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Book Chapter
Action projects are an invaluable way to engage students in authentic, real-life application of the concepts they have learned relating to the environment and a wonderful means of instilling a sense of environmental stewardship.This chapter offers su...
Book Chapter
The intent of this chapter is not to review the literature that justifies and rationalizes the implementation of field-based learning experiences for elementary and middle school students and teachers. The authors instead provide narrative statements...
Book Chapter
Making Mendel’s Model Manageable
Genetics is often a fascinating but difficult subject for middle level students. They can see the results of genes in every organism, but trying to visualize what happens at the level of genes is challenging for concrete thinkers. This activity prese...
Book Chapter
The impetus for this book and for much of the nation’s conversation during recent years about the impending “shortfall” of science teachers was the publication in 2007 of a National Academy of Sciences study, provocatively titled Rising Above t...
Book Chapter
How Did Teaching First Gain and Then Lose Its Professional Status?
There is widespread agreement that science teaching is more than a career—it’s a “calling,” and it’s the “discovery” that hooks teachers into doing science. This chapter presents “The Elements of the Profession” sidebar, and if one...
Book Chapter
The Long Shadow of No Child Left Behind
The No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law January 2002, and started a multistate effort to push for “accountability” in the nation’s locally controlled schools—all U.S. students needed to achieve grade-level reading and math proficienc...
Book Chapter
Ongoing Efforts to Elevate Teachers' Capability and Status
The publication of A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform in 1983, was more than just another report on the need for school reform. In this chapter, the authors examine the impact on teachers and teaching of some reforms, that, unlik...
Book Chapter
Engaging Science Teachers in the Wider World of Science
This chapter focuses on how secondary science teachers can remain connected—as professionals—to science and scientists. It features four programs designed to do this, all based on a similar rationale, namely, that secondary science teachers need ...
Book Chapter
Science Teaching Elsewhere: Spotlight on Finland
The United States competes with graduates from other countries. In this chapter, the authors pose the question: What can we learn from their systems, particularly with regard to science teaching as a profession? The chapter focuses on one European c...
Book Chapter
Empowering Science Teachers to Lead
For too long, teachers have allowed others to make work-related decisions for them. Science teachers need to see themselves as the key to the success of the educational enterprise. This chapter provides the first steps teachers need to take to be hea...
Book Chapter
Air Mass Matters: Creating a Need-to-Know
Air has weight and exerts a pressure of 10 N/cm2 (or 14.7 lbs/in2) at sea level. Gases are not “no thing.” Gases have mass, occupy space, exert pressure, and are composed of molecules separated by truly “empty” space. Inertia, or the tendency...
Book Chapter
This chapter discusses what the United States has long believed are the essentials with regard to teacher compensation: pay, tenure, and the presence or absence of unions in determining teachers' compensation and working conditions. The chapter also ...
Book Chapter
Birds, Bugs, and Butterflies: Science Lessons for Your Outdoor Classroom
Among the wild animals that may travel through a school yard, birds, bugs, and butterflies are the most common—the focus of most of the lessons in this chapter. It offers a variety of activities to allow you to “tame” the wildlife to help you t...
Book Chapter
The same water that has existed on Earth for millions of years travels through a series of steps in a cycle from mountains to the sea, flows in and out of the cells in your body, and comprises 95% of the mass of a jellyfish. In short, water is the co...
Book Chapter
It is easy for ecology to degenerate into lists of vocabulary words and isolated concepts, leaving students without an appreciation for the complexity of ecological systems. This chapter is designed to help students think about the connections betwee...