All Resources

Journal Article

Editor's Note: Happy New Year and Welcome to the New Millennium

Science and Children’s editor shares thoughts regarding the current issue....

Journal Article

High School Science Reform

The idea for the Scope, Sequence, and Coordination (SS&C) reform effort was conceived in the early 1980s, primarily in response to practices in U.S. secondary schools that filter out the majority of students from higher level science courses. The cur...

Journal Article

What’s It Like Where You Live? Meeting the Standards through technology-enhanced inquiry

“What’s It Like Where You Live?” is a unit that involves an extended comparison of biomes, defined as regions characterized by distinctive climate, plants, and animals. By designing the curriculum around the Standards, the author was able to su...

Journal Article

The Constructivist Learning Model

Much cognitive science research has been used to support a new model of learning. This most promising new model is called the Constructivist Learning Model (CLM). Russell Yeany (University of Georgia) has called CLM the most exciting idea of the past...

Journal Article

Modern Alchemy

In 1669, a German alchemist named Hennig Brandt identified the element we now call phosphorus. He was the first in his craft to be immortalized because his work marks the beginning of the period when chemical investigators kept detailed records. Fift...

Journal Article

Analyzing the <em>Standards</em>: Looking at using and possibly misusing the science standards

Be they from Benchmarks for Science Literacy, the National Science Education Standards, or a state curriculum framework, standards offer educators a common foundation upon which to base curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Implicit in the efficac...

Journal Article

NSTA’s Response to the TIMSS

The U.S. science education community has been alternately encouraged and disheartened by the results of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). While our fourth graders outperformed students from most countries, our eighth grad...

Journal Article

Science for Society

It is very important to show how open-mindedness and tolerance, or their lack, function in social situations. Ask the pupils to cite personal experiences, or the statements and actions of prominent people, to illustrate the part played in everyday li...

Journal Article

Is Science Really Value Free?

In general, the way that introductory courses in science are taught leads students to a limited view of science: science as totally objective—as the truth, constructed out of numbers, wires, and laboratory animals by faceless and dimensionless rese...

Journal Article

Student-Centered Seismology Activities

This article describes a three-week unit on earthquakes, a high-interest topic that is no doubt taught in most science classrooms. But in this unit, students learn about earthquakes by building equipment for experiments; using physical models, maps, ...

Journal Article

Fan Car Physics

Fan-powered cars are a great way to explore the concept of motion. The handheld fan allows students to control the force acting on the car, thus eliminating a variable that would arise if students pushed the vehicles by hand. This article describes h...

Journal Article

The New Curriculum Movement in Science

The new science courses differ in purpose from traditional courses and so do the tests. A student is first of all required to understand the facts, formulas, and principles he has learned. Therefore, knowing about science and having the ability to me...

Journal Article

Shrimp Farming in the Classroom

In inquiry-based instruction, discovery and learning belong to the students. In this exploration, jumbo shrimp are the source of inspiration. The magic in this project lies not in successfully culturing these shrimp, known as Macrobrachium rosenbergi...

Journal Article

Sowing the Seeds of the <em>Standards</em>: Applying the <em>Standards</em> in the elementary classroom

In this article, the author shares how she developed a unit of study aligned with the Standards that focused on the question “Why do plants have flowers?” The standard that applies to this question is the K–4 Life Science Content Standard C. Pe...

Journal Article

Reaching to the <em>Standards</em>

Sharing inquiry-based teaching ideas with preservice and in-service teachers, other colleagues, and parents will only enhance how science is taught to and perceived by children. With the integration of many subjects, infusion of high-quality literatu...

Journal Article

The Social Responsibilities of Scientists and Science

The following article is based on Dr. Pauling’s address at the annual Convention of the National Science Teachers Association in New York City, April 3. This article was first published in May, 1966....

Journal Article

“Science is About Facts,” or Is It? Changing Student Conceptions About the Nature of Science

This paper analyzes some of the issues in teaching and learning in an introductory physical science course to a group of nonscience majors: elementary teacher education students. In particular, it examines the influence of the course on the students�...

Journal Article

The Case Study: Cooking with Betty Crocker—A Recipe for Case Writing

This column provides original articles on innovations in case study teaching, assessment of the method, as well as case studies with teaching notes. This month’s issue features the general approaches to writing case studies....

Journal Article

Comparing the CO Content of Cigarette Smoke and Auto Exhaust: Measuring Concentrations of Toxic Vapor Using Gas Chromatography

This lab exercise investigates and compares the carbon monoxide content of automobile exhaust and cigarette smoke. The experiment uses gas chromatography with thermal conductivity detection to analyze the percentage by volume concentrations found in ...

Journal Article

Using Dramatizations to Present Science Concepts: Activating Students' Knowledge and Interest in Science

Incorporating dramatizations into science classes is a useful strategy for demonstrating phenomena that are difficult or impossible to observe directly. The dramatizations are designed to help students learn by translating an abstract concept into an...

Journal Article

Multimedia Term Papers in Introductory Earth Science Classes: Using Multimedia Project Technology to Combine Writing, Science, and Technology Instruction

This article explains a methodology to successfully implement student multimedia presentations in introductory earth science classes. Students learn to incorporate World Wide Web images, sound, movies, and text into projects using templates, clip art...

Journal Article

SCST: National Standards for Introductory College Science Courses? Can and Should We Develop Them?

In this column the leadership of SCST shares its views with JCST readers. In this month’s issue the author focuses on establishing national standards for college science teaching—can or should we?...

Journal Article

Why Do Students “Cook” Data? A Case Study on the Tenacity of Misconceptions

This paper describes an extraordinary example of data fabrication in which two students and their course instructor are so certain that they know how an experiment should turn out that they repeatedly dismiss contradictory data until they finally rep...

Journal Article

Guest Editorial: To Reweave a Rainbow—Reflections on the Unity of Knowledge

An opinion piece about the "Unity of Knowledge."...

Journal Article

The Paradigm Changes: But Do Our Students Know That? Tracking the Gradual and Continual Evolution of the Periodic Chart

Although Mendeleeff presented his periodic chart in a paper to the German Chemical Society in 1869, its acceptance was a gradual process. The changes in the chart and its movement to its present position inside the front cover of all texts is a perfe...

Journal Article

Favorite Demonstration: The Effect of Calcium on the Binding of Calmodulin to Calcium/Calmodulin Protein Kinase II: Demonstrating the Calcium-Dependent Binding of Calmodulin to a Target Protein

This exercise visually demonstrates that the binding of calcium to calmodulin changes its conformation to allow binding to a target protein, calcium/calmodulin protein kinase II. It introduces undergraduates to the concept of regulatory pathways cont...

Journal Article

Integrating Introductory Biology and General Chemistry Laboratories: Making the Necessary Connections Between Scientific Disciplines at Boston University

This paper discusses how two different laboratory sections can employ nontraditional investigative laboratory modules that integrate concepts from cell biology, molecular genetics, and chemistry. During each module, students analyze data, draw conclu...

Journal Article

Research and Teaching: Using Learning-Styles Data to Design a Microbiology Course: Addressing a Spectrum of Learning Styles at the University of Puerto Rico

Studies in learning theory indicate that active learning is more effective than passive learning (Matthews, Cooper, Davidson, and Hawkes 1995; McKeachie 1980). Today’s students must be independent thinkers who can function well as team members. Lis...