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I’ve worked with several schools that are framing their curriculum and units of instruction around big ideas, key understandings, generative topics, or themes (the terminology depends on which model is being used). The rationale for using an ov...
By Mary Bigelow
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In this Year of Science, this early childhood science teacher is excited to have a President who says, “When it comes to science, elevating science once again, and having lectures in the White House where people are talking about traveling to th...
By Peggy Ashbrook
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Dinosaurs—a reason to draw and write
Dinosaurs! This high-interest subject is a focus for questions relating to how animals live in many different environmental niches. What evidence do we have for what we think we know about dinosaurs?...
By Peggy Ashbrook
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With the theme of “record keeping,” we might have expected the cover photo to show children writing in a notebook or typing on a computer. Instead, the editor chose a photo of a child looking through binoculars with an “Oh Wow!̶...
By Mary Bigelow
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Vote and participate in your NSTA
Voting may not be a scientific way of answering a question but it’s the way members of the National Science Teachers Association choose among the dedicated professionals who are interested in serving on the Board of Directors. The more we participa...
By Peggy Ashbrook
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We have a new principal. She doesn’t seem to understand what it’s like to be a science teacher. For example, she wants to schedule non-science classes in the labs during our planning periods. One of my colleagues wants to give her a list of w...
By MsMentorAdmin
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It used to be that a unit on the polar regions focused on historical explorations or cute stories about polar bears and penguins. But with the Internet, students can get involved themselves in real-time explorations and studies, such as the ones fea...
By Mary Bigelow
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Does it seem to you that the pigeons and seagulls that roost and circle the grocery parking lot are more active in winter? I wonder if they are really more active or just more noticeable as there is less action on the street with fewer people walking...
By Peggy Ashbrook
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My school wants to encourage more parental involvement. Any suggestions? —Madeleine, Lafayette, Louisiana ...
By MsMentorAdmin
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Hello out there! Ann Cutler begins blogging for JCST
Most of the time, the inside of my head feels twenty five years old. In the same way that human height seems to reach an apex at about that time, I believe our minds develop a sort of default value for our imagined age. From behind my eyes, I don’t...
By AnnC
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I was in an elementary school where scientists from a nearby university visited the schools periodically to work with the students on a variety of activities and to describe their own research. The students were impressed with meeting “realR...
By Mary Bigelow
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Request for resources for guiding teachers to become more inquiry based in their teaching
The NSTA Elementary Science List had an interesting query last week: Steve Geresy asked if anyone has any great books on Early Learning Inquiry that have concrete examples for teachers to guide them through the process of becoming more inquiry based ...
By Peggy Ashbrook
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Next year there will be an opening in the middle school science department. Although I love teaching high school chemistry (my current assignment), I’m tempted by the opportunity to try something different. What should I consider to help me dec...
By MsMentorAdmin
Blog Post
I was facilitating a workshop once, and I overhead these statements from two science teachers: My students are so busy, they don’t have time to think and We have so much fun, the students don’t know that they’re learning....
By Mary Bigelow
Blog Post
Give children tools for exploring a concept and they almost always show me a new way to teach it. In a session of flashlight and mirror exploration, Walter began building by putting a flashlight on top of a single-eyepiece, single-mirror periscope....
By Peggy Ashbrook