Light Students' Interest in the Nature of Science

Journal Article | August 2003

The nature of science is a vital part of students’ educational experience. Learn how to apply the study of electrical circuits into an activity that seamlessly unites content, process, and the nature of science.

Formative Assessment Probes: Seeing the Light

Journal Article | January 2012

This column focuses on promoting learning through assessment. This month’s issue discusses students' preconceptions related to the reflection of light.

Science Sampler: Light in the media spotlight

Journal Article | June 2006

Movies, music, cartoons, comics, popular literature, and internet websites are all powerful resources for science teachers. Collectively, these media transform words from a textbook into reference points for…

Shedding Light on the Inverse-Square Law

Journal Article | September 2004

One way to show students that they can “do” science is to have them use an observable event to generate a relationship that can be used as a predictive tool. If that relationship can be quantified using “curve-fitting”…

The Prepared Practitioner: Shedding Light on Misconceptions

Journal Article | September 2008

This month’s theme is classroom research—a great opportunity to discuss one of the author’s favorite studies, which took place in a single classroom, examining a single teacher, and a single instructional unit. What…

Light and Color: I Wonder Why (e-book)

eBook | June 2014

This book unfolds as a series of observations about light, including where it comes from, how it bounces off of people and objects, and what we mean when we say the colors of a rainbow are the colors in light.…

Scope on the Skies: Star light, star bright

Journal Article | February 2009

In astronomy, the brightness of a star is described in terms of a star’s magnitude. Stellar magnitude is expressed two different ways, using the terms apparent magnitude and absolute magnitude. For both magnitudes, the…