article
Scope on the Skies: And then there were eight
This past summer the International Astronomical Union (IAU) approved new definitions for objects in our solar system that orbit the Sun. The definitions now allow for only eight planets, while objects smaller than planets will be known as dwarf plane...
Journal Article
Science Sampler: Word wall connections
A word wall has many uses in the middle school science classroom. It is ideal for reinforcing vocabulary and connections between concepts. In this article, the author describes an interactive way to use the word wall to create food webs. In addition,...
Journal Article
Coaching to Build Support for Inquiry-Based Teaching
Coaching, as a means to support inquiry-based teaching, starts by changing the culture from within (school, teacher, and student) rather than from external mandates. Recognizing that teacher empowerment is the first step toward increasing student ach...
Journal Article
From <em> Frustrating </em> Forgetfulness to <em> Fabulous </em> Forethought
Teens exhibit many types of behaviors—of both inattention and intense focus. From an adult’s perspective, one cannot help but wonder why this happens. Part of the answer lies in the neural restructuring of the adolescent brain. This article exami...
Journal Article
They’re M-e-e-elting! An Investigation of Glacial Retreat in Antarctica
Why has glacial melting occurred? What happens when that much freshwater enters the ocean? Will this melting continue? These questions inspired the authors to design a directed inquiry in which middle school students simulate glacial retreat in Antar...
Journal Article
The purpose of many animal studies at early grades is to build observation skills, develop a knowledge base, and practice age-appropriate science skills like comparing, describing, and drawing. While these are important learning experiences, the Nati...
Journal Article
Career of the Month: An interview with Clinical Neuropsychologist Deborah Attix
Neuroscience is a field dedicated to learning about the brain and nervous system, which can help us understand, prevent, and treat diseases and disorders such as Alzheimer’s, depression, and addiction. The vast scope of questions neuroscience is tr...
Journal Article
The Case Study: Intimate Debate Technique: Medicinal Use of Marijuana
This article describes the technique called intimate debate. To cooperative learning specialists, the technique is known as structured debate or constructive debate. It is a powerful method for dealing with case topics that involve controversy, such ...
Journal Article
Point of View: Questions From the Edge: Using Informal Surveys to Build Rapport With Students
“Astronomy helps us answer the ultimate question of human existence,” and “Astronomy helps us understand the meaning of our own existence.” These thoughts caught the attention of one professor who wondered what students thought about the mean...
Journal Article
Science Sampler: Using graphic organizers as formative assessment
With the move in the last decade toward a standards-based science curriculum, assessment has become an important part of science teaching and learning. National policies such as the No Child Left Behind Act place additional emphasis on the importance...
Journal Article
Editor’s Corner: Brainy Science
Despite being a subject of intense interest and scrutiny for all of human history, many aspects of human brain function are still rather poorly understood. However, this is about to change rapidly, as modern imaging techniques create a revolution in ...
Book Chapter
Advocacy and the Planning Process
Science educators believe that students construct their knowledge of the natural world best in safe, secure, and stimulating learning environments. In order to achieve these goals, teachers, researchers, and planners must become advocates for the sch...
Book Chapter
Current Trends and Future Directions in Science Education: Breaking Down the Walls
The simplest educational concept—and perhaps the most significant—to consider in designing tomorrow’s science programs is inquiry. In keeping with the Standards’ strong emphasis on inquiry-based programs, students increasingly will be explori...
Book Chapter
In order for students to inquire confidently, we must create safe classroom environments. Safety is not just a set of rules but a state of mind, and perhaps, most importantly, it is an attitude and a set of skills that carry over into a students’ d...
Book Chapter
Designing Facilities for the Middle School (6-8)
A high-quality middle school science program requires science classrooms with safe, well-designed laboratory space, and school designers must consider the distance students will have to travel to these classes. Trying to balance high quality science ...
Book Chapter
Designing Facilities for the High School (9-12)
When we participate in a school building program, we create learning environments that will last for many decades. So a major principle of good science facilities planning is to avoid building for a single curricular model. Since continued change in ...
Book Chapter
While everyone in a school community should share responsibility for the “greening” of a school, it is often the science teachers who make the best use of these facilities, basing their lessons on the components of a green school that have been b...
Book Chapter
A periodic table on the ceiling of a chemistry lab/classroom, footprints and fossils of amphibians and animals in a courtyard sidewalk, a 60-foot slinky suspended from the ceiling, and a tessellation pattern in the floor tile extend science learning ...
Book Chapter
We say it often, and the phrase appears in the National Science Education Standards and many state and local documents as well. “All students should have opportunities in science.” But that vision is harder to achieve in practice. It is especiall...
Book Chapter
Imagine metal eyeglass frames that you can roll in a ball, only to watch it uncoil back to its original shape! How can an inanimate object, such as metal, do such a thing? There is a metal alloy that can do just that and it’s one of the many discov...
Book Chapter
Socks that don’t stink, graffiti-resistant paint, windows and sunscreen that reject UV rays… that’s nanotechnology. Students will learn about some of the latest inventions using nanotechnology by exploring actual products of nanotechnology rese...
Book Chapter
Nanotechnology has opened the door for medical applications that work at the molecular level to diagnose, treat, and prevent disease. This investigation models one approach to treating cancer that uses gold nanoshells to locate and destroy cancer. St...
Book Chapter
Building Small: Nano Inventions
Just as cells were discovered with early light microscopes and Saturn’s rings by the first telescopes, the nanoscale world has emerged due to new tools such as the Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). As a result of being able to build atom by atom a who...
Book Chapter
Too Little Privacy: Ethics of Nanotechnology
Advances in nanotechnology allow us to create unique and tiny labels for manufactured materials, create tiny sensors that can detect the presence of specific molecules, and make machines that are so small they can work invisibly. Through a series of ...
Book Chapter
Just how big is a billion? How tiny is a nanometer? Five hands-on inquiry activities are presented that use measurement and calculations to help students visualize one billion. Students develop mental anchors or references to use when conceptualizing...
Book Chapter
Promise or Peril: Nanotechnology and the Environment
Nanoscience research has made great strides in recent years in areas such as nanomaterials and drug delivery. This success has kindled hope for exciting technological breakthroughs in the near future in areas ranging from new cures for cancer therapi...
Book Chapter
How do you get students to understand a number as small as one-billionth? Through a hands-on dilution activity using food coloring, students will learn about parts per billion. A matching card game helps students further understand one-billionth by g...
Book Chapter
Advances in nanotechnology are due in part to the unique structure and properties of carbon nanotubes and buckyballs. These unusual structures are being studied for their potential use as vehicles for drug delivery, to strengthen materials, and as mi...
Book Chapter
Biological Nanomachines: Viruses
Although nanotechnology is a new and emerging field, nanoscale structures are not new. Small molecules such as water, large molecules such as proteins, and larger, more complex objects such as viruses and nanotubes are naturally occurring and exist a...
Book Chapter
What’s In Your Bag? Investigating the Unknown
In nanoscience, like all scientific endeavors, asking the right questions is a vital part of progress. Our ability to observe how things work at the nanoscale is very limited. We need the use of very advanced microscope technologies as well as other ...
Book Chapter
Nanomagnets: Fun with Ferrofluid
Ferrofluid provides an easy opportunity to introduce students to the fascinating properties of the nanoscale. It is essentially a liquid magnet made of nanosized magnetic particles suspended in water or oil. Not only does it demonstrate the strange a...
Book Chapter
Imagine you could build an object that is a billion times smaller than a meter. What would you build? An entire new field has emerged as a result of a new generation of microscopes that allows scientists to investigate the world at the tiniest of sca...
Book Chapter
It’s a Small World After All: Nanofabric
Nanotechnology is producing a variety of new materials we use in our everyday lives. One such development is the latest stain-resistant fabric. This inquiry activity gives students the opportunity to explore and discover unique nanoscale properties o...
Book Chapter
Becoming a Teacher Researcher: Giving Space, Finding Space
Christopher Horne is a teacher specialist for elementary science for Frederick County, Maryland, public schools and an adjunct professor in the education department at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He is pursuing a doctoral...
Book Chapter
Teachers Supporting Teachers in Learning
Diantha Lay is principal of an elementary school in Montgomery County, Maryland. When she wrote this chapter, she was just starting a new position for the county as a staff development teacher. Earlier she had been a second- and a fourth-grade teache...
Book Chapter
TEAM Connections: Four Teachers’ Journeys Into Action Research
Judy Fix, Norma Fletcher, Dianne Johnson, and Janet Siulc—a group of teachers in the Buffalo Public School District—wondered what they could do that would go beyond talk and speculation about their teaching practices. They wanted to take action i...
Book Chapter
Learning About Motion: Fun for All
Deborah Roberts is a fifth-grade teacher in Phoenix, Arizona. At the time she wrote this chapter, she was a middle-school science teacher in a high-poverty suburban school in Maryland. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the University ...
Book Chapter
Reflections on Fostering Teacher Inquiries Into Science Learning and Teaching
Emily van Zee is an associate professor of science education at Oregon State University and co-organizer of Teacher Researcher Day at National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) national conferences. She has been a middle school science teacher, sco...
Book Chapter
Reading, Writing, Comprehension, and Confidence—Achieved in Science Contexts
When Elizabeth Kline wrote this, she was a fifth-grade teacher in Prince George’s County, Maryland. A desire to integrate scientific concepts in a curriculum dominated by reading, writing, and mathematics motivated her to change the way she taught ...