All Resources

Journal Article

Fact or Fiction?

This article describes how to use the radio broadcast of H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds as a backdrop to studying the planets and how they differ from our planet. This approach can serve as a powerful force to motivate students to understand our sol...

Journal Article

Commentary: Developing Professionals

An opinion piece about having access to and participating in ongoing, quality, professional development programs....

Journal Article

A New Paradigm in Integrated Math and Science Courses

This article describes an interdisciplinary curriculum designed by the authors that connects math, science, and technology with the lives of their students. Changing students’ understanding of science required building connections across discipline...

Journal Article

Scavenger Hunts: Chasing Down Scientific Answers

Describing a scavenger hunt activity that stimulates active learning, the authors present objectives, examples, pitfalls, grading methods, and an evaluation based on their course experiences with the technique. Although the method was used in lower-d...

Journal Article

Buffer Biology: A design-your-own lab for chemistry

This article presents a buffer investigation to learn about the buffering capacity of household products such as shampoo and hand lotion. Students design and perform their own chemistry lab to gain a better understanding of the scientific process whi...

Journal Article

The Sun Tower

With funding and support from the NASA Office of Space Science through the IDEAS program, a team of teachers from Gullett Elementary School in Austin, Texas, and a research scientist at the University of Texas, worked on activities and curriculum to ...

Journal Article

Rock Cycle Roulette: Using dice and probabilities, students interactively learn about the rock cycle

Teachers of environmental science, Earth systems, geology electives, or traditional Earth science courses must teach the rock cycle at some point in the curriculum. This activity moves students through the rock cycle using a cycle chart and a six-sid...

Journal Article

Questions on Cue: Improving classroom practice through better question writing

Constructed response questions gather valuable data but are not often used. This article lists the problems with these questions and addresses the problems by "cueing" the questions—sending a signal to begin a specific action. By cueing the respons...

Journal Article

Presenting Science in a Video-Delivered, Web-Based Format

The authors offered a course entitled Science and Technology in Society to high school students using live video presentations and World Wide Web courseware. Distance-learning high school students performed as well as traditional and distance-learnin...

Journal Article

Teaching Inquiry Skills Using Rainsticks

South American tribes created rainsticks—percussion instruments made from bamboo or dried cactus filled with rice—to appeal to the gods in hopes of bringing rain. In Africa, rainsticks are musical instruments. In the Caribbean, they are used in c...

Journal Article

Idea Bank

The Idea Bank provides tips and techniques for creative teaching, in about 1,000 words. In this month’s Idea Bank learn about science mnemonics, lighting the way with Christmas tree lights, science with statistical applications, bacterial growth an...