All Blog Posts
Blog Post
The article What’s behind the biological classification system in use today? goes beyond memorization and the mnemonic devices ...
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
Educated Opinions: What's Next in Education Reform?
Response to “What’s Next in Education Reform?” From the December 2009 issue of NSTA Reports:...
By Lynn Petrinjak
Blog Post
My colleague and I are hoping to attend NSTA’s national conference this year, our first. The school has funds to cover some of the costs, but one of the school board members says conferences are just excuses to lounge around and play golf! What...
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
Making the connections between science, reading, writing, and media literacy has been a professional interest of mine for many years. So I get really excited when The Science Teacher has literacy as a theme....
By Mary Bigelow
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Gardening catalogs arriving daily? Help is on the way!
Is the arrival of gardening catalogs inspiring you to dream about planting with your students, and plan a garden of any size?...
By Peggy Ashbrook
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Observations and data from nature
The word “data” for some people conjures up pages of numbers or a dreadful experience in statistics class....
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
What's new with NSTA's members?
NSTA members are in conversation in all kinds of places—on these blogs, in NSTA’s Listservs, on our new online communities, and throughout our external social media outposts, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Recent conversations include col...
By Howard Wahlberg
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My colleagues and I would like to try some collaborative projects between elementary and secondary students. Our buildings are not close, so in-person events are impossible during the school day. Do you have any suggestions for projects involving stu...
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
If you were a dinosaur …
Some children love pandas, some love dogs, but many more love dinosaurs. At times it seems young children feel dinosaurs are “more real”—more interesting, more important, more present in their minds—than modern animals. “More real” might ...
By Peggy Ashbrook
Blog Post
A few years ago, I found some interesting background data for a professional development project I was working on–when elementary teachers were asked to name a specific science area that they would find difficult to teach, more than 60% mention...
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
The snow was lovely for me, arriving on a Friday night after my children were home and enough neighbors were in town to make the shoveling more of a community gathering than a huge chore. I did wish that school was in session so I could le...
By Peggy Ashbrook
Blog Post
Here in the Northeast, we had to dig our way through the recent storm, the most snow we’ve had in my neck of the woods for two years! I once hosted an exchange teacher from Australia in January (their summer break), who had never seen snow. Sno...
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
Ask a question … none of us has all the answers but we might have some
Wondering if teaching about magnetism is appropriate for preschoolers, which chemistry activities can be safe for young children, what materials to provide for exploration of gravity, or how to raise butterflies? This is a place to ask a question fo...
By Peggy Ashbrook
Blog Post
Encouraging class participation
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34053291@N05/3948369923/...
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
I’m a new middle school teacher, and last week I had to miss two days due to illness. When I came back, my classroom was in shambles and it appeared that the students did not do any work. What can I do, short of never missing another day, to ma...
By Mary Bigelow