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Incorporating art into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has been a natural consequence for many teachers; for others, a more deliberate process. Art has been intrinsic to the STEAM Lab in the Millstone Township (New Jersey) Sc...
By Lynn Petrinjak
Blog Post
Science centers—effective and engaging
While handling and examining objects from nature, such as sea shells, pinecones, rocks, and plant leaves, children may encounter patterns and experience properties of different materials....
By Peggy Ashbrook
Blog Post
For the STEAM Fair at Doane Academy in Burlington, New Jersey, upper-school students “complete projects in any field as long as they [relate] in some way to science concepts,” says Michael Russell, STEAM coordinator and mathematics and science de...
By Debra Shapiro
Blog Post
What Does 3-Dimensional Space Look Like
When transitioning my classroom instruction to three dimensional learning, I decided to start with one or two areas in each unit or lesson set where I felt the most need. I was already purposeful in selecting activities that I carefully sequenced to ...
By Korei Martin
Blog Post
Digital Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom: When is a child ready?
Guest blogger Carrie Lynne Draper shares resources and discusses the use of digital technology in early childhood programs....
By Peggy Ashbrook
Blog Post
Global Thinking Inside and Outside the Classroom
Dynamic Equilibrium. These two words represent what is essential in teaching Earth science: the idea that forces are constantly working against one another, but often do so in ways that nearly counteract one another....
By Cindy Workosky
Blog Post
Cereal to Stream Tables: Putting Stability and Change in Students’ Hands
Stability and Change is one of the seven Crosscutting Concepts (CCs) that can be difficult to convey in a lesson. Other CCs like Patterns, Cause and Effect, and Systems and System Models can be easily incorporated in the structure of a lesson. With a...
By Cindy Workosky
Blog Post
Meet the 2018 NSTA/ NCTM STEM Teacher Ambassadors!
We are proud to be working with 2018 NSTA/NCTM STEM Teacher Ambassadors, who are here at NSTA’s headquarters this week participating in an intensive communications, media, and policy training designed to expand the classroom teacher voice at the lo...
By Korei Martin
Blog Post
Within 20 Years, These 8 Inventions Could Become Reality
Imagine if you were asked what technology would look like in two decades. Through our ExploraVision science competition, that very same question has fueled over 400,000 young minds in the U.S. and Canada for 26 years. This year, nearly 5,000 student...
By Korei Martin
Blog Post
How can you check for understanding during a lecture to make sure it is engaging? —S. Ohio Although I hated lecturing, I often felt the need to do so, particularly in advanced grades. My advice is to keep direct instruction short and avoid mindles...
By Gabe Kraljevic
Blog Post
The power of phenomenon based learning
Guest blogger Anne Lowry teaches preschool in Reno, Nevada. She has been teaching for over twenty years, drawing on her undergraduate background in archeology and geology, and her masters in early childhood education, to create a classroom full of in...
By Peggy Ashbrook
Blog Post
I was wondering how other teachers implement technology in the classroom? I think that simulations have the ability to encourage student inquiry, but often their presence seems to distract students from the learning. What are your thoughts? —K., W...
By Gabe Kraljevic
Blog Post
I’m a pre-service teacher who is a little scared about teaching inquiry-based science in the classroom! What are some things you wish you knew before teaching elementary school science? —K., New Mexico ...
By Gabe Kraljevic
Blog Post
Each month in NSTA’s Science Scope journal, Bob Riddle writes Scope on the Skies, an informational article on topics related to astronomy....
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
The Safety Component in Lab Renovations and New Construction
As states continue to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards and STEM curricula programs, science teachers will be asked to engage students in a way that requires specific lab facilities. The demands of three-dimensional teaching could...
By Kenneth Roy
Blog Post
New Committee Members Get Ready to Contribute Their Voice and Join Dedicated NSTA Members in Service
On June 1, 2018, new committee, advisory board, and panel members begin their term of office in service to NSTA over the next three years. As they do so, I would like to welcome each of them on behalf of the National Science Teachers Association (NST...
By Christine Royce
Blog Post
Find Out What Your Students Really Think and Have Inside Their Heads
Uncovering Student Ideas in Science: 25 Formative Assessment Probes, Volume 1, Second Edition by Page Keeley offers a variety of formative assessment probes that will help teachers gain insight into students’ thinking on 60 core science concepts. �...
By Carole Hayward
Blog Post
I have applied to multiple teaching programs for my time after college, but I’m worried that I look too young to be taken seriously as a teacher. How do you gain the respect of students who may not be much younger than you? —D., California I...
By Gabe Kraljevic
Blog Post
Learning through online presentations: STEM in 11 parts
How does online learning through watching a webinar work for you? I am most engaged when I am able to participate in a live session where presenters might respond directly to my typed questions. But that means I have to be online at a set time so I o...
By Peggy Ashbrook
Blog Post
Out with the old, in with the new?
I am about to graduate and become a new teacher. Is it a good idea to use lesson plans that are handed to me and maybe need to be tweaked or is it better to write brand new lesson plans each year? —G., Florida...
By Gabe Kraljevic
Blog Post
“Mathematics is a tool that is key to understanding science.” NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press....
By Peggy Ashbrook
Blog Post
Power Tool Safety in Science Labs
The use of power tools, such as table saws, drill presses, and miter saws, is becoming more common in science and STEM laboratories. All power tools have special mechanical and non-mechanical safety hazards that can result in injuries, including abra...
By Kenneth Roy
Blog Post
I Can’t, in My Heart, Go Back to Our Old Curriculum
That was my response this week at our middle school science staff meeting. We’ve spent the last two school years exploring the new Michigan standards (which are identical to NGSS) and trying out units from different curriculum programs. While t...
By Korei Martin
Blog Post
What a Misplaced Mattress Teaches Kids About Scientific Push and Pull Forces
Good morning! Time to head out the door and start the day. Wait. What’s that thing up there in the tree? It’s … a bed. And it’s hanging upside down. Huh? How did that happen? So Begins a Delightful Mystery ...
By Carole Hayward
Blog Post
Wild Spirits: Measuring Life and Death with the Pasco Wireless CO2 sensor
A student once asked me why if carbon dioxide is so much heavier than air, how come the lower atmosphere doesn’t become thick with CO2 and kill everything? “Umm, well…because it…umm…doesn’t?” The student then asked if I was going to ans...
By Martin Horejsi
Blog Post
Kindergarten Citizen Scientists: Taking Action to Save the Earth
My kindergarten students recently became citizen scientists as they investigated their big questions about the natural world around them. The snow finally melted, the critters have made their appearance, and the plants are beginning to bloom. It’s ...
By Cindy Workosky
Blog Post
I am a student teacher in a kindergarten class and I have been struggling with focusing on laying the foundation for my students. But how much is too little? How much is too much for students at such an emergent level? —Y., Arizona ...
By Gabe Kraljevic
Blog Post
What can we do to better support our teachers in ways such as development to help decrease the burnout rate? —I., Connecticut ...
By Gabe Kraljevic
Blog Post
Beyond the E-Book: NGSS Professional Book Study
How much do you know about the Next Generation Science Standards and what they mean for your classroom? NSTA knows it can be challenging to learn the complex ins and outs of the NGSS on your own....
By Carole Hayward
Blog Post
Is a seed alive? Is a seed magic? Where does a seed come from?
Understanding the complex lives and lifecycles of plants is a lifetime’s worth of work that can begin in early childhood as children feel the texture of seeds dotting a strawberry, watch a maple seed twirling down, or open a sugar snap pea pod to c...
By Peggy Ashbrook