All Resources

Journal Article

Primary Students and Informational Texts

Anyone who has spent time looking into science books with young children has no doubt experienced the endless questions that the information and visuals in the books can stimulate. Can snakes climb trees? How do frogs hide from predators? Why do v...

Journal Article

A Cognitive-Apprenticeship-Inspired Instructional Approach for Teaching Scientific Writing and Reading

This article presents an approach for integrating instruction of scientific writing and reading into undergraduate science courses, inspired by the pedagogical theory of cognitive apprenticeship. Included, is a demonstration of its implementation and...

Journal Article

Retaining Undergraduate Women in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering

The purpose of this research study was to examine the effectiveness of a program in retaining women in science, mathematics, and engineering majors. Undergraduate women participating in a support and mentoring program were compared with nonprogram ...

Journal Article

Editor's Roundtable: Classroom benefit of being bionic!

The National Science Education Standards indicate that “technology as design is included in the Standards as parallel to science as inquiry.” As a result, this issue of Science Scope contains a collection of design and construction activiti...

Journal Article

Science Shorts: Seeing is Believing

Many students enjoy the reading about new worlds or imaginary places. The world of microscopy can generate the same kind of excitement and help children rethink the immature idea that only what they see exists. This month's Science Shorts explores ...

Journal Article

Teacher’s Toolkit: Helping middle school students with learning disabilities pass the federally mandated science tests—Science instruction, study skills, and test-taking strategies

Since the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2002, and the amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 2004, the majority of students with learning disabilities take science courses as part of the general-education middle ...

Journal Article

Research and Teaching: Evaluating the Use of Inquiry-Based Activities: Do Students and Teacher Behaviors Really Change?

Performing inquiry should enhance the intellectual development of students on numerous levels. We evaluate whether inquiry-based activities elicit inquiry behaviors by comparing these activities with traditional review sessions. We find that both inq...

Journal Article

Artist as Chemist

All artists are chemists. Artists understand and study the properties of specific materials and find ways to explore these properties to express views of themselves and the world around them. In this curriculum unit, chemistry students create origina...

Journal Article

Research Collaboration With Learning-Disabled Students: Strategies for Succesful Student-Faculty Partnerships

The process of a successful undergraduate student-faculty research collaboration involving a student with documented learning disabilities is detailed. As the student developed research skills, she also learned how to develop her own learning strateg...

Journal Article

Research and Teaching: Two-Dimensional, Implicit Confidence Tests as a Tool for Recognizing Student Misconceptions

The misconceptions that students bring with them, or that arise during instruction, are a critical barrier to learning. Implicit-confidence tests, a simple modification of the multiple-choice test, can be used as a strategy for recognizing student mi...

Journal Article

The CSI Effect: Changing The Face of Science

Until recently, the vast majority of female student images of scientists were versions of white males working alone in laboratory settings (Barman et al. 1997). As a result, the authors asked the question, “What phenomenon is responsible for the re...

Journal Article

Developing Strategic Readers

As elementary students progress from learning to read toward reading to learn, it is vital that they become strategic readers. A strategic reader is one who understands when and how to use a strategy in order to comprehend text. While some students...

Journal Article

Trade Books for Learning: An Author's View

What other ecosystem is as mysterious and compelling as the rain forest and home to innumerable living things that children may never have seen or heard of before? Answer: mangroves! These fascinating and important habitats are another avenue to te...

Journal Article

Scope on Safety: Waste not, want not

Planning chemical use and disposal is critical to a safe laboratory environment. It is irresponsible to simply go out and purchase laboratory chemicals without considering why they are needed and how they will be disposed of when they are no longer n...

Journal Article

Editorial: Spontaneous Generation (November 2006)

The continuing development and renewal of a capable, fair (and wise) faculty must be one of the first priorities of the existing professoriate. In the sciences, where our disciplines frighten even the other departments on campus, the situation may be...

Journal Article

Using Forensics Science Problems As Teaching Tools

As teachers of high school students, we constantly struggle to engage students in scientific exploration so they can master concepts and appreciate the nature of science. By providing an air of mystery and glamour, forensic science engages even reluc...