The evolution of science is seldom about solitary individuals busy at work in labs making discoveries. This is especially true of the Earth sciences, where time-intensive fieldwork is usually required. Single scientists are rarely capable of amassing the requisite data sets to form grand, unifying theories. This is the case with the new airburst…

Although inquiry-based science teaching has been around since the 1960s, many teachers are slow to incorporate inquiry principles into their science lessons. The authors address this issue by using an analogy between a magician's card trick and open inquiry. This analogy was chosen to portray a difference of perspective and demonstrate how the…

One school offers zipTrips as an alternative to actual field trips taken outside of school. ZipTrips are web- and broadcast-delivered electronic field trips that include online videos, lesson plans, and a live, 45-minute interactive program consisting of four core components: an in-studio audience, live interaction with scientists, prerecorded…

In the Walking Out Graphs Lesson described here, students experience several types of representations used to describe motion, including words, sentences, equations, graphs, data tables, and actions. The most important theme of this lesson is that students have to understand the consistency among these representations and form the habit of…

The purpose of this article is to share a learning-cycle sequence of lessons designed to convey the particulate nature of matter through use of physical models and analogical thinking. This activity was adapted from Conceptual Chemistry, a long-running professional development program for teachers of grades 4-9. Conceptual Chemistry's approach is…

The United States has a significant deficit in the number of university students choosing to major in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and subsequently entering STEM professions (National Science Board 2008). One way to address this problem is to find ways to make STEM careers more interesting and intellectually accessible…

This set of lessons is designed to be carried out in all of the subject-area classes. Science lessons are expanded and taught in social studies, math, and language arts classes. This highlights the far-reaching impact that science has on other worldviews. To complete this objective, you and your team of teachers must work together using the…

Middle school students make great learning gains when they participate in lessons that invite them to practice their developing scientific reasoning skills; however, designing developmentally appropriate, clear, and structured lessons about scientific thinking and reasoning can be difficult. This challenge can be met through lessons that teach…

The Sun and the Moon are our most visible neighbors in space, yet their distance and size relative to the Earth are often misunderstood. Science textbooks fuel this misconception because they regularly depict linear images of Moon phases without respect to the actual sizes of the Sun, Earth, and Moon, nor their correlated distances from one…

By virtue of its connection with scientific literacy, the nature of science has been considered essential subject matter for the science curriculum. With this in mind, seventh-grade students were introduced to three aspects of the nature of science: (1) the distinction between observation and inference, (2) the subjective, and (3) the tentative…

The author describes how he used to teach a unit on food webs and ecosystems using actual food webs as models. However, the models used by the author tend to be either too simplistic or too complicated for his students. A few years ago, he solved these problems by making up his own food web, complete with invented plants and animals. The model has…

Introduces a lesson plan on the role of the acorn and its complex community of biotic relationships between animal and fungal organisms. Introduces students to ecological concepts through acorn investigations including dissection of acorns and exploring the organisms' interaction web. (YDS)

Presents an activity in which students in groups explore one planet in the solar system and present their findings to the whole class. Focuses on the planet's location in the solar system, geological features, rate of revolutions, and calendar year. (YDS)

Discusses discrepant events designed as a demonstration to present a situation or phenomenon that has an unexpected and sometimes very surprising outcome. Presents ways of developing science lessons linking discrepant events with the learning cycle as an example. (ASK)

Presents two construction activities that address both state and federal science standards and encourage students to consider career options in mathematics and science. Includes floating concrete and paper bridge activities. (YDS)