Are you attending the NSTA conference in Indianapolis this spring?  At this point, you should be registering, making arrangements for lodging and transportation, and thinking about your lesson plans for the substitute (if you haven’t done so already).

If this the first time you’ve attended the national conference, it can be overwhelming at first. Here are some suggestions, updated from last year’s blog:

Consider attending the first-timers session on the first day. This year, Dr. Christine Royce is hosting the session Conference Tips for First-Timers on Thursday, March 29 3:30–4:30 PM  in the JW Marriott Indianapolis, JW Grand Ballroom 5. It’s worth the time.

There are a few other things you should do before you go:

• Add the NSTA Conference page to your bookmarks or favorites. Be sure to check out the Conference Newcomer’s page.
• Decide what you’d like to focus on at the conference: What content do you want to know more about? What topics do your students struggle with? Are you looking for new digital resources, textbooks, or equipment? Get suggestions from your colleagues, too. Ask your students what you should learn more about (related to science, of course!). Then go to the conference website and use the Session Browser/Scheduler to look at the session descriptions. You can  print out a personal schedule or add the session information to your smart phone calendar (mine is getting full already). Pick a few sessions for each timeslot, in case the rooms are full.
• Preview the Conference Transcript section on the conference site. When you turn in a session evaluation, the session will be added automatically to your transcript. You can also add events manually. This is a great way to show your administrators which sessions you attended—my principal was always impressed.

Read more suggestions on what to take and what to do.

Some hints on what to take:

• An empty bag—preferably one with wheels—if you know you can’t resist picking up every brochure, handout, and session material you encounter (resistance can be futile), although many presenters are now posting their handouts online.
• Address labels are handy for sign-up sheets and marking your program and other materials.
• If you don’t have any business cards, get some or make your own. Be sure to include your e-mail address and what and where you teach. These are great to handout when you’re networking with other teachers, presenters, and exhibitors.
• A digital camera or cellphone camera is handy to take pictures of equipment, displays, speakers, and new friends.
• Have an envelope or other system for keeping receipts and other documents. Expenses not reimbursed by your school might be tax-deductible (check with your accountant).
• Chargers or other adapters for your electronic devices.
• Above all, take comfortable walking shoes and be prepared for the Indianapolis weather!

At the Conference:

• Pick up your badge holder, your copy of the program (there’s one for each day) and other conference materials ahead of time, if possible. Take some time to finalize your daily schedules. I like to put a small reminder in my badge holder with the session names, times, and locations. You can also stash a few of your business cards in your badge holder, making it easier to hand them out to new contacts. Keep your smart phone handy if you’ve created a calendar on it.
• Turn in the session evaluations so they can be added to your transcript.
• Get to the sessions early. Sometimes the smaller rooms fill up quickly. Have a back-up session in mind in case the room is full.
• Divide and conquer if you’re attending with friends or colleagues. You can only be at one place at a time, so coordinate with other teachers on what to attend and how to share notes and materials from sessions.
• Consider taking some snacks and a water bottle (the concessions are often crowded at lunch time).
• It’s tempting to collect every brochure, poster, and promotional giveaway in the exhibit area. It’s like a science wonderland! But whatever you collect, you’ll have to get home somehow. I know teachers who take an empty bag (see above under things to take) they can check on the way home (or you can ship things home via a delivery service).
• Take some time for sightseeing, especially if this is your first trip to Indianapolis. There will be a booth at registration staffed by local teachers. They’ll have lots of ideas and suggestions for what to see and do and where to eat. I’ve never been to Indianapolis, so I’m looking forward to learning more about it.
• Keep a log or journal of the sessions you attended, people you met, and new ideas. Update your homepage, Facebook, tweets, or class Wiki/blog with a summary of what you are learning at the conference. I’ve even seen teachers Skyping back to their students!
• Update your conference transcript.
• Put your cell phone on mute during sessions.
• Introduce yourself to teachers at the sessions or events. You’ll meet lots of interesting people and make many new personal connections. Although it’s important to keep up with your colleagues via texts/tweets/email, take the opportunity to actually talk to the teachers in line with you or sitting next to you at a session. The value of a face-to-face conference is meeting and interacting with real people, and teachers are the most interesting people of all.
• Attend a session or two on a topic you know nothing about. It’s a good way to learn something new.

Back Home:

• Share your experiences with your students. Use some of the promotional items you collected as prizes or gifts.
• Organize and file your notes and handouts. Share the materials and what you learned with your colleagues.
• Send a note of appreciation to the administrator who approved your attendance at the conference. Write a brief article for the school or district newsletter, if appropriate.
• Print your transcript.
• Get ready for next year!

Does anybody else have tips for conference newbies? Please leave a comment.

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The other evening, as I was out walking, I noticed that the moon seemed exceptionally bright. I took out my binoculars and spent a few minutes gazing at the craters on the full moon. What a sight! Learning about and appreciating the relationship between the Earth, Sun, and Moon can be a lifelong interest. The elementary years are the first (and, unfortunately for many students, the last) school-based experiences they have with the topic.

Seeing the Moon focuses on the most famous features of our moon—the craters. The article includes an activity that simulates impact craters. The formative assessment probe described in The Daytime Moon uncovers student misconceptions about the moon and would be a good introduction to a unit on the moon. [SciLinks: Moon Phases]

What Causes the Tides? As a SciLinks reviewer, one of the first sites I reviewed (and declined) stated that tides come in the morning and go out in the evening. It’s not hard to understand how people who have never experiences tidal activity can develop misconceptions or incomplete understandings. This article is a quick primer on this phenomenon. While you’re on the subject of gravity, Gravity and Weight has two activities to help students explore the concept. [SciLinks: Tides, Gravity]

Shadows are fascinating to students and are related to the position of the Sun. Shadow Play describes a unit of study in which students investigated the relationship between shadows and seasons. The activities make use of the Starry Night software, but other Internet resources are suggested (such as the Stelllarium website). Child’s Play also has an activity related to shadows. [SciLinks: Light]

Can 4th-graders take on an engineering project? The students in the article Landing Safely on Mars did just that as they built models of Mars landers. This was not the typical craft stick model—the twist here was that the “landers” were dropped off the school roof to the ground below. Would the contents survive the “landing?” The activity also included connections to language arts as students wrote about their designs and created their own nonfiction books on the topic.  [SciLinks: Exploring Mars]

Collegiality and Better Science Teaching describes the implementation of a professional learning community and how one could be started elsewhere. If your PLC is interested in resources for teaching Earth and space science, Reach for the Stars! describes the resources that NSTA and NASA have for background knowledge and professional development on the topic.

Is a Mealworm Really a Worm? describes a model for a scaffolding process for science notebooks with younger students (Inquiry-Modeling-Sharing-Collaborative-Independent). I liked the checklist that documents the progression the students make on key organization skills tracked over several weeks. What would this model look like for other science topics? [SciLinks: Metamorphosis, Insects]

In her Early Years blog, Peggy Ashbrook has additional thoughts and resources on the topic. And check out more Connections for this issue (January 2012). Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, there are ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, and other resources.

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Along with this month’s Science Teacher, the articles in this issue focus on reading and writing in science. Science teachers are the best ones to guide students in these literacy processes, given the content and structure of science text and science writing. The theme that seems to run through this issue is the importance of guidance and modeling.

Reading science text (whether a book or online) can be difficult for students, with advanced vocabulary and a style different from stories and novels. If your students have difficulty comprehending science text, Shake It Up With Reading has suggestions for reading strategies such as questioning the text. The Science Text for All: Using Textmasters to Help All Students Access Written Science Content shows how cooperative “literature circles” (often used in language arts or reading classes) can be adapted for science reading. Both articles have examples of rubrics and guides for students. [SciLinks: Earthquakes]

Science text also includes graphics and visuals. Teaching with Visuals in the Science Classroom differentiates between decorative visuals and those that convey information. The author lists seven suggestions for helping students process this information. Vocabulary is another challenge in reading science text. Jump-Start Your Middle School Students’ Background Knowledge and Vocabulary Skills introduces us to “jump pages,” online collections of resources on a topic created by teachers (or students). Each “card” focuses on a topic with links to videos, PowerPoint presentations, web pages, or word documents and assessments related to the topic. The authors provide directions and rubrics. [SciLinks: Current Electricity, Magnetism] The online tools Museum Box or Glogster could be used in this way, although Internet access and logins are necessary for these.

Sometimes we expect middle schoolers to know more than they actually do. They need guidance and modeling in writing, too, as described in Getting Past “Just Because.” The article describes how the authors implemented a CER (claim-evidence-reasoning) process to help students write informative text. NOT Another Lab Report has suggestions for guiding students in documenting their investigations. And as the author of Using “Brags and Whines” as a Creative Writing Technique notes, science writing can tap into student creativity. These articles have rubrics to show how writing can be assessed (with a focus on understanding, reasoning, and evidence rather than spelling and mechanics).

Do you keep a journal–a diary, lifelist, field notes, or scrapbook? Nature Journaling shows how students can get hooked on writing while fine-tuning skills such as observing and noting details. Even the schoolyard can be a place for nature journaling, and the authors provide examples of student work. And students might enjoy seeing your journal, too.

Are you planning a field trip for this year? Transforming a Field Trip into an Expedition can help you and your students go beyond the traditional scavenger hunt. The author describes activities before, during, and after the trip that turns a “day off” into an investigation, including a student question guide and rubric.

Nuclear Energy has a description of this source of energy, including a timeline and a discussion of pros and cons of these power plants. The article is just in time for National Nuclear Science Week, January 24–28. NSTA is hosting a special live web seminar from the Illinois Institute of Technology on January 25 with scientists and national experts from the medical, energy, and research fields who will lead the discussion. For more information and to register, click here. [SciLinks: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Reactors]

Check out the Connections for this issue (January 2012). Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, this resource has ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, etc.

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There is much in the literature about the importance of reading in science, not just pronouncing or decoding words but comprehending informational text. Unlike what students might see in a reading or English class, science resources are not usually written in a story-telling style. Science text often uses headings, subheadings, abstracts, summaries, sidebars, footnotes, specialized vocabulary, and graphics. Students may not realize reading science text can be a slower process than reading a novel or story, and rereading a section is appropriate and even encouraged. Likewise, writing in science is usually purposeful and informative.

This issue of The Science Teacher examines topics related to literacy: reading, writing, information literacy, visual literacy, and data literacy. [SciLinks: Reading and writing in science] You may want to supplement this issue by reading the January Science Scope: Science and the Common Core Language Arts Standards

If a secondary student cannot decode words, there is certainly a need for intervention by reading specialists. But helping students develop strategies to comprehend text material is an important job of all content teachers, science included. I wonder if many secondary students’ reading “problems” are, in reality, a lack of guidance and experience in interacting with informational text. Reading to Learn describes some strategies for helping students make sense of informational text, including annotation and double (or triple) entry journals. The authors suggest making copies of text so that students can mark them up, since in most schools writing in the textbook is not permitted. (I wonder about the expense of duplicating). I’ve seen online textbooks with the capability for highlighting and creating sidebar notes or questions. The students were truly interacting with the text. The teacher I observed did a great job of modeling how to render the text by doing a think-aloud as he read the text and annotated it.

Writing and Science Literacy has suggestions for writing in categories such as technical writing (notebooks and lab reports) and has a protocol for lab notebooks. But it’s interesting to see that the authors also include creative writing as an option in science classes (including cartoons and poems). I visited a biology class where the teacher asked the students to post a haiku about the lesson on the class blog site. Even though a haiku is a very structured form of poetry, the students’ creative responses were enjoyable to read and showed their ability to recast their learning in a different format. I’m also a fan of cinquain poems, acrostics, and three-words (similar to a morning TV show’s feature). Environmental Science Lab Reports outlines  the components of a report that could be generalized to other sciences. Rather than a traditional “book report,” the author of Reading, Writing, and Physics outlines a project in which students use journaling to respond to a book.

The authors of The Way They Want to Learn suggest that technology has a role in building student literacies and communication skills. They describe several Web 2.0 tools that students can use to create visual concept maps (CMAP), graphic organizers (Webspiration) presentations (Prezi), and graphic displays (Tagxedo, VoiceThread, Museum Box). But don’t worry if you’re not familiar with these—students can be very good at figuring things out if you give them the opportunity.

“But I read it on the Internet!” Students may naively think that all Internets sources are created equal. Climbing the Pyramid describes an activity in which students create a hierarchy as they evaluate science news sources to become informed critical readers (and viewers). This would be a good article/activity to share with your school librarian. (Isn’t it ironic that as information literacy becomes an even more important issue, schools are laying off the library staff—the people who are trained to assist students and teachers? Hmmm.) In addition to reading the news, students can apply their literacy skills by writing news articles, using the ideas in Science Journalism.

Using Online Data has many resources at the end for the analysis and interpretation of data, including NOAA and USGS. [And in SciLinks, you can search for sites on a given topic that include data sets to manipulate].

I recently talked with a high school senior who wants to become an elementary teacher. “Working with younger students, one thing I won’t have to think about is technology,” she said. She certainly has some misconceptions about elementary students! I thought about her as I read this issue of Science and Children and the examples of young students using technology for many tasks and in many contexts.

Space and technology seem to go hand in hand. To the Moon and Back show how students in Grades 2 and 3 used the Starry Night resource to gather data on phases of the moon and look for patterns and develop questions. The article includes a rubric, an example of a student journal entry, and a discussion of other technology application on the topic, including iPad/iPhone apps and online simulations. [SciLinks: Moon Phases]

The authors of Caught on Video use videos to document student projects. Students were both the subjects and the videographers as they demonstrated their work. The article has suggestions for incorporating more local videos in instruction. [SciLinks: Engineering Structures]

“No child left inside” could be the subtitle for Trail Blazers. The article describes a project in which 4^th-graders created field guides (on iPods) for the school’s nature trail. Starting with a site study, they also created kits for teachers to use with students to study weather on the trail. [SciLinks: Identifying Trees, Nature]

What technology (if any) is appropriate for primary students? Harness Your Tech Side includes resources from the NAEYC on technology integration in the younger grades and a lesson plan on using technology to create a class book. Smart Boards Rock has pictures of students (not the teacher) at the board, manipulating objects and words. [SciLinks: Rocks]

Virtual Inquiry Experiences incorporated technology into a study of pond insects. Students shared their specimens with scientists who shared (through videoconferencing) the use of an electron microscope—quite an experience for these young students. Another option for younger students as described in Time for Slime, is a digital microscope connected to a projector. The pictures of students show the benefits of  the large projected images. The formative assessment probe Representing Microscopic Life looks at student conceptions and misconceptions about microscope pond organisms. [SciLinks: Microscopes, Insects, Protozoa]

Classroom communications is changing, too. Not an Unfeasible “Extra” shows how students in 4^th grade are blogging about their science learning. The teacher-author offers suggestions for starting a blogging project and a rubric to assess the blog content. In Turtles and Technology, other 4^th graders took on a challenge to protect and advocate for an endangered species. They raised turtles to release in the wild used a variety of technology (blogging, producing videos, creating webpages, and even developing an online game) to inform the community of threats to the turtles.

After reading and reflecting on these articles, future elementary teachers have a lot to look forward to, with students who are very comfortable with technology. Secondary teachers have a lot to look forward to, also, as younger students become more familiar with technology as a tool for learning, communicating, and creating.

Several other articles have SciLinks connections: One Hungry Dinosaur  [SciLinks: Dinosaurs] and Simple Machines [SciLinks: Simple Machines] And check out more Connections for this issue (December 2011). Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, there are ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, and other resources.

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Why is it that the earth sciences bring out the lifelong learner in people? We spend time stargazing at night, watching the weather channels, learning about geologic features at national and state parks, reading about topics such as climate change and prehistoric events, and wondering when (and where) the next earthquake, tsunami, or volcanic eruption will occur. And yet, for many students, their experiences in elementary and middle school are the capstone of any formal classes in the earth sciences. In high schools, earth science is often an elective (if it’s on the schedule at all). So hats off to all teachers who spark an interest in lifelong learning in this branch of science, including the authors featured in this issue!

As I was growing up, my family had an interest in geography. Most get-togethers usually included someone digging out an atlas to look something up. If Google Earth had been around in those days, we would have never left the dinner table! Three articles in this issue illustrate how web-based mapping projects can spark and build on student interest: Dynamic Lessons with Google Earth, Global Environmental Issues, and Teaching with Current Events. Investigating Continental Margins uses the GeoMapApp to compare and contrast the East, West, and Gulf coasts of North America. [SciLinks: Mapping]

Krakatoa Erupts! takes an interdisciplinary approach to capitalize on student interest in volcanoes. By studying a historic event, student can correct misconceptions and ask their own questions about volcanic eruptions. A rubric is provided (actually the rubric is not specific to this project and can generalized to other inquiry activities). [SciLinks: Volcanoes, Volcanic Eruptions, Volcanic Zones, Ring of Fire]

The authors of Going Underground describe how to help students learn about groundwater and karst systems with both field studies and classroom simulations [SciLinks: Water Cycle, Caverns (and Karst Topography), Groundwater]

The earthquake centered in Virginia last summer dispelled the misconception that these seismic events happen only on the west coast of the North America or elsewhere in the Pacific region. The activities described in Its YOUR Fault can help students understand concepts in seismology such as faults, fault zones, and tectonic boundaries by studying historic data and using current monitoring tools.  [SciLinks: Earthquakes, Seismographs, Tectonic Plates, Plate Boundaries]

Although Color Code is not directly related to earth science, the activities help to dispel common misconceptions. In this case, misconceptions related to heredity and inherited traits, using hair color as an example. Although students would have to consider that for many people, their hair color has been altered chemically! [SciLinks Genotype/Phenotype, Pedigrees, Genes and Traits]

Don’t forget to look at the Connections for this issue (December 2011). Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, this resource has ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, etc.

My middle schoolers were full of energy! This month’s Science Scope has many suggestions for channeling their enthusiasm into studying energy transformations. What’s really relevant is that most of the activities require simple materials and can be completed within a few class periods, while still focusing on higher-order thinking and science/engineering practices.

Middle-schoolers love a challenge, especially when they can work in teams. Powering the Future describes a wind turbine design challenge. Students demonstrate their understanding of how energy changes form in the process. The authors provide suggestions on time (2 class periods), equipments needed, student handouts, and a rubric. The photos show the creativity of the students. Generating Excitement has a related activity in which students build generators. (It’s a coincidence that I was reading this article while traveling–as a passenger–through western NY and PA where there are many windmills on the ridges, providing a real-life application). [SciLinks: Wind Energy, Kinetic and Potential Energy]

NSTA journals have published have published articles describing investigations using common objects such as pencils and paper. Clips and Clamps describes a 5E hands-on activity (including a student handout) with these common classroom objects. This would certainly fit into a unit on simple machines (levers).  [SciLinks: Mechanical Advantage, Pencils, Paper, Simple Machines]

Students can demonstrate their creativity as well as their understanding of motion and forces as described in Drivers, Start Your Glue Guns. In this challenge, students build “stock car pasta pods” and test the distance their model can travel. [SciLinks: Forces and Motion, Measuring Motion, Laws of Motion]

Every four years, it seems that people are intrigued by the Winter Olympic sport of curling. The author of Swept Away describes how her students learn science concepts along with a new sport—and if you don’t have a curling rink or club nearby, the article has video resources.  [SciLinks: Friction]

As the author of Teaching About Heat and Temperature Using an Investigative Demonstration notes, the transfer of thermal energy is a difficult concept for middle school students (and others!). He shares how he uses the Predict-Share-Observe-Explain sequence for class demonstrations and formative assessment probes to help students with concepts of conduction and convection.  [SciLinks: Heat Transfer, Conduction, Convection]

Energy Scavenger Hunt provides a real-life look at uses and costs of electricity. Students find examples of energy use at home (the authors provide suggestions for students who are unable to complete the activity at home). [SciLinks: Ohm's Law, Current Electricity, Electrical Circuits]

Look at That! shows a different sort of transfer of energy–from Eww and Gross to Wow and Cool as students observe and describe the behavior of Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches. Instead of just keeping these (or other classroom pets) in the back of the room, the authors show how putting them center stage can be an effective way to improve students’ skills in observation and description. [SciLinks: Insects]

Passing along some information –

From Elizabeth Deakin: Heading into its 10th year, eCYBERMISSION is a free, web-based Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics competition for students in grades 6-9. Your students can compete against other students in their grades for state, regional, and national awards. Teams consisting of 3-4 students and a team advisor would work to solve problems in their community utilizing the scientific method, scientific inquiry or engineering design process and can win at the state, regional and national levels. To date, more than $8.5 million has been awarded to students throughout the country with more to be awarded in 2012.

Deadline to register is  December 16, 2011. For more info, see our overview video about eCybermission.  Some past winners include

• The 6th grade Hardheads team was recognized by judges for their experiments with materials used to support sports helmets. For their project, the students conducted experiments on multiple materials for possible use in sports helmets, with the hope of finding a material that decreases the prevalence of concussions and other head injuries.
• The 8th grade Landroids team tested the elements necessary to create a device that could detect deer on roads.
• The 9th grade Chocolate Addiction team investigated how makeup can cause damage to the skin when it has been exposed to certain independent variables, such as heat or water.
• Other past winners can be found on the project website.

Some bits and pieces gleaned from listserves, blogs, and tweets–

Professional development

• 10 Amazing Free Online Computer Science Classes from Stanford University.  Each class is open to the public and is taught by a Stanford professor. Non-Stanford students do not get academic credit, but certificates are awarded as a document of participation. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have more courses like this with science content for teachers or advanced students? Add a comment if you know of other universities that have such online programs that are free.

Science and multimedia

• Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) has a Periodic Table of Podcasts—one for each elements (transcripts are available, too).
• Virtual Microscope from the University of Delaware. Students can practice and learn outside of class, during downtime in the classroom, or if you have to share microscopes.

Visual literacy

• Students’ doodles may indicate learning rather than boredom. See how Doodling May Draw Students Into Science
• Do you need maps for your classroom? Would students find it helpful to have maps in their science notebooks? The National Map website lets you create maps on various themes, download  topographic maps, and access topo maps from as far back as the late 1800s to do comparison studies.

Real-world applications

• Kitchen Chemistry from the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) explores chemistry concepts related to food and food preparation.
• Also check out the Science of Cooking from the Exploratorium. (But remember that eating in the lab is not a safe practice.)

Photo: MLB – Central Park, NYC

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As I read this issue, I really identified with What Students Really Think About Doing Research, but in a slightly different context. I was affiliated with a professional development workshop a few summers ago, and as the culminating event, teachers were expected to conduct a research project and present it to the group. The teachers went through the same feelings as the students in this study in terms of reluctance (Why do we have to do this? I’d rather spend time making lesson plans.) and difficulty in topic selection (although in the interest of time, teachers were given a list of suggestions). The university faculty offered support and after the complaining was over, the teachers really got involved. The course finale was each team presenting their findings to the group. Afterwards, most of the teachers agreed that this was an outstanding experience (many had never been involved in a science fair as a student and a few had never conducted original research before). They were justifiably very proud of their accomplishments and took the display boards back to their schools to show their students what they did.

The author of The Science Fair: A New Look at an Old Tradition describes science fairs from two other perspectives: as a professor of science education and as a parent. He offers several suggestions for making science fairs a meaningful experience: using modeling and long-term preparation with students, training for teachers and judges, recognizing that not all research is experimental, differentiating between projects completed in a laboratory setting and those completed at home or in school, identifying the role of parents, and providing opportunities for teamwork.

Regardless of the science fair format, it can be difficult for students to get started (or even to think about participating). Students Inspiring Students describes the Archimedes Initiative, http://www.archimedesinitiative.org/an online tool with video segments designed to help students choose a topic and conduct research. The site also includes video interviews with students as they describe their projects. Would these students be role models for yours?  The Art of Scientific Ideas looks at “problem finding” with strategies for students and teachers based on the notion of creativity and thinking outside of the box.

What do judges look for in science fair projects? Inside the Science Fair: The Judge’s Perspective describes the results of a survey of science fair judges. Their suggestions and recommendations are summarized in the form of a Q&A session: What makes the top projects stand out? How important are the display boards and oral presentations? What characteristics are important for student participation? If students work with scientists or in professional labs, how does that affect the judging?

The author of Using Inquiry to Break the Language Barrier offers suggestions on how to modify science fair requirements to help ELL students be successful. Using pendulums as a common denominator, students were guided through the research process. Would these suggestions be appropriate for other students? [SciLinks: Pendulums]

NSTA’s MsMentor blog also addressed a question about science fairs and SciLinks inlcudes a list of websites with many ideas for both traditional and nontraditional projects. For example, Science Buddies has a “topic selection wizard” that guides students through the process of selecting and fine tuning a topic. This site has sections and resources for both students and teachers.

Many colleagues have shared excellent ideas for traditional and alternative science projects in NSTA journals, such as the December 2007 issue of Science and Children and the March 2004 issue of Science Scope.  These articles are also good resources for secondary teachers, especially if your students are science fair novices or if you want some fresh ideas. The articles have timelines, rubrics describing high quality projects, and suggestions for helping students who may have few resources at home. They also describe online science fairs, science expos, multimedia presentations, themed projects, mini-conferences, and other nontraditional “fairs.” To save time, I’ve assembled a shared collection of NSTA resources on Science Fairs and Alternatives in the NSTA Learning Center.

Don’t forget to look at the Connections for this issue (November  2011). Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, this resource has ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, etc.