Will we ever get to the point where we can sit back and say “Our students have these skills. We’re set until the 22nd century?” A great benefit for NSTA members is electronic access to all of the journals. After you read the print version that is part of your membership, you can read the [...]
Have you noticed this graphic in an NSTA publication? SciLinks is a database of websites that have been submitted by a corps of “webwatchers“—teachers who search for and review websites related to topics in science. The websites are organized by content and grade level. Teachers can access SciLinks either by using the codes in a [...]
Along with notebooks and pencils, students bring some common misconceptions to science class. It’s hard to tell where students learn these misconceptions: from their friends, parents, television, movies, the Internet, or other media. They may not realize that their ideas are incorrect, and simply telling the students that their ideas are wrong won’t help them [...]
Teachers often use words interchangeably when referring to science activities: labs, investigations, experiments, projects, inquiry. In this year’s Science and Children, the focus is on inquiry in the elementary classroom. As noted in the guest editorial Pathways to Inquiry, inquiry is not an analog, either/or process. Doing inquiry in the classroom requires laying a foundation [...]
Although blogs (web logs) were once only a reverse chronological diary of thoughts and observations, today’s blogs are so much more. First of all, the vast amount of aggregatible content has brightened a once text-heavy presentation. Images, videos, graphics, links and audio tracks have made the once static blog a living document chronicling a point [...]
Inquiry seems like one of those words that as my seventh-graders would say “I know what it means, but it’s hard to ‘splain.” Rather than an inquiry/not inquiry dichotomy, many of the articles in this issue describe inquiry as happening along a continuum, from “teacher-directed low-inquiry activities to open-inquiry investigations in which students generate their [...]
Both of these words can be nouns or verbs, and both interpretations are essential in science, as described in this month’s edition of Science Scope. Students use models and maps as learning tools; they also can model design processes or map their understanding of a concept. It appears that many of these articles on maps [...]
I am really looking forward to this year’s Science & Children journal. Many of us teach with themes or essential questions that focus our instruction, and this year all of the issues of S&C will focus on aspects of using inquiry in the classroom. I would also encourage secondary teachers to browse through the articles [...]
One of the advantages of being an NSTA member is getting a hard copy of the journal appropriate to your teaching assignment (Science and Children, Science Scope, or The Science Teacher for those in K–12). Even if you don’t get a hard copy, as a member you have online access to the others, including the [...]
As an NSTA member, did you know that you have electronic access to each of the journals, in addition to the print copy you receive? In the monthly SciLinks blog for each issue (and on the NSTA home page, there are links to browse the table of contents of the three K–12 journals. (And you [...]
