JoinAll Blog Posts
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
Blog Post
Do you have some suggestions for how to modify a science experiment for students with physical disabilities that prevent them from doing the activities? – A., Arkansas There are many ways you can modify the experience for students with disa...
By Gabe Kraljevic