All Resources

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Successful lab reports through model analysis

Despite your best efforts, are the majority of your middle school students unable to write detailed, complete lab reports? If your answer is a resounding “yes,” try implementing Model Analysis into your science curriculum. This strategy effective...

Journal Article

Idea Bank: Using Food Science as a Thematic Unit

While rethinking the math and science program for ninth- and tenth-grade high school students, the authors found that the math, English, and social studies teachers had the same goal—to maximize learning in all subject areas. To help meet this goal...

Journal Article

Living on a Restless Earth

The human race is learning to live with the restless nature of Earth. Thanks to the work of Earth scientists, we can forecast and prepare for many natural hazards in an effort to minimize the loss of life and property. In celebration of the work Eart...

Journal Article

A Chance to Be Like Lance

The physical demands of the Tour de France and the success of American cyclist Lance Armstrong provide a great "hook" to teach middle school students about nutrition and physiology. This article describes how an ordinary nutrition and physiology un...

Journal Article

How Small Is a Cell?

Through the following inquiry-based activity involving yeast, students learn about cell size in a way they will never forget. Essentially, each student or lab group is given one grain of active dry yeast, is asked to estimate the number of cells in t...

Journal Article

Science Shorts: Going Through Changes

Earth's surface is always changing. Much of that change happens because of air, wind, water, and temperature differences. If you have ever observed mud and rocks being carried along by a stream of water after a heavy rain, you have observed the Ear...

Journal Article

Accidental Drowning or Foul Play?

This case was developed for a sophomore organic chemistry lab to illustrate how a combination of techniques is usually required in the identification of chemical compounds. It involves a murder mystery with a forensic twist: Two bodies have been reco...

Journal Article

Editorial: An Inside Peek at a Case Study Workshop

Here we are again with another special issue of JCST devoted to using case study teaching in the science classroom. These cases are the product of the annual workshops presented by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science at the Unive...

Journal Article

Natural Hazards in Your Community

The Earth is a powerful, active, and ever-changing planet. Earthquakes and volcanoes reshape the Earth’s crust with sudden bursts of movement or with eruptions that last decades. Powerful storms develop in the swirling atmosphere, creating cumuloni...

Journal Article

Science Sampler: Lab report blues

For middle school students, writing a formal lab report can be challenging. For middle level teachers, reading students’ lab reports can be overwhelming. As a solution, why not try peer editing? By having students critique each other in a construct...

Journal Article

Shedding Light on the Inverse-Square Law

One way to show students that they can “do” science is to have them use an observable event to generate a relationship that can be used as a predictive tool. If that relationship can be quantified using “curve-fitting” and simple algebra, an ...

Journal Article

An Adventure in Stereochemistry

This case is based on an article that considered the problems that would arise if a person were to cross over into a mirror-image environment (Yee 2002). Some of the stereochemistry problems posed in that article are woven into this case study....

Journal Article

Career of the Month: An Interview with Industrial Toxicologist Greg Allgood

Are you ever curious about the safety of sugar substitutes, air pollution, or your city’s tap water? Chemicals may make the world go around, but some of them can be harmful. So how do know which ones are safe? Toxicologists work in commercial indus...

Journal Article

Go on a ScienceQuest

In this new learning strategy, called a ScienceQuest, students solve problems while learning “big picture” concepts. In this “Cousin Ella Left Her Pet” example, fourth-grade students are “hooked” when asked to care for a gerbil. Inquiry, ...

Journal Article

Strategies for Teaching Something New

It is the beginning of another school year and, after teaching sixth-grade life science for 15 years, you are now asked to teach eighth-grade Earth science! Panic sets in and you begin to feel like a first-year teacher all over again. The following s...

Journal Article

Teaching Through Trade Books: Celestial Studies

Children love astronomy but the complex ideas associated with the topic often lead to misconceptions. This month’s column features simple activities for grades K-3 and 4-6 relating to the Sun and the Moon that can lay a foundation for solid underst...

Journal Article

Maximize Student Time On Task

Student time on task is the most influential factor in student achievement. To maximize time on task, teachers need to make decisions about the systems they install in their classroom well before any students enter the room. Beginning the school yea...

Journal Article

Idea Bank: Beginning the Year with a Symposium

To address the concern of common lag time at the beginning of the school year, the science department at Detroit’s Kettering High School opened the 2002 school year with a student symposium. Each science class conducted the same experiment, analyze...

Journal Article

Assessment in the Palm of Your Hand

Project WHIRL, a three-year-grant from the National Science Foundation, enabled researchers from SRI International’s Center for Technology in Learning to collaborate with fourth- through ninth-grade teachers to create new assessments for science cl...

Journal Article

Science 101: What Is Gravity?

We all know lots of sayings about gravity. "What goes up must come down." "You fail to understand the gravity of the situation." Gravity is the name we give to the phenomenon that any two masses, like you and the earth, that attract each other. Thi...

Journal Article

Scope on Safety: It's hard saying goodbye to an old flame

Given the concerns about alcohol lamps and the relatively high frequency of accidents, are there any viable alternatives for heat sources? Yes! Depending on the amount and consistency of heat needed for middle school science experiments, there are at...

Journal Article

Methods and Strategies: Strategy Makeover—K-W-L to T-H-C

The K-W-L strategy works well as a preassessment tool because it reveals what students know and want to learn about a topic before instruction and as a postassessment tool because it fosters reflection. Minor modifications to the strategy can incorpo...

Journal Article

Tried and True: Traffic control tips for hands-on labs

The following are some tried and true methods of avoiding materials management and traffic problems associated with hands-on activities. While each class has its own personality and each teacher has his or her own style, these tips can be useful and ...

Journal Article

Outbreak!

Outbreak! is an online, interactive educational game that helps students and teachers learn and evaluate clinical microbiology skills. When the game was used in introductory microbiology laboratories, qualitative evaluation by students showed very po...

Journal Article

English Language Learners in the Science Classroom

What can we as teachers do to help English Language Learners (ELLs) learn science when we do not speak their languages or know their cultures? Both pre- and in-service teachers have successfully used the following strategies in teaching in teaching ...

Journal Article

Teaching for Conceptual Understanding

A series of lessons were taught in a second-grade classroom to assist students’ conceptual understanding of celestial motion. After assessing student misconceptions about space and the movement of planets and the Sun, the teacher engaged the studen...

Journal Article

My Own Science

With a little direction and a few resources, students can be scientists at home in a way that is rewarding to the teacher, students, and their families. Through “My Own Science,” a home science program, students are able to choose, research, dev...

Journal Article

Career of the Month: An Interview with Deep-Cave Explorer Barbara Anne am Ende

Barbara Anne am Ende first learned about the wonders of caving during a simple visit to a commercial cave at the age of 14. Shortly thereafter she took a spelunking tour (studying caves and their contents) and was hooked; she joined the National Sp...

Journal Article

Tech Trek: Time for class

One of the most abstract concepts that you will teach to your students is the concept of time. Usually introduced at the beginning of the school year, the concept of time is taught along with measurements and scientific units such as length, mass, an...

Journal Article

Shoebox Spectroscopy

In the following experiment, students are asked to construct a visible-light spectrometer using commonly available and relatively inexpensive equipment. In doing so, they are able to clearly see and understand basic spectroscopic principles and measu...

Journal Article

Creating a Fair Classroom Environment

Reduce your students’ first day jitters by implementing these specific classroom management suggestions that are designed to reduce student anxiety and create a fair environment. These strategies will effectively help all students to participate an...

Journal Article

Idea Bank: Measuring Wavelength with a Ruler

In the late 1960s, Arthur Schawlow, co-inventor of the laser, visited the author’s high school physics department to share some intriguing laser demonstrations. He popped colored balloons inside transparent ones, and showed interesting diffraction ...

Journal Article

What to Toss and What to Keep in Your Curriculum

As teachers adopt curriculum, they often have the false notion that every page of the text must be read in order to cover all of the standards required by the state. In fact, nearly all middle school science texts contain so much detail that they are...

Journal Article

Inquiry in the Large-Enrollment Science Classroom

The authors conduct research workshops twice each semester in their cell biology lecture course. Instead of solely analyzing data obtained by others, students form groups to design research questions and experimental protocols on a given topic. The m...

Journal Article

Using Scoring Rubrics to Evaluate Inquiry

This article explores the problem of assigning grades to students engaged in nontraditional activities, especially scientific inquiry. The authors suggest using scoring rubrics to guide students in their work and to assist teachers with grading. They...