Search results for ""national science teachers association""

Take a world tour between the covers of a book! Environments of Our Earth guides children through six types of regions that are shaped by rainfall—or the lack thereof. Readers take a journey that starts with dense tropical rainforests and woodlands, travels through grassy savannahs and prairies, and ends at dry steppes and deserts. Throughout the book, attentive readers can compare how and why each region is alike and different. They will also discover fun facts about the wettest and driest places on Earth and the amazing effect rainfall has on plants, animals, and people. Environments of Our Earth is part of the I Wonder Why book series, written to ignite the curiosity of children in grades K–6 while encouraging them to become avid readers. These books explore the marvels of geology, land forms, weather, environments, and other phenomena related to science and nature. Included in each volume is a Parent/Teacher Handbook with coordinating activities. The I Wonder Why series is written by an award-winning science educator and published by NSTA Kids, a division of NSTA Press.

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If you’ve ever wished for advice you can trust on how to make science and math more relevant to your middle or high school students, Creating Engineering Design Challenges is the book for you. At its core are 13 units grounded in challenge-based learning and the engineering design process. You can be sure the units are classroom-ready because they were contributed by teachers who developed, used, and revised them during the Cincinnati Engineering Enhanced Math and Science (CEEMS) program, a project funded by the National Science Foundation.Detailed and practical, the book is divided into three sections: 1. The rationale for making engineering an effective part of math and science instruction. 2. Thirteen engineering-related units, including the teacher-contributors’ detailed accounts, lesson plans, and handouts. Content areas include biology, chemistry, physical science, Earth science, and environmental science. Topics range from developing a recipe for cement to implementing geocaching to calculating accurate aim with slingshots and water balloons. 3. Guidance on how to develop, support, and grow your engineering practice. This section offers useful templates and frameworks for you as well as professional development guidance for your school. The contributors’ goal is to help you benefit from their hard-won experience. They write, “During our time with the CEEMS project, we learned a great deal from our mistakes and our successes, and we felt it would be important to share what we learned with the hope that you can build on your own success.” Working from their advice, you can develop a more student-centered classroom culture and nurture learners who are engaged in real-life engineering challenges.

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How do our bodies manage to heal wounds, build the stamina to run marathons, and give us the energy—even while we’re sleeping—to keep us alive and functioning? Matter and Energy for Growth and Activity prompts high school students to explore fascinating questions like these. It takes a new approach to teaching essential ideas about food, human body systems, matter and energy changes, and chemical reactions.Developed by a team of scientists and science educators and then tested in classrooms, the 14 phenomena-based lessons in this book follow a coherent sequence. They unfold in two main sections: (1) making sense of the matter changes involved in human growth and (2) making sense of the energy changes involved in human growth and activity. Matter and Energy is unique because it does the following: Targets important ideas about changes in both physical and biological systems within the same unit. The book first engages students in seeing the usefulness of the ideas in making sense of phenomena in simple physical systems. Then it shows how to apply these ideas to make sense of related phenomena in complex biological systems. This interdisciplinary approach reflects the way science is practiced in the real world. Supports all three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards. Disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and science practices are all integrated in this unit. Emphasizes important relationships between mathematics and science. Students interpret data sets and graphs to provide evidence for claims. They also do simple computations to explain puzzling phenomena—for example, why does energy have to be added to ignite a marshmallow even though the burning marshmallow releases lots of energy? Builds on the middle school unit Toward High School Biology (also published by NSTA Press). Together the two units help students deepen their understanding of matter and energy changes in plants and animals and the role of chemical reactions in the growth, repair, and activity of living organisms. Matter and Energy for Growth and Activity, Student Edition provides all the student handouts with the teaching tips and sample answers found in the Teacher Edition removed. A set of online resources includes the interactive media, videos, and handouts required to use these experiential lessons. Between both books, you have the support you need to help your students turn abstract ideas into applicable knowledge—a critical first step in learning.

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What if you could challenge your first graders to create instruments they can play in their own “Show Me the Waves” musical show? With this volume in the STEM Road Map Curriculum Series, you can!Influence of Waves outlines a journey that will steer your students toward authentic problem solving while grounding them in integrated STEM disciplines. Like the other volumes in the series, this book is designed to meet the growing need to infuse real-world learning into K–12 classrooms.This interdisciplinary module uses project- and problem-based learning to help young children explore cause and effect. It introduces them to the concept of waves as disturbances that travel through space and substances to transfer energy. Students will draw on physical and biological science, mathematics, engineering, and English language arts to do the following: Discover that there are different types of waves, such as water and sound, that come from different sources and travel in various ways. Find out that eyes, ears, and skin respond to sound and light. Use technology to gather research and communicate. Design, test, and evaluate models to demonstrate how people experience and interact with sound and light. Put on a show that combines voices and flashlights with guitars and drums they’ve made themselves to demonstrate how sound waves and light can be used to communicate and entertain. The STEM Road Map Curriculum Series is anchored in the Next Generation Science Standards, the Common Core State Standards, and the Framework for 21st Century Learning. In-depth and flexible, Influence of Waves can be used as a whole unit or in part to meet the needs of districts, schools, and teachers who are charting a course toward an integrated STEM approach.

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The 15 field-tested lessons cover energy, waves and their application in technologies for information transfer, molecules and organisms, and Earth’s place in the universe and systems. Your students will explore questions ranging from how you can make an electrical car move faster to why big waves block the entrance to some New Zealand harbors.

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What really helps your students learn science: Labs? Group work? Certain types of problems or test questions? Something you never even thought about? Find out with data that go way beyond what standardized test scores tell you. The Feedback Loop describes a process by which you design formative assessments of what you do and collect a variety of forms of data. Then, the book shows you ways to actually use the information to improve your teaching.Drawing on research-based findings and the experiences of both new and veteran classroom teachers, the guide offers practical ideas for middle and high school teachers, regardless of discipline. The first chapters introduce the Feedback Loop framework; highlight the four elements of goals, tools, data, and inferences; and explore how to close the loop by connecting inferences and goals through feedback. Later chapters show how to use the full loop to inform your instruction. The book supports the Next Generation Science Standards and includes classroom vignettes that ground the ideas in real-life situations. Meant to illuminate without overwhelming you, The Feedback Loop’s data-driven approach will support student learning and help strengthen your teaching practice in your very next lesson or unit.

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This is just the resource you need to get middle schoolers ready for August 21, 2017—the day when millions of North Americans will have the rare chance to witness a total solar eclipse. But the book’s usefulness won’t end when the eclipse does! Solar Science offers more than three dozen hands-on, inquiry-based activities on many fascinating aspects of solar astronomy. The activities cover the Sun’s motions, space weather caused by the Sun, the measuring of time and seasons in our daily lives, and much more.The authors are award-winning experts in both astronomy and science education, so they know how to prompt students to work like scientists by asking questions, doing experiments, comparing notes, and refining and reporting results. They also know you have to make the most of every instructional minute. The book contains plenty of ideas for related writing projects; grade-appropriate math examples; and connections to music, art, fiction, and history. It’s also aligned with the three-dimensional learning encouraged by the Next Generation Science Standards and connects to the Common Core State Standards.Solar Science is ideal for teachers, informal science educators, youth group leaders, curriculum specialists, and teacher trainers. You can use these versatile activities one at a time, as the basis of a stand-alone unit on the Sun, or as a comprehensive curriculum. You get to determine the best way for your students to learn a lot while having fun with the Sun.

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The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force issued new guidelines for mammograms in 2009. What does this mean for someone with a family history of breast cancer? Congress periodically votes on a piece of legislation called the Farm Bill. What does its current iteration mean for the safety of supermarket eggs? Understanding how the latest science affects real people patients, consumers, voters, and taxpayers is at the heart of science literacy. From Chapter 1 of Front-Page Science Like citizen journalists, your students can get to the heart of science literacy and challenging questions like these with the learn by doing methodology in this innovative book. Front-Page Science uses science journalism techniques to help students become better consumers of, and contributors to, a scientifically literate community. The book is divided into three parts: Background information and a rationale for using science journalism techniques Concrete advice about how to teach science literacy in this framework from helping students find story angles to teaching search strategies and interview techniques The process of putting together and writing a news story, including how to get students started, help them when they re stalled, and respond to their drafts A free website provides downloadable lesson plans, teacher suggestions, and a forum for exchanging ideas with others. Like Front-Page Science, the website is part of the National Science Foundation funded Science Literacy Through Science Journalism project. By making full use of these rich resources, you ll teach your students skills that will help them make sense of their world not just now, but also after graduation and for years to come.

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Show your students how amazing it can be to just “see what will happen” when they blend biology, engineering, and serendipity. Focusing on innovations sparked by accidental or unexpected observations, the case studies in this resource are a lively way to integrate engineering and experimentation into your biology classes. Middle and high school students will learn fundamental science processes while using their natural curiosity to explore ideas for new applications and products. They’ll also find out that small, plant-eating mammals called pikas helped scientists find new ways to survive extreme weather events and that algae can be used as airplane fuel.The book’s 20 easy-to-use investigations help you do the following: Use real-world case studies to bring accidental inspirations to life. Each investigation starts with an actual scientific discovery that students explore through primary documents or historical accounts. Let students be the innovators. The investigations task your classes to investigate biological concepts, do research, examine data, create models, and use their own personal ideas to design new products or problem-solving applications. Apply the material in flexible, interesting ways. You can implement the investigations in part or as a whole, and you can use them to teach one or more science concepts while exposing students to the unpredictable nature of science. Students will be intrigued by investigations with titles such as “Vindicating Venom: Using Biological Mechanisms to Treat Diseases and Disorders” and “Revealing Repeats: The Accidental Discovery of DNA Fingerprinting.” Discovery Engineering in Biology is not only ideal for the classroom. It’s also perfect for informal education at STEM camps, science centers, and more. You’ll help your students see that just as there is no one way to do science, there are many paths that lead to innovations in engineering. And who knows what might happen? Maybe your students will engineer the next amazing survival product inspired by pikas!

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Engineering in the Life Sciences, 9–12 provides how-to advice that will make the book your go-to resource. It offers six standards-based lessons that show how to infuse engineering concepts into existing courses. It also provides wide-ranging material from each of the major content areas in biological sciences, including structures and processes, ecosystems, heredity, and biological evolution. Spark your high school students’ interest with lesson titles such as “Designer DNA,” “Ecosystem Board Game,” and “B-pocalypse.” Inspired by extensive field testing, the authors made the book easy to use in diverse settings by supplementing the lessons with detailed support materials and adding chapters on managing engineering-oriented activities and conducting assessments. They also included teaching tips and connections to standards, plus five case studies about how engineering concepts and science intersect to address human needs. The result is lessons that are eminently doable, illustrating how you can use an authentic engineering approach to engage students with the life sciences.

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Next time you want to see a show, go outside and look at the sky. The clouds will put on a show for you with their ever-changing shapes and sizes. This book reveals some fascinating science behind these beautiful displays. Author Emily Morgan answers all kinds of questions: What are clouds made of? Why are some clouds white? Which clouds mean fair weather is coming, and which ones mean rain is on the way? If you could reach those fluffy, floaty puffs, could you jump on them like a trampoline?Next Time You See a Cloud is an engaging look at the science behind a sky-high spectacle. Make it a habit to keep looking up—there’s a new show every day!Awaken a sense of wonder in a child with the Next Time You See series from NSTA Kids. The books will inspire elementary-age children to experience the enchantment of everyday phenomena such as spiderwebs, sunsets, fireflies, the Moon, and more. Free supplementary activities are available on the NSTA website.Especially designed to be experienced with an adult—be it a parent, teacher, or friend—Next Time You See books serve as a reminder that you don’t have to look far to find something remarkable in nature.

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What happens when two friends take an interest in an oak tree? They begin to notice more about the world around them, such as the seasons changing and squirrels making homes. They are inspired to do independent research, from studying acorns to looking up scientific terms, and to be creative by composing pictures and poems. And they discover new things, such as their tree’s structure and characteristics—all because they stopped to look around them. As warm and dreamy as a summer day, Our Very Own Tree will inspire readers to seek out their very own places in nature.Our Very Own Tree is part of the I Wonder Why book series, written to ignite the curiosity of children in grades K–3 while encouraging them to become avid readers. These books explore the marvels of animals, plants, and other phenomena related to biology. Included in each volume is a Parent/Teacher Handbook with coordinating activities. The I Wonder Why series is written by an award-winning science educator and published by NSTA Kids, a division of NSTA Press.

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“I still remember my very first day as a teacher. A few days earlier, my principal had given me advice: ‘Whatever you do, do not start with an overview of your course. Do something active and set the tone….’ As I nervously awaited the arrival of my first-period physical science students, I wondered how they would react. To my relief, they jumped right in and remained engaged throughout the entire class—building, testing, and revising prototypes of paper towers. Since that day, I have continued to use design challenges as a way to engage students and teachers in classes and professional development.” —From the Introduction by Editor Eric Brunsell From the very first day you use them, the design challenges in this compendium will spur your students, too, to jump right in and engage throughout the entire class. The activities reinforce important science content while illustrating a range of STEM skills. The 30 articles have been compiled from Science and Children, Science Scope, and The Science Teacher, NSTA’s journals for elementary through high school. Integrating Engineering and Science in Your Classroom will: Excite students of all ages with activities involving everything from light sabres and egg racers to prosthetic arms and potatoes Apply to lessons in life and environmental science, Earth science, and physical science Work well in traditional classrooms as well as after-school programs Next time you need an engaging STEM activity, you’ll be glad you have this collection to help you blend meaningful and memorable experiences into your lessons. As Editor Eric Brunsell promises, “By exposing students to authentic engineering activities, you can help students uncover the profession that makes the world work.”

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Maybe you have a good grasp of disciplinary core ideas and science and engineering practices—critical parts of the Next Generation Science Standards—but you are looking for more resources about integrating crosscutting concepts (CCCs). Or maybe you understand CCCs but want to know more about how to make them part of your students' toolkit for exploring science phenomena or engineering problems, both now and in the future.Regardless of your needs, Crosscutting Concepts is your guide. It shows how to design and implement three-dimensional instruction for all students by understanding the potential of CCCs to strengthen science and engineering teaching and learning. Crosscutting Concepts helps you do the following: Grasp the foundational issues that undergird crosscutting concepts. You'll find out how CCCs can change your instruction, engage your students, and broaden access and inclusion of all students into your science classroom. Gain in-depth insights into individual crosscutting concepts. You'll learn how to use each CCC across disciplines, understand the challenges students face in learning CCCs, and adopt exemplary teaching strategies. Discover how CCCs can strengthen the way you teach key topics in science. These topics include the nature of matter, plant growth, and weather and climate, as well as engineering design. Understand related implications for science teaching. These topics include student assessment and teacher professional collaboration. Throughout Crosscutting Concepts, vignettes drawn from the authors' own classroom experiences will help you put theory into practice. Instructional Applications show how CCCs can strengthen your planning. Classroom Snapshots feature practical ways to use CCCs in discussions and lessons. Useful for teachers at all grade levels, this book will enrich your own understanding while showing you how to use CCCs for both classroom teaching and real-world problem solving.

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Get rave reviews for science by putting this book’s step-by-step plans to work. Staging Family Science Nights is your playbook for creating an informal learning environment that will generate enthusiasm and enjoyment of science among the entire family. The book’s first section—“Producing the Event”—devotes eight chapters to planning, recruiting volunteers (including students), setting up, last-minute troubleshooting, and injecting pizzazz. The four chapters in the second section—“On the Stage”—offer guidance and templates for activities at the novice, intermediate, and advanced levels. Activities include “Balancing Bugs,” “Bubble Olympics,” and “Creating Color Slime.”The book is designed to be a crowd-pleaser, whether you’re looking for new ideas for an established science night or planning your first one. It’s useful for teachers at all levels as well as homeschoolers and informal education programs. Best of all, the authors, both veteran educators, are dedicated to making sure your science night showcases quality science content and practices. Based on their years of personal experience, they write, “A successful Family Science Night is a perfect coming together of informal science learning, student leadership, community support, and schoolwide excitement.” Get this book and get ready to take a bow!

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Selected as 2021 Best STEM Books by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the Children’s Book Council! Almost one hundred years ago, William Beebe and Otis Barton crawled into a tiny submarine to explore the depths of the sea. How did they come to invent the Bathysphere? And what did they find there, far below the ocean’s surface? The first book in the new non-fiction series "Marvelous But True". A picture book about dreaming, daring, thinking, and doing. For researchers ages 6 years and up. Guided Reading Level O

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Born in Guatemala and living in New York since his childhood, David received his country's Miguel Angel Asturias National Literature Prize for lifetime achievement in 2014. The Mastermind (Akashic Books, 2016), his latest novel, has been translated into nine languages. He has translated 16 titles, including Folktales for Fearless Girls (Penguin, 2019) and the work of Rigoberta Menchú. His children's books include Topo Pecoso/Moley Mole, Sleeping with the Light On, and La Casita.Marta Álvarez Miguéns is a self-taught children's illustrator. She was born in a small town in Galicia, Spain, and currently lives in La Coruña, Spain. She is the illustrator of Shark Lady (written by Jess Keating), which was named a 2018 Best STEM Book by the Children's Book Council as well as a Best STEM Book by the National Science Teachers Association.

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Take a tour of America''s great outdoors and discover the beauty and diversity of its most iconic and majestic national parks.*A 2019 Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students: K–12 (National Science Teachers Association and the Children''s Book Council)*Packed with maps and fascinating facts about the flora and fauna unique to each of the 21 parks portrayed, this lushly illustrated coast-to-coast journey documents in large format the nation’s most magnificent and sacred places – and shows why they should be preserved for future generations to enjoy.Explore Florida''s river-laced Everglades, travel down the white water rapids of the Grand Canyon, trek across the deserts of Death Valley, and scale the soaring summits of the Rocky Mountains with this book that brings you up close to nature''s greatest adventures.Divided by region (East, Central, Rocky Moun

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“Revelatory to young audiences in more ways than one.” —Kirkus “Many STEM-for-girls biographies fan excitement over women’s achievements, but this title actually brings the central scientific concept within middle-grade reach.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Selected for the New York Public Library Best of 2019 List!Movie star by day, ace inventor at night: learn about the hidden life of actress Hedy Lamarr! To her adoring public, Hedy Lamarr was a glamorous movie star, widely considered the most beautiful woman in the world. But in private, she was something more: a brilliant inventor. And for many years only her closest friends knew her secret. Now Laurie Wallmark and Katy Wu, who collaborated on Sterling’s critically acclaimed picture-book biography Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code, tell the inspiring story of how, during World War Two, Lamarr developed a groundbreaking communications system that still remains essential to the security of today’s technology.Selected for the 2020 Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12 list, compiled by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the Children’s Book Council (CBC).

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Time-tested activities to teach the key ideas of science—and turn students into scientists! Science education is becoming more rigorous than ever, but that doesn’t have to make it more difficult. In this straightforward and witty book, Alan Colburn has adapted classic investigations to help students in grades 3 through 8 truly think and act like scientists. Chapter by chapter, this accessible primer walks you through classic science investigations, discussing how each one illustrates a "big idea" about the nature of science, and offering clear links to the Next Generation Science Standards and its Science and Engineering Practices. You’ll also find: A reader-friendly overview of the NGSS Guidance on adapting the activities to your grade level, including communicating instructions, facilitating discussions, and managing safety concerns Case studies of working scientists to highlight specifics about the science and engineering practices. With this elemental guide, you’ll teach your students not just what scientists do, but how scientists think—giving them the 21st-century skills they need to become the next generation of scientists. "Now that the real work of NGSS implementation has begun, there is a high demand for quality instructional resources that show how core ideas and concepts, practices, and the nature of science come together in meaningful, intellectually engaging science investigations supported with content and pedagogical background information for the teacher. Thank you Alan Coburn for providing a resource that addresses the challenges and practical reality of transitioning to quality classroom instruction that mirrors our current best thinking about teaching and learning science." — Page Keeley, Past-President of the National Science Teachers Association

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A 2019 Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students: K–12 (National Science Teachers Association and the Children's Book Council).An anatomy lesson like no other! Look inside the human body with the magic three-color lens and x-ray from head to toe to discover how your body works. Use the red lens to reveal the skeleton, the green to see the muscles working and x-ray your organs with the blue lens to find out what they do day and night to keep you alive. Uncover the secrets of the human body and explore how its different systems work in this stunning follow-up to the internationally bestselling Illuminature. Jam-packed with detailed illustrations and full of facts and information, this innovative encyclopedia from from Milan-based design duo Carnovsky will make you see the human body in a whole new light. With every illustration containing three separate layers to pore over, this book will reward rereading again and again, providing hours of independent entertainment and education for young readers. See 3 images in 1 with the eye-boggling Illumi series, featuring magic-lens artwork from creative design duo Carnovsky. Dinosaurs, animals, the human body and even ghosts are envisioned like never before in this groundbreaking series. The explosions of colour on each page are in fact three distinct layers of illustrations, each exploring a different aspect of a fascinating subject. Use the three-colour lens to reveal the hidden details on each one, then read all about the topic on in-depth fact pages. There’s always something new to discover in Illumi! Also available: Illuminatlas, Illuminightmare, Illuminature and Illumisaurus.

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Next Generation Science Standards identifies the science all K-12 students should know. These new standards are based on the National Research Council's A Framework for K-12 Science Education. The National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Achieve have partnered to create standards through a collaborative state-led process. The standards are rich in content and practice and arranged in a coherent manner across disciplines and grades to provide all students an internationally benchmarked science education. The print version of Next Generation Science Standards complements the nextgenscience.org website and: Provides an authoritative offline reference to the standards when creating lesson plans Arranged by grade level and by core discipline, making information quick and easy to find Printed in full color with a lay-flat spiral binding Allows for bookmarking, highlighting, and annotating Table of Contents Front Matter NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS: Arranged by Disciplinary Core Ideas Connections to Standards: Arranged by Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS: Arranged by Topics Connections to Standards: Arranged by Topics VOLUME 2: APPENDIXES APPENDIX A: Conceptual Shifts in the Next Generation Science Standards APPENDIX B: Responses to the Public Drafts APPENDIX C: College And Career Readiness APPENDIX D: "All Standards, All Students": Making the Next Generation Science Standards Accessible to All Students APPENDIX E: Disciplinary Core Idea Progressions in the Next Generation Science Standards APPENDIX F: Science and Engineering Practices in the Next Generation Science Standards APPENDIX G: Crosscutting Concepts in the Next Generation Science Standards APPENDIX H: Understanding the Scientific Enterprise: The Nature of Science in the Next Generation Science Standards APPENDIX I: Engineering Design in the Next Generation Science Standards APPENDIX J: Science, Technology, Society, and the Environment APPENDIX K: Model Course Mapping in Middle and High School for the Next Generation Science Standards APPENDIX L: Connections to the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics APPENDIX M: Connections to the Common Core State Standards for Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects

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