Have an idea that doesn’t fit a theme? Send it in. Our issues are a blend of thematic and general material, so we need articles on all topics. With the online submission system available at msrs.nsta.org, getting your manuscript
to us is simple. Before you sit down to write, check out our manuscript guidelines at www.nsta.org/153.
Here are some of the themes for the upcoming publishing year of Science Scope. We invite you to share your teaching ideas with your colleagues in the middle level science community. Visit msrs.nsta.org to register as an author and submit your article.
Meteorology—April/May 2009
Deadline extended to November 30, 2008
What lessons can you share that teach students the complexities of the water cycle and its connections to the energy from the Sun? How do you get students to understand the basics of global warming and how they relate to atmospheric gases and solar radiation? What activities will develop students’ understanding of convection and air pressure and their effects on local and global atmospheric movements?
Classroom Management—Summer 2009
Submission Deadline: January 31, 2009
How do you establish a classroom atmosphere that is conductive to learning? What methods do you use to set and maintain safety, discussion, group work and general behavior guidelines? Do you have community building activities for the beginning of the year? How do you assign groups? Share your plan for managing equipment/supplies and monitoring students during lab work. Tell us how you handle the responsibilities of grading papers, completing team and administrative demands and communicating with parents.
Habits of Mind/Abilities Necessary to Do Scientific Inquiry—September 2009
Submission Deadline: March 31, 2009
AAAS Project 2061 emphasizes that curiosity, honesty, openness, and skepticism are essential habits of mind that must be learned in the context of all science knowledge. What do you do to develop and nurture these habits in your class? How do you teach students to:
- ask questions that interest them
- maintain objectivity and integrity in investigating
- strive for precision and accuracy in collecting data
- evaluate results, weigh relevant evidence, and make well-justified conclusions
- listen to explanations/positions of others
- propose and consider alternative explanations
- identify faulty reasoning and unsupported claims
- engage in discussions and arguments
- accept criticism
- revise explanations
Chemistry—October 2009
Submission Deadline: April 31, 2009
How do you get students to understand the nature of matter without going into too much detail about atomic structure and chemical bonding? What activities, media and technology do you use to teach the phases of matter, characteristic properties and chemical changes? Do you have effective ways to help students identify elements, compounds and mixtures? Share your methods of showing students the basics of the arrangement of elements on the periodic table. How do you make chemistry relevant to students’ lives?
Tried and True column
Do you have an activity that has withstood the test of time, one that deserves a place in any collection of lab classics? Perhaps you have been doing it so long that you have forgotten where you originally found it, or you have changed it so much that it hardly resembles the original. Tell us what makes the activity worth keeping. Is it the never-fail excitement it generates with students? Is it the clarity with which it teaches a concept? Is it the ease with which it develops valued lab or process skills? What special ingredients or twists do you add to make the classic version even better? Check the archives of the Tried and True column to see what you can add to make our collection complete.
Ahead
Summer 09—Classroom Management
September 09—Habits of Mind/Abilities Necessary to Do Scientific Inquiry
October 09—Chemistry
November 09—Interdisciplinary/Integrated Science
December 09—Structure and Scale