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Journal Article
Science Sampler: Simple machine junk cars
During the month of May, the author’s eighth-grade physical science students study the six simple machines through hands-on activities, reading assignments, videos, and notes. At the end of the month, they can easily identify the six types of simpl...
Journal Article
Picture THIS: Taking Human Impact Seriously
Unfortunately, middle school students often view human impact as an abstract idea over which they have no control and do not see themselves as contributing to the Earth’s environmental decline. How better to uncover students’ ideas concerning hum...
Journal Article
Scope on the Skies: March measurements
While science is certainly language based, it is also bilingual in the sense that mathematics is also “spoken” in science classes. There are many opportunities throughout the school year to integrate the language of mathematics with science lesso...
Journal Article
Science Sampler: Magic termites—Exploring scientific inquiry
The objective of the termite experiment is to walk students through the process of designing and conducting an experiment while allowing them to use inquiry-based methods to infer why, in this lab, termites follow the line of blue Bic or Paper Mate b...
Journal Article
Photovoice: A Community-Based Socioscientific Pedagogical Tool
Situating instruction in a local context, socioscientific issues (SSIs) offers students an opportunity to become active participants in the community and has the potential to encourage them to authentically and critically participate and engage in un...
Journal Article
A Study of the St. Lawrence River Ecological Habitat
Save the River, a grassroots advocacy group established in 1978, lobbies for policies to preserve the upper St. Lawrence River and uses the community’s help to keep an eye on the existing habitats. Recently, they procured the Fresh Sound Foundation...
Journal Article
Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K–12 (books published in 2009)
What makes an outstanding book for a young reader? Although it would be hard to create a rubric for every book, experienced teachers recognize them quickly. They fascinate and captivate with both their content and style. Award-winning trade books ins...
Journal Article
This inquiry-based activity provides a real-world example that connects to students’ everyday seafood choices. In fact, many students went home and insisted to their parents that they should only buy “green” seafood choices. It was also an effe...
Journal Article
Project Citizen is a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education’s congressionally funded Center for Civic Education, which sponsors both domestic and international programs. The Center for Civic Education’s Civitas International Progra...
Journal Article
This set of lessons is designed to be carried out in all of the subject-area classes. Science lessons are expanded and taught in social studies, math, and language arts classes. This highlights the far-reaching impact that science has on other worldv...
Journal Article
Science Sampler: Commercial video games in the science classroom
There’s no denying that middle school students are interested in video games. With such motivation present, we as teachers should harness this media in a productive way in our classrooms. Students today are much more technologically advanced than e...
Journal Article
Teacher’s Toolkit: A framework for facilitating equitable discourse in science classrooms
In traditional classroom discourse, the teacher controls the discussion, asking most of the questions and calling on students to respond. This model does not work well for the inquiry-based classroom, which depends on engagement, peer interaction, an...