One of the perks of being an NSTA member is having access to all of the journals online. Regardless of the grade level you teach, the journals have ideas that can be used, adapted, or extended for different levels of student interest and experience.
In the July K-12 journals, the overarching theme seems to be “connections.” The articles have ideas for helping students make connections between the current topic or skill they’re learning with others. The articles also show connections with the NGSS.

Science & Children: Informal Education

Connecting students with the community. Most communities have people, places, or programs that can help students extend what they learn in the classroom or explore new topics. These articles help you make the most of these connections. Here are some SciLinks that are connected to the content topics in the articles:

• Will It Sink or Will It Float? [Buoyancy, Density]
• Inviting Parents to School (Making Lemonade from Scratch) [Dissolve, States of Matter]
• Channeling Your Inner Entomologist [Insects]
• Big Project, Small Leaders [Rivers and Streams, Watersheds]
• Informal Science Learning in the Formal Classroom, It’s a Zoo Out There, and Extending the Classoom [Informal Science Education]
• Why are Hippos Unguligrades? [Adaptation of Animals]

Science Scope: Astronomy

Connecting the Earth with its place in the universe. Captialize on the popularity of the television program Cosmos http://www.cosmosontv.com/ with these articles and classroom ideas. (And I have to wonder why middle school is often the last chance in K-12 for students to study astronomy.) Here are some SciLinks that are connected to the content topics in the articles:

• Astrobiology [Astrobiology, Search for Extraterrestrial Life]
• Including Students in a Model of the Earth, Moon, and Sun System [Reasons for the Seasons, Solar System, Phases of the Moon]
• Planetary Properties: A Systems Perspective [Inner Planets, Outer Planets, Origins of the Solar System]
• Location, location, location (Bob Riddle’s monthly column) [Astronomy, Galaxies]

The Science Teacher – Math-Science Connections
Connecting science and mathematics. The articles in this issue of The Science Teacher provide useful ideas about including mathematics in your science teaching. Here are some SciLinks that are connected to the content topics in the articles:

• Modeling the Millikan Oil Drop Experiment [Electrons in an Atom]
• The Dark Side of the Tube [Statistics in Science]
• Discovering Our Stellar Neighborhood [Astronomy, Stars, How Stars Evolve]
• Graphing the Past [Stratigraphy, Fossils, Graphing Data]
• Striding Through Time [Dinosaurs, Geologic Time]
• Computational Thinking in High School Science Classrooms [Graphing Data, Measurements and Data, Presenting Scientific Data]