If you are an athlete or sports enthusiast, you know that every second counts. To find that 1-2% improvement that can make the difference between 1st and 5th place, sport biomechanists use science to investigate sports techniques and equipment, seeking ways to improve athlete performance and reduce injury risk. In essence, they want athletes to…

The implementation of standards and high-stakes testing has increased the pressure on classroom teachers to cover content in what seems like an ever-shrinking period of time. What if there was a way to help students pay better attention and remember more of their learning that could also reduce teacher stress? This article describes one way to…

Adaptation, interactions between species and their environments, and change over time are fundamental principles in biology. They represent aspects of two of the big ideas in science: evolution and natural selection. To help students understand these ideas, the authors developed the "Guppy Game." In this article, they describe the game and how…

The world's greatest cities and centers of civilization arose near or along major waterways providing access to the sea. Many people, no matter where they live, find the ocean and the life associated with it a fascinating topic. Although the ocean is characterized by high taxonomic diversity (over 90% of the animal phyla are represented in the…

Schools in the United States are faced with an increasingly diverse student population and a dramatic increase in the number of English language learners (ELLs) in all grades. As such diverse populations grow in this era of high-stakes testing and accountability, there is increased pressure to make science accessible to all. To help promote…

Describes a study to assess the effectiveness of an Awareness for Instituting Self Help program that screens and informs at-risk family clusters about heart disease. High school seniors attended a lecture, filled out family history tree questionnaires, took blood pressure and cholesterol tests, and at-risk students followed a prescribed lifestyle…

The International System of Units (SI) or the metric system contains related units which make science simpler for students and teachers. By emphasizing descriptive units, requiring unit use throughout calculations, and using negative exponents, teachers can help students have a better understanding of energy, pressure, and mass concepts. (DH)

Evolution is considered by virtually all biologists to be the central unifying principle of biology, yet its fundamental concepts are not widely understood or widely disseminated. Teaching evolution--defined as descent with modification from a common ancestor as a result of natural selection acting on genetic variation--has traditionally been a…

In today's climate of content standards and high-stakes testing, science teachers are under more pressure than ever to focus on the "ready-made" knowledge of science content. Yet, science educators have long advocated a more balanced approach to science instruction, including emphasis on the processes by which scientific knowledge is produced, as…

For many science students and teachers, the history of science brings to mind musty portraits of long-ago chemists, physicists, and biologists, birth and death dates, and some brief mention of specific contributions. Frequently lost amid teaching pressures are the lessons that may be found in the history of science. These stories not only teach…

Water rockets are used to present Newton's three laws of motion to high school physics students. Described is an outdoor activity which uses four students per group. Provides a launch data sheet to record height, angle of elevation, amount of water used, and launch number. (MVL)

Describes activities with a cartesian diver, a marginally buoyant float. (PR)