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  • The Ants Have It!

    Journal Article |

    This memorable activity creatively applied students’ knowledge of ants—and it all started with a wonderful Lawrence Hall GEMS guide and a teacher with a sweet tooth. The students learned that the success of the colony…

  • Editor’s Roundtable: Threads of change

    Journal Article |

    Egg, larva, pupa, adult, done! How easy it would be if teaching students to grasp the nature and role of change was that simple! Getting students to observe and attend to the changes around them—in their natural…

  • Teaching through Trade Books: Rocking Around the Rock Cycle

    Journal Article |

    “What type of rock is this?” is a common question spoken by all children at some point in their young lives. Many students have rocks of all shapes and sizes in their “collections.” In this column, young students will…

  • Methods and Strategies: From Landfills to Robots

    Journal Article |

    Third-grade students work like engineers as they learn about recycling and reusing materials, encouraging change at home.

  • Idea Bank: Vectors on the Basketball Court

    Journal Article |

    An Idea Bank published in the April/May 2009 issue of The Science Teacher describes an experiential physics lesson on vectors and vector addition (Brown 2009). Like its football predecessor, the basketball-based…

  • Safer Science: Consumer “Science” in Chem Labs?

    Journal Article |

    English, mathematics, social science, and other nonscience classes are being held in science laboratories during unassigned laboratory time. However, science laboratories are unsafe places. They contain hazardous…

  • Scope on the Skies: Summer Skies (2009)

    Journal Article |

    This summer the planet parade shifts to the morning skies as most of the visible planets are arranged over the southeastern to southwestern horizons before the Sun rises. And only one planet, Saturn, graces the evening…

  • Society for College Science Teachers: Cheatin' Ain't the Cowboy Way

    Journal Article |

    As academics, we are generally appalled by students who cheat or plagiarize, perhaps because it violates our sense of right and wrong. As educators who are interested in improving college science teaching, we need be…

  • Science Sampler: Fun with a flume—Ideas for inquiry

    Journal Article |

    A flume is a channel that is constructed to divert a flow of water for a specific purpose. Many students recognize the term flume from experience with an amusement park ride called the “log flume.” For the inquiry-based…

  • Science Sampler: Playing games

    Journal Article |

    Playing games in class is always a welcome change, but designing science games can be very time consuming for the teacher. This article describes how to enlist student help in creating new games. Examples and a grading…

  • The Moon Also Rises: Investigating celestial motion models

    Journal Article |

    Investigating celestial motion models is the focus of this Earth-Moon-Sun (EMS) astronomy unit. The model involves relevant motions of these objects that can be used to explain Earth-based astronomical phenomena—day and…

  • Ask the Experts: Summer 2008

    Journal Article |

    In this final “Ask the Experts” column, our own resident “expert” and Department Editor, Marc Rosner, addresses the following questions: • Why is chocolate bad for dogs? • Where does the color go when…

  • Materials Repurposed

    Journal Article |

    Few teachers find themselves with the support to purchase all of the materials they ideally need to supply their classrooms. Buying one or two simple, ready-made items can put a serious strain on anyone’s budget.…

  • Career of the Month: An Interview with Volcanologist Jeffrey Byrnes

    Journal Article |

    This column features interviews with professionals using science in the workplace. In this month’s issue, Jeff Byrnes shares how his education and career path inspired him to be a volcanologist.

  • Guest Editorial: Science Literacy and the U.S. Congress—A Call from Capitol Hill for Increased Cooperation in Meetng U.S. Technological Challenges

    Journal Article |

    An opinion piece about the important role Congress plays in shaping our national research and development enterprise. Their actions are critical to the success of advancing fundamental scientific understanding and our…

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