Prompted by an editorial in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Absolute certainty is not scientific,” we wrote on this blog, “With the ongoing polarization of science in today’s political environment, it’s more important than ever to remember that science is filled with uncertainty.” That was 2011, and it is still just as true today. At […]
This year we published a dozen articles in researcher and teacher practitioner journals that showcase the state of the field in STEM educational technology in 2020. Learn what students with low and high spatial skills notice in computer visualizations of plate tectonics (#2), how students can experience authentic messy data exploration of meaningful questions (#10), […]
By any measure, this has been one of the most stressful years on record, and teachers are among those most affected by the massive devastation wreaked by COVID-19. A recent New York Times article describes the emotional and physical toll of pandemic teaching, and we’ve heard directly from many teachers with whom we’ve collaborated for […]
Whether teaching physics, chemistry, or biology, every high school science teacher is challenged to take students on a journey down to the nanoscale level where intangible, invisible forces hold sway and mysteriously result in phenomena at the macroscopic level. Think Ms. Frizzle and her Magic School Bus as her schoolchildren take the ride of their […]
We experience weather every day. And it’s often the easiest icebreaker to start a conversation—“What’s the weather like in your neck of the woods?”—since weather is, well, everywhere! We know a lot about weather, too, thanks to datasets collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The NOAA database includes data from thousands of […]
“Teaching online is definitely challenging and different than when we are doing it in person. However, I notice my students are more focused virtually than in class. There are fewer distractions, I guess, maybe, for some, and they have to watch the demonstration as it unfolds. My students know they have to turn in their […]
The 2020 election was many things. It was close. It was long and drawn out. It was exciting. It was also a teachable moment. Think back to your high school algebra class. OK, don’t think about that, think about the election. Did the media take too long to declare a winner? Or did they actually […]
Remote and hybrid teaching have made keeping track of student work even more challenging. To address this problem, we redesigned our Class Dashboard and have added it to selected activities and modules in our STEM Resource Finder. Just like past iterations, the newly revised Class Dashboard shows a grid of students’ work that updates in […]
Evolution is a particularly daunting subject to teach and to understand. The evidence for it is indirect and the model rests largely on phenomena that cannot be directly observed, including some that are poorly understood to this day. A research-based set of curriculum materials aimed at upper elementary and middle school students can help. We […]
Rebecca Ellis is a research associate at Michigan State University. The Connected Biology project (ConnectedBio), a collaboration between the Concord Consortium and Michigan State University, recently released Deer Mouse Fur Color: From the Field to the Beach. This free, Next Generation Science Standards-aligned set of 15 lessons guides students through a nuanced understanding of the […]