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Journal Article
Adding Math to Biology: Teaching the mathematical basis of evolutionary biology
Without a mathematical understanding of evolutionary theory, we leave students defenseless against shallow arguments and pseudoscience. In this activity, students study normal variation in coral size, and to do the exercise teachers only need relativ...
Journal Article
Examining Language To Capture Scientific Understandings: The Case of the Water Cycle
As teachers of science, we need to keep in mind that thought and language are intricately related. Linguistic approximations, errors, and misses may be useful windows into our children’s developing thoughts and conceptions. Fostering more different...
Journal Article
Commentary: Matchmaker, Matchmaker
An opinion piece about matching and how the pleasure of matching can be found in science class....
Journal Article
Editor's Corner: Convention Fever
The Science Teacher’s editor shares thoughts on the current issue....
Journal Article
Skeptical Science: Teaching students how to critically evaluate unusual claims
Should science teachers discuss the legitimacy of astrology, extrasensory perception (ESP), UFOs, touch therapy, cloning dinosaurs, or any other unusual claims in the classroom? If so, can they examine the claims with students in a way that encourage...
Journal Article
Games Students Play: Teaming up in physics class leads to cooperative learning
The case for motivating students through cooperative learning has been made and supported throughout the last two decades. Two well-known cooperative learning techniques—Student Teams-Achievement Divisions (STAD) and Teams-Games-Tournament (TGT)—...
Journal Article
Good teachers continually plan learning experiences to help young children make connections within and among areas of study (Zemelman, Daniel, and Hyde 1998). Integrating curriculum is important in helping children make these connections. Class proje...
Journal Article
When a Hypothesis is <em>Not</em> an Educated Guess
The terms prediction and hypothesis are often used interchangeably, yet one term means to think about what might happen and the other means to think about why something will happen. Misuse of these terms may deprive students of the opportunity to thi...
Journal Article
Dissect Your Squid and Eat It Too!
Studying an organism that lives in the ocean lends itself to many multidisciplinary studies, such as writing poetry about sea creatures, graphing fish harvests, and learning about cultures that depend heavily on the sea. As part of a study about cora...
Journal Article
How a Dragon Gets its Wings: A fanciful approach to teaching meiosis
The process of meiosis and its contributon to genetic variation are important concepts. But they are challenging for students, many of whom confuse meiosis with mitosis because of the similar terminology and likenesses in how chromosomes align during...
Journal Article
Eyes in the Sky: The Big Picture
Boost your students’ learning experience by using satellite imagery in the classroom. In the activity described here, students assume the roles of research scientists. They work in groups and analyze satellite imagery to investigate the effects of ...
Journal Article
Chemistry on Camera: Integrating technology into the science laboratory
Identifying useful, effective, and feasible methods of integrating technology into science classrooms is very important and can be challenging. With this in mind, this article features a relevant, innovative lab exercise that promotes construction of...
Journal Article
One way to help students develop their writing skills is through the “key-word process.” In this method, students select key words about a topic and then use those words to build their own sentences and paragraphs. The key-word process can be exp...
Journal Article
Commentary: Wanted—Advocates for science laboratory safety
An opinion piece about the need for safety in school science laboratories and how it has dramatically increased over the past decade....
Journal Article
Burning Questions About Calories
Encouraging students to define problems through asking questions about the topic has a positive impact on classroom morale. First, the teacher benefits from increased understanding of students’ knowledge and background. Second, because students hav...
Journal Article
After the Bell: Turn any science topic into hands-on fun
Many students are turned off by science even before they get out of grade school. This articles focues on making science a discovery process—not just a result—by creative teaching methods and a positive philosophy of science education....
Journal Article
Surveying Safety: How researchers addressed safety in science classrooms in Wisconsin
Safety is an essential ingredient in all facets of our lives and is especially important in today's educational settings. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction became very concerned when preliminary assessments of teacher understandings of s...