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I was in an elementary school where scientists from a nearby university visited the schools periodically to work with the students on a variety of activities and to describe their own research. The students were…
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Request for resources for guiding teachers to become more inquiry based in their teaching
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The NSTA Elementary Science List had an interesting query last week: Steve Geresy asked if anyone has any great books on Early Learning Inquiry that have concrete examples for teachers to guide them through the…
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Next year there will be an opening in the middle school science department. Although I love teaching high school chemistry (my current assignment), I’m tempted by the opportunity to try something different. What…
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I was facilitating a workshop once, and I overhead these statements from two science teachers: My students are so busy, they don’t have time to think and We have so much fun, the students don’t know that they’re…
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Give children tools for exploring a concept and they almost always show me a new way to teach it. In a session of flashlight and mirror exploration, Walter began building by putting a flashlight on top of a single-…
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Overcoming socioeconomic hurdles
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Do you have any advice for working with students in a low-income school? This is my first year in this school, teaching 9th grade environmental science. Classroom management is not an issue and I have a good rapport…
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I was in a school once where the teachers did a “winter” unit on penguins with activities that included trade books, puzzles, writing activities, and the showing of several popular films. But there was not a lot of…
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I would like to curl up in a cave until this sore throat and runny nose goes away. And I would like to know exactly how to prevent the spread of cold viruses—me and every other early childhood teacher! Here are…
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A classic activity to show that air is matter and takes up space is to tuck a piece of tissue into a small clear jar, up end the jar and lower it into a larger container of water. When the small jar is pulled out (still…
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I’m mentoring a new science teacher. I’ve never done this before, so I’m asking teachers, “What’s the best advice your mentor ever gave you?” -Frank, Clarksville, Tennessee…
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Invertebrates in the classroom
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Children often do not think of invertebrates as animals. If we can train ourselves to talk about insects and other invertebrates not as “bugs” but as “small animals” we’ll help children make that connection. Visiting…
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Playing with magnets and learning about the property of materials
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Playing with magnets is a useful science activity in early childhood classrooms because it fosters conversation, exploration of materials, and learning to make predictions. Making a prediction means focusing on what you…
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It’s one thing to get students to recite definitions for the states of matter. But what do they really understand? For instance, the word “gas” is confusing. My students had to stop and think whether the word was…
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Setup day for NSTA staff here in Cincinnati and all is going smoothly. We’re looking forward to thousands of attendees engaging in outstanding professional development and returning to their classrooms full of…
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One of the many rich workshops I attended at the NSTA Portland Area Conference was the Family Science Day Session presented by the Foundation for Family Science. The specific goals of Family Science include: To get…