Students come to class with diverse experiences and backgrounds, and the author tries to take advantage of that diversity in the plant unit. Every year the author secures the help of the two or three green thumbs or green-thumb wannabes to help take care of the collection of plants she brings from home in the fall. The author also invites students…

This activity presents an option for covering biology content while engaging students in an investigation that highlights the spirit of Halloween. Students are engaged in the story line and have fun trying to solve the mystery kidnapping by using science skills to examine the evidence and eliminate some ghoulish suspects. (Contains 1 figure.)

Having students design their own methods regarding data collection during a lab may help them formulate appropriate investigative procedures. The authors use a modified gallery walk to develop science skills. (Contains 3 figures.)

A well-known lesson taught by many upper-elementary and early-middle-school teachers at the beginning of the school year asks students to compare how arm span relates to height. Students measure their height and arm span and compare their measurements to those of their classmates. This lesson gets students measuring, graphing, and practicing…

One key element sometimes missing from middle school science lessons is questioning designed to generate student discourse. The National Science Teachers Association recommends that the curriculum of middle school science programs includes "hands-on, minds-on" (NSTA 2003) inquiry-based science instruction, and according to Clough and Olson,…

As the United States strives to achieve energy independence, students need to be literate about energy and environmental issues. In this article, the authors present a lesson about the nation's electricity resources that is part 1 of a free, comprehensive unit on coal and energy that is available online (http://tinyurl.com/coalenergyunit). The…

High school chemistry can be intimidating to some students, so it is critical that we engage students in nonthreatening preparatory investigations during middle school. Based on the learning cycle model (Bybee and Landes 1990), this lesson invites students to investigate disposable diapers. As they explore the properties of sodium polyarcylate, a…

Connecting science with different cultures is one way to interest students in science, to relate science to their lives, and at the same time to broaden their horizons in a variety of ways. In the lesson described here, students make kimchi, a delicious and popular Korean dish that can be used to explore many important chemistry concepts,…

The International Boiling Point Project is an online, collaborative project for students in grades 6-12 in which they investigate the impact of four factors (room temperature, elevation, volume of water and heating device) on the boiling point of water. A detailed procedure is provided for students in order to limit the number of variables…

This article discusses how, as part of a National Science Foundation-funded internship program, the authors translated smart papers into an exciting and informative activity for the middle school classroom. This activity opens students' eyes to an everyday technology and inspires them to ask questions about other hidden technologies that they…

Students within the Findlay, Ohio, City School District, as well as students across the country, struggle with understanding physical and chemical changes. Therefore, in this article, the authors suggest some standards-based activities to clarify misconceptions and provide formative assessments to measure your students' progress as they determine…

Clarifying ancient environments millions of years ago is necessary to better understand how ecosystems change over time, providing insight as to the potential impacts of current global warming. This module engages middle school students in the scientific process, asking them to use tooth measurement to test the null hypothesis that horse and tapir…

In the exciting, "out of this world" activity described here, students measure the Earth using meter sticks while measuring their shadows in two distant locations. To obtain the size of the Earth, students discover the connection between the measurements of the shadows and a model of the spherical Earth following the method developed by…

Today's scientific theories are the result of a long collaborative process, sometimes over centuries, among many different scientists from various parts of the world. To communicate this concept to middle school students and introduce them to the theory of plate tectonics and continental drift, they are placed in the role of geologists attending a…

The Oregon 4-H Wildlife Stewards program has been training teachers and volunteers to convert school grounds to education sites by constructing schoolyard wildlife habitats since 1997. The publication "What Can We Learn at the Pond? 4-H Wildlife Stewards Master Leader Guide" (Bourdeau 2004a) was written to support the program's focus on developing…