Was there ever a time when a one-size-fits-all approach to science instruction was appropriate? In the past, it seems that some students were systematically excluded from an expectation of success in the sciences – those with cognitive or physical disabilities, those who did not speak English, or those who did not appear to have the intellectual or reading levels that were thought to be important. Fortunately for our students, we now have many alternative strategies to help all students learn concepts and skills in science.
Having hands-on, collaborative experiences is essential for all students. The article Increasing the Drive of Your Physics Class describes a project in which novice engineers (i.e., students!) design, build, and test paper cars, not just by trial and error but by developing an understanding of the principles. The article has a SciLinks connection with the topic “Roller Coaster Physics” (use TST030802 as the keyword). Most of these have students design a coaster through online simulations. While this is very enjoyable, most of these sites would require the teacher to help students understand and apply the physical principals of force and motion. Wouldn’t these be great to use with a Smart Board and have teams of students contribute their ideas? In Roller Coaster from the Amusement Park Physics site (does anyone use the term “Amusement” Parks anymore?), students design a coaster via a simulation with explanations of physical principles. The Funderstanding Roller Coaster has a description of some of the physics principles and students must include variables such as gravity in their design. Roller Coaster Physics is an animation showing the physics principles in the various part of a coaster. Roller Coasters and Amusement Park Physics doesn’t have a simulation, but it does have an in-depth discussion of physical principles. This would be a good supplement to the other sites, especially to Build Your Own Coaster, which is fun to explore but does not have any explanations or suggestions.
Two other articles this month, “Helping Students with Learning Disabilities Succeed” and “Sounds Like Success: A Framework for Equitable Assessment,” address the needs of students with learning disabilities and those who are English language learners. As I looked at the suggestions for assisting these students, I have to wonder why we don’t use some of these instruction and assessment strategies with all students? Wouldn’t all students benefit from having advance organizers, focused vocabulary, clearly stated assessment items, and themes or explicitly stated goals for a unit of instruction? I’m currently working on another project that is based on the work of Robert Marzano and the book Classsroom Instruction That Works by Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock. (This is available from Amazon or from the bookstore of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. The book describes research-based strategies that have been shown to help all students. On the web, you can find a summary of the strategies or the study guide. I can really recommend this book and the companion handbook if you would like more information on strategies that work.
The assessment article has a SciLinks connection with the topic “Assessment Strategies” (use TST030801 as the keyword). You’ll see that many of the websites there also deal with reading and writing in science, which many students need help with.

You’ve heard the old saying that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. In the case of the NSTA Boston National Conference, when the city is ready, thousands of teachers will appear!
This student is ready to absorb as much science education as my brain can hold–and to get “up close and personal” with the teachers for whom I write articles and assist with queries. It always energizes me to meet you in person and to witness your professional development in the sessions I attend. I return home wishing I could be in school again with you as my science teacher and with all of the wonderful teaching tools now available.
If you happen to see me—or any NSTA staff member, for that matter—please feel free to let us know how we can help you be the best educator you can be.

Our science department meetings were interesting. My colleague and I taught life and environmental science, and our counterparts in the high school sciences would poke (good-natured) fun at our “woodsy-birdsy” themes. Well, I hope they’re reading this month’s issue. The article “Back to the Future” really spoke to me. It’s scary to know that our students spend less time in the outdoors in favor of other diversions. And we don’t help matters by building schools without windows and yards and by trying to “cover” as many facts as we can instead of going beyond the facts in authentic investigations.
The articles Ecological Field Studies and Place-Based Investigations and Authentic Inquiry describe authentic investigations that don’t necessary involve a lot of travel. One question my students investigated dealt with the effects of lawn chemicals on the diversity of lawn plants and the critters that live in the soil. For those students who didn’t have a lawn of their own, we used the grass in front of the school for their samples (the principal was not thrilled, but he got over it). Our class motto soon became “It’s not just a yard – it’s an ecosystem.” I don’t have all of the documentation anymore for this activity, but if you contact me via a comment, I can share an outline of the investigation. For more on ecosystems, go to Scilinks and enter the term ecosytem or the Keyword TST020801 for sites related to Ecology.
Yellowstone is a place I think we’d all like to study. The 1988 Fires in Yellowstone article describes a new web resource The Greater Yellowstone Science Learning Center and includes a poster about the park and the wildfires. This is a wonderful website that’s worth taking a look at. Not being a creative bulletin board person, I really like this kind of poster as a source of information to stimulate student interest and discussion. For more resources on wildfires in general, go to SciLinks and enter wildfire as a keyword.
It’s spring and time for field trips (at least for those schools that still have field trips – another topic for another time!). Most of us want these to be learning experiences, rather than just letting kids loose on unsuspecting guides and docents at zoos, museums, and gardens. And so we see the “scavenger hunt” lists which students use in a race to gather trivial information (name three frogs that live in the rain forest). While I must confess that I’ve used these, I’m excited about how the students in the article It’s a Zoo Out There used their time at the zoo to conduct a real behavioral study of a particular animal and present their findings. What impressed me was the fact that the teacher took time before the study started to model and provide guided practice in observing animal behavior. I wonder if this is the missing link – the scaffolding that many students need, not because they are slow or unmotivated but because they just don’t have the experience we think they should have. It seems like a few sessions of modeling, “think aloud,” and practice will pay off in positive experiences.
With all this reading about nature and field studies, I’m going out for a walk!

I’ve been attending NSTA conferences off and on since the early 1980s. But this year, since I’ve retooled (rather than retired!), I don’t have to report back to a district on specific topics, and I’m taking a break from doing presentations. I’m a free agent!
Conferences are rejuvenating. It’s exciting to be surrounded by thousands of folks who share similar interests, and there is so much to learn, both formally at sessions and informally through meeting other people. But it’s hard to get to conferences, especially if it’s on the opposite coast and travel expenses are high. This time of March could also be the testing window for state assessments, and I know it’s hard to get good substitutes (or any substitutes at all in some cases).
But here’s an offer you can’t refuse. Since I am a free agent, I can plan my own conference schedule. If you can’t make the conference, but there are hot topics you’d like to suggest, let me know and I’ll focus my energies on a few of them and report back through this conference blog site, with session summaries and resources. Just add your suggestions through a comment below!

I’ll give Tyson credit – he spelled my last name correctly (no mean feat) and South Jersey includes the shore, so close enough.
I joined the NSTA staff only a few months ago, so I am looking forward to my first National Conference in Boston. As a first-timer, I hope to share this perspective with all of you.

The articles in this issue focus on one of the fundamental processes of science: observation. How big? What happened? What changed? How does it feel? Students enjoy observing and using tools such as magnifiers, lenses, rulers, and scales. Inferencing, however, is a more complex process, as several articles point out. Log into SciLinks and use the keyword inference. You’ll get sites that are geared for grades 5-8, but many of these ideas can be adapted for younger or older students.
Inferencing is something for which students needs lots of guided practice. Doing a “think aloud” for the class, in which you verbalize your thought processes, can be a powerful instructional tool. These processes can’t be contained in a single “unit” but rather should be part of every unit of instruction. I found that with my less experienced students, I couldn’t assume a “once and done” approach. I had to be relentless!
Another topic that I had to keep reinforcing was fact vs opinion. Middle school students love to express their opinions! But we had to focus on facts in our written descriptions: “It felt moist to the touch” vs “It was gross.” There are several websites that can help your students to work on fact and opinion, too: Binky’s Facts and Opinions (from PBS Kids), a Fact Versus Opinion lesson plan, Is It What I Think or What I Know? , and Fact or Opinion? Rather than formal lessons on Observation/Inference and Fact/Opinion, I found it was better to embed the concepts in everyday events. With younger students, you could ask students during “show and tell” time to give one fact and one opinion about their object. Or during a class discussion (on any topic), ask the students whether a statement is an observation or an inference. I like to have all students participate, sometimes with a thumbs-up. But I also taught them a few letters of the manual alphabet so that they could raise their hands with the sign for O (observation) and I (Inference).
After reading the articles on magnifiers, you might want to go to SciLinks and enter the code SC020801 for Microscopes. Two of these sites go beyond simply naming the parts of a microscope. In Bugscope classes may remotely operate a scanning electron microscope to image bugs at high resolution. Classes design their own experiment and provide their own bugs. With the Virtual Electron Microscope interactive game, students view objects through a virtual electron microscope and try to identify the specimen.
Science is more than just observing for the sake of observing. There is usually a purpose. Here are three online projects in which students can record their observations as part of an ongoing study:

• The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology has a number of online projects, including the Great Backyard Bird Count, Project Feederwatch, and Bird Sleuth , as well as other more specialized projects described on the websites. (I worked with a third-grade class on the Feederwatch project, from observing and counting birds to entering the data online. The students were enthusiastic about watching the birds (and disappointed when at first their feeder did not attract many – the teacher turned that situation into an “I wonder why…” lesson.) Although the Great Backyard Bird Count is over for this year, the website is worth taking a look at for ideas for next year’s event!
• Monarch Watch is gearing up for this spring. A colleague of mine used the book “The Hungry Caterpillar” as an introduction to a study of butterflies, and with ideas on this site, she came up with some truly wonderful (and meaningful) questions for her students to investigate and write about.
• I just heard of a new project in which students, gardeners, and other interested folks can observe flowering plants in their gardens, schoolyards, and lawns. The observations can be entered into a national database to help scientists study the effects of climate change by observing the timing of flowers and foliage. The press release from the National Science Foundation describes the project and the actual Project BudBurst has lots of ideas and resources (use the “How Do I Participate” link to get to the teacher resources). If the URL looks familiar, it’s because this project is sponsored by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Studies, which also does the Windows on the Universe site – another of my favorites.

The exciting thing about these projects is that students are using their observation skills in projects that go beyond the classroom walls. If students are involved in these projects, I wonder how many will sustain this interest outside of the classroom?

In much of the country, February is not the month in which we think of environmental activities, at least the outdoor kind. But this month’s Science Scope has a lot of suggestions for teacher-tested activities that can be done at any time of the year – from exploring the microorganisms that help termites digest wood to working with spectroscopes to study light.
Sometimes our attempts to integrate subject areas can be superficial or contrived. But “Using Art to Get Kids Into and Doing Science” looks like an authentic way to integrate science and art. Even if you’re not into birds, perhaps the same type of activity could be done with other animals, plants, or the sun and moon. But if you are into birds, the annual Great Backyard Bird Count is February 15-18, 2008. (schoolyards or parks would count, too!) Even if it’s too late for you to participate this year, you can add it to your plans for next year. But be sure to look at the website. The section “Explore the Data” has maps and lots of searchable data from previous years by species, geographical location, and other topics. Projects such as this and Cornell’s Project Feederwatch and Bird Sleuth are neat ways to engage kids. (I worked with a third-grade class on the Feederwatch project, from observing and counting birds to entering the data online.) Along with these sites, you may want to check out Cornell’s online exhibit Beautiful Birds just because we need to see beautiful things once in a while.
“The Fish Kill Mystery” illustrates how case studies can provide a context for student thinking. This particular case study is from the Case Studies in Science collection. There are lots of case studies there, but the best thing is the “Teaching Notes” link for each one with background information and suggestions. If you use SciLinks to get a list of suggested websites with more information and related activities for the topic, you have the makings of an engaging study.
If you’re interested in “Investigating Ecosystems in a Bottle,” there are additional ideas at the Bottle Biology websites. Who know there were so many investigations involving 2-liter bottles! For additional resources related to the topics and activities in “How Do Our Actions Affect Water Quality?” log into SciLinks and enter water quality or groundwater as keywords for links to websites with activities and background information. The article “Alien Invaders!” has a board game that reviews invasive species. For more on this topic, log into SciLinks and use the keyword invasive species. One of the best of these resources is NOAA’s Lionfish Invasion which describes a real-life invasion, with graphics, video, and lots of teacher resources on the topic of invasive species.
I have to admit that when I search for a topic, I often look at the wiki article first. It seems like wikis are becoming the basic encyclopedia of the digital age. But many schools block wikis, and many teachers will not let students use them at all! In the BI (before Internet) era, we used to discourage students from using basic encyclopedias as their only source of information. Perhaps that’s the strategy we should be using with wikis –an initial background source, but certainly not the only one. The authors of “The Collaborative Powers of Wikis” describe the value of having students create wikis. I wonder if by creating and maintaining one themselves, students will see firsthand the advantages and shortcomings of this source of information. According to the Wikispaces site, teachers can get private space for free. It might be interesting for a few teachers to test-drive the process first. The authors mention that Tree of Life and Wikibooks are worth taking a look at, as examples of worthwhile wikis related to science.
Don’t forget to check out SciLinks and enter SS080201 as a code for a list of websites related to environmental activities.

As I was reading my February issues of the NSTA publications, it occurred to me how there is a common thread among them. The lead article in The Science Teacher is “Back to the Future?” which looks at nature-study as an approach to teaching. The whole issue of Science Scope is devoted to environmental studies, and a wonderful article in Science and Children shows what students can learn from walking a nature trail.
As I reflected on these writings, I looked over at a needlework on the wall of my den. It was a quotation from the poet Wordsworth: Come forth into the light of things – Let Nature be your teacher. These words were my guiding principle as a life science teacher, but at the time, I never could find the entire poem. BI (before Internet) I would have to have gone through all of his poems to find the right one. But with the Internet, I decided to google the lines and see what I could find. I was surprised to see how it resonates with this month’s themes of nature study and environmental activities. Here it is.
THE TABLES TURNED
AN EVENING SCENE ON THE SAME SUBJECT
UP! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you’ll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun, above the mountain’s head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There’s more of wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless–
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:–
We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.
The title is a little obscure, but apparently this is a follow-up to another poem in which someone criticizes Wordsworth for daydreaming by a lake and not paying attention to his books. Although this poem is from 1798, does it still speak to us in terms of what is important for students (and for ourselves)?