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  • Birthday Candles

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about how we see objects. The probe is designed to find out if students know that light must be reflected from an object and enter the eye in order to…

  • Can It Reflect Light?

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about reflection. The probe is designed to find out if students recognize that all objects we can see reflect some light.

  • Get Ready for the 2023-24 Solar Eclipse 'Double-Header'

    Blog Post |

  • Safety Recommendations for Closing Out the School Year

    Blog Post |

  • Catching a Cold

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about infectious disease. The probe is designed to find out whether students use the germ theory to explain what causes an infectious disease like the…

  • Is It Food?

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about food. The probe is designed to find out if students use a scientific definition of food to distinguish food items from nonfood items.

  • Biological/Chemical Waste Management

    Blog Post |

  • Safety Recommendations for Opening the New School Year

    Blog Post |

  • Is It “Fitter”?

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about natural selection. The probe is designed to find out how students interpret the commonly used phrase “survival of the fittest.”

  • Adaptation

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about biological adaptation. The probe is designed to find out if students think animals intentionally adapt to a change in their environment.

  • Chicken Eggs

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about food, transformation of matter, growth and development, conservation of mass, and systems. The concepts underlying this probe are complex. It is…

  • Refashioning Informal Education to Support 3-D Learning

    Blog Post |

  • Teaching the Daily Dos

    Blog Post |

  • Sustainable Systems for Quality Teaching

    Press Release |

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