JoinAll Resources
Journal Article
Use of a Consumer-Grade Digital Camera to Archive Written Exams
The use of a photocopier to archive exams consumes photocopier resources and generates a large amount of waste. As an alternative, one instructor uses a consumer-grade digital camera to document exams in an upper-division biology course. The approach...
Journal Article
Field trips are opportunities to experience science in settings beyond the classroom. But how do teachers design a trip that will enhance students' analytical skills and support classroom instruction? The tips and tools in this article have been coll...
Journal Article
A Backward Approach to Inquiry
In the sciences, the National Science Education Standards further emphasize that learning science is an inquiry-based process; therefore, teaching methods should be inquiry-based. Use a backwards design approach to ensure that academic standards are ...
Journal Article
Writing Assignments in a Nonmajor Introductory Ecology Class
A unit was developed which incorporated writing assignments into an introductory ecology class to encourage nonmajors to improve their writing skills and gain an appreciation for environmental issues. Statistical analyses suggest that during the seme...
Journal Article
Design Challenges Are "ELL-ementary"
Engineering activities encourage English Language Learners to express understanding through language and actions. This article describes one school’s experience with the Museum of Science (Boston) program Engineering is Elementary and provides a mo...
Journal Article
Building Science Process Skills
A well-designed and executed field trip experience serves not only to enrich and supplement course content, but also creates opportunities to build basic science process skills. This article describes an onsite trip to the Bronx Zoo that allowed coll...
Journal Article
Scope on the Skies: Location, location, location
While traveling from home to distant locations, it is easy to feel both a sense of unfamiliarity as well as familiarity with the change in location, especially when considering the view of day and night skies. The position of celestial objects like t...
Journal Article
Society for College Science Teachers: What Currency Should We Use?
A colleague's favorite question when the issue of evaluationg teaching arises is to ask, "What's the currency?" In this article, we discover the various quandries involved in quantifying quality teaching. ...
Journal Article
Editorial: So, Where's the Guy with the Cape?
In this section the new editor of the Journal of College Science Teaching, Ann Cutler introduces herself and dispels some of the myths about being an editor. She offers insight into her life as a prodigal academics' daughter and offers her own perso...
Journal Article
Science Sampler: Fired up about science
Turn the "wow" factor into the "how" factor with this exciting activity that reinforces or introduces the skills of observing and inferring with the use of flash paper and candles. The magic of this lesson is that the flash of combustion ignites inqu...
Journal Article
Idea Bank: A Sense of Place--GPS and the Biology Field Trip
In this month's Idea Bank column, a high school biology teacher describes an inquiry-based, high-tech scavenger hunt based on a hybrid form of geocaching that he developed called "BioCache," where students explore the wonders of nature and biology us...
Journal Article
Science Sampler: Developing the scientist in your students
Develop the budding scientist within your students by weaving this hands-on, exciting project into your science curriculum. This inquiry-based project allows students to design, carry out, annalyze, and communicate their findings to their peers while...
Book Chapter
Building on the Natural Wonder Inherent in Us All
The Gladbrook-Reinbeck School District is located in Iowa, a state of just over three million people. The rich farmland that surrounds the district produces corn, beans, cattle, swine, and proud hardworking people. Naturally, many of the businesses ...
Book Chapter
Teaching Science With Student Thinking in Mind
This chapter describes the Discover Lab Concept (DLC), a project that began in a teaching/learning laboratory at Stony Brook University, and today is a foundation of science instruction in classrooms on Long Island and regions beyond. The chapter des...
Book Chapter
Unlocking the National Science Education Standards With IMaST
The National Science Foundation funded the IMaST project for three consecutive developmental cycles to design an integrated middle school curriculum. As a developmental research project, the IMaST developed 16 standards-based curriculum modules that ...
Book Chapter
Achieving a Vision of Inquiry: Rigorous, Engaging Curriculum and Instruction
The changing emphases of the National Science Education Standards (NSES) have spurred many school districts to reinvent their science programs. New curricula development by National Science Foundation-funded programs have been at the core of some dis...
Book Chapter
Adapting the JASON Project: Real Science, Real Time, Real Learning
The JASON Project is a multidisciplinary curriculum involving real science studies and comparing them to local studies performed by students. The Plymouth Public School System, located on the south shore of Massachusetts, adopted the JASON Project as...
Book Chapter
"Re-Inventing" Science Instruction: Inquiry-Based Instruction in a Fifth/Sixth-Grade Classroom
The author's purpose in sharing her experiences in this monograph is to help other teachers who may be less confident in teaching science than they are teaching other subjects, to help them see the value in what the Standards envision for students, a...
Book Chapter
What Do We Get to Do Today? The Middle School Full Option Science System Program
This chapter presents the Full Option Science System (FOSS) and the features that address the four National Science Education Standards (NSES). With FOSS curriculum students are introduced to content through exploration of and asking questions about ...
Book Chapter
ARIES: Science as Discovery . . . and Discovery as Science!
This chapter presents Project ARIES, developed at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and funded by the National Science Foundation, with additional support from Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution. ARIES is a modular, astr...
Book Chapter
The 15 previous stories give evidence of the Standards' impact, along with important examples for others for improvements they might consider if they want to move in directions like those advanced by the persons involved in preparing the Standards. A...
Book Chapter
In light of the increasing emphasis placed on the importance of teachers and their actions and the reality that we have an inadequate pool of qualified science and mathematics teachers to meet our needs, many reform efforts and funding initiatives fo...