Science Scope back issues from February 2009:
We've come a long way from the four elements.(EDITOR'S ROUNDTABLE)(Editorial)
Feb 01, 2009; ... Throughout the ages, people have sought to bring order to an otherwise overwhelming natural world by sorting, naming, and labeling. As our technology advanced, so has the sophistication of our classification systems. Over time, we've moved from the ancient Greeks' four elements to the ...
Jaw-dropping dinosaur discovery.(SCOPE'S SCOOPS)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2009 ... When you take a bite out of a hamburger or chomp down on a piece of gum, you share this function of the lower jaw with the vast majority of animals--but not all. For some animals, lifting the head rather than dropping the jaw is a good idea. This bizarre reversal of how feeding occurs was ...
Ancient magma plumes may have shaped continents.(SCOPE'S SCOOPS)
Feb 01, 2009 ... Two giant plumes of hot rock deep within the Earth are linked to the plate motions that shape the continents, researchers have found. The two superplumes, one beneath Hawaii and the other beneath Africa, have likely existed for at least 200 million years, explained Wendy Panero, assistant ...
Planetary peek-a-boo.(SCOPE'S SCOOPS)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2009 ... NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has caught an image of Jupiter's moon Ganymede just before it ducks behind the giant planet. Ganymede completes an orbit around Jupiter every seven days. Because Ganymede's orbit is tilted nearly edge-on to Earth, it routinely can be seen passing in front of ...
Advancing understanding of drug addiction and treatment.(ISSUES IN-DEPTH)(Disease/Disorder overview)
Feb 01, 2009; ... While most school districts utilize a drug abuse resistance curriculum, as science teachers, it is our responsibility to understand the science behind drug addiction in order to most effectively educate our students against drug abuse. In the last two decades, increases in scientific ...
A geospatial scavenger hunt.
Feb 01, 2009; ... At the mention of a scavenger hunt, students' eyes light up. With the use of technology such as Global Positioning System (GPS) units and Google Earth for a simple-machine scavenger hunt, you will transform a standard identification activity into an exciting learning experience that ...
Tread lightly: the truth about science friction.
Feb 01, 2009; ... During a recent unit on characteristics of animals in different environments, "backyard safari" trips around the schoolyard provided opportunities for students to describe ways that animals are adapted to their unique environments. These outdoor ventures engaged and motivated students to ...
Botanical scavenger hunt.
Feb 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I can remember my excitement as I was handed a list of wacky, unrelated items and then asked to collect those items as quickly as possible for my summer camp's scavenger hunt. My bunkmates and I scrambled to fill our pillowcases with items we had either ...
A model for lesson development.(Inductive & Deductive SCIENCE THINKING)
Feb 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Middle school students make great learning gains when they participate in lessons that invite them to practice their developing scientific reasoning skills; however, designing developmentally appropriate, clear, and structured lessons about scientific ...
Biological clocks & circadian rhythms.
Feb 01, 2009; ... Every morning when I arrive in my classroom, the leaves of the shamrock plants unfurl; every night at sunset, these same leaves close up. What controls this leaf movement? Can the leaf movement be altered? Why does the leaf close at night? Students can explore these questions and others ...
Using seashells to teach classification.(SCIENCE SAMPLER)
Feb 01, 2009; ... Everyone loves the beach. Unfortunately, most schools don't have access to beachfront property. So, why not bring the beach to the classroom? A couple of years ago, an elderly gentleman donated a large collection of seashells to our school. His eyesight was failing, and he was no longer ...
The Great Fakesperiment.(SCIENCE SAMPLER)
Feb 01, 2009; ... Whenever science fair time rolls around, I mention to my students that the projects are assigned for two reasons: to be proud and to have fun. The best way for a student to be proud of a science fair project is to truly understand what it entails. For a middle school student, this does not ...
Making a leap toward concrete inferences.(SCIENCE SAMPLER)
Feb 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There are many ways to help students answer questions about the natural world. Some questions can be answered by simply finding the answer online or in a book; other questions lend themselves toward investigating phenomena in a systematic way. As we train ...
Dr. Vermeij and The Cay.(SCIENCE SAMPLER)(Geerat Vermeij)
Feb 01, 2009; ... What do a famous conchologist/evolutionary biologist, and The Cay have in common? Both became intertwined in an interdisciplinary project involving science, social studies, and English. As an interdisciplinary exploration, my middle-level students were reading The Cay (1969) by Theodore ...
Cover muse-ings.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Feb 01, 2009; ... One of my students saw the December copy of Science Scope on the counter in my classroom and said, "Wow! They misspelled 'museum' on the cover!" I had to look twice, but he was right. On the cover it says "Musuem." The student went on to ask if NSTA had missed the root word muse--to think ....
Sky swap.(LETTERS)(Correction notice)
Feb 01, 2009 ... Column editor Bob Riddle noted that the labels for opening art and figure in the December Scope on the Skies were inadvertently switched. The labels ...
Avoiding the burn.(SCOPE ON SAFETY)
Feb 01, 2009; ... A major cause of injuries in middle and high school science laboratories can be summarized by one word--heat. Heated liquids, glassware, and hot plates are the most common source of student burns in the lab. Training--the key to preventing most burns--should be provided at the beginning of ...
Chipping away at the rock cycle.(TRIED AND TRUE)
Feb 01, 2009; ... Helping students understand how the Earth formed and how it is constantly changing is both significant and intriguing. The National Science Education Standards recommend that middle school students have a clear understanding of the history, composition, and formative processes that shape ...
Thinking spatially: taking observation, classification, and communication skills to a higher level of reasoning.(TRIED AND TRUE)
Feb 01, 2009; ... This month's issue of Science Scope focuses on classification and its relation to other process skills. To grasp the integration of observation, classification, and communication skills, let's start with a simple and straightforward intermediate-level performance task. In this situation, ...
The new Milky Way galaxy.(SCOPE ON THE SKIES)
Feb 01, 2009; ... When students are asked about the Milky Way galaxy and where our solar system is located, most will describe it as a spiral-shaped galaxy with the Sun located on one of the spiral arms. While this is essentially correct, data obtained with the Spitzer telescope have provided new insight ...
Car Science: An Under-the-Hood, Behind-the-Dash Look at How Cars Work.(Children's review)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Car Science: An Under-the Hood, Behind-the-Dash Look at How Cars Work by Richard Hammond. 2008. 96pp. $17.99. Dorling Kindersley. New York. ISBN: ...
Differentiated Instructional Strategies for Science, Grades K-8.(Book review)
Feb 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Differentiated Instructional Strategies for Science, Grades K-8 by Gayle H. Gregory and Elizabeth Hammerman. 2008. 177pp. $30.95. Corwin Press. ...
InspireData With Reviewer's Guide and Lesson Plan: The Visual Way to Explore and Understand Data.(Product/service evaluation)
Feb 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] InspireData With Reviewer's Guide and Lesson Plan: The Visual Way to Explore and Understand Data by Inspiration Software. 2007 ....
One Minute Mysteries: 65 Short Mysteries You Solve With Science!(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] One Minute Mysteries: 65 Short Mysteries You Solve With Science! by Eric Yoder and Natalie Yoder. 2008. 176pp. $9.95. Science Naturally! ...
Calls of the wild.(OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS)(Western Soundscape Archive)(Website overview)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2009 ... The Western Soundscape Archive, available at www. westernsoundscape.org, is a web-based sound clearinghouse headquartered at the University of Utah that has collected more than 800 recordings in an effort to ...
Rock cycle website.(OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS)(Website overview)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2009 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A new web-based teaching resource created by the Geological Society of London, England is available at www. geolsoc.org.uk/rock-cycle. The materials include animation of the rock cycle with ...
Greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator.(OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2009 ... The EPA has set up an online tool that can translate phrases like "metric ton of carbon dioxide" into more everyday terms, such as "the carbon dioxide emissions of a passenger car over two months." The user ...
Got the HOTS for inquiry?(OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS)(higher-order thinking skills)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2009 ... This online workshop, available at www.t2tweb.us/ Digital/workshop_hots/index.html, shows participants how to increase student learning by ...
How to submit a guess.(MYSTERY PHOTO: Can you identify our Mystery Photo?)
Feb 01, 2009 ... In each issue of Science Scope, we will publish a science-related image for your students to identify. When an image is published, teachers can submit a guess on behalf of their class through our website (www.nsta.org/ mysteryphoto), by e-mail (sciencescope@nsta.org, please include ...
Enter your picture in the Mystery Photo contest!(MYSTERY PHOTO: Can you identify our Mystery Photo?)
Feb 01, 2009 ... If you would like to submit a picture to be considered as a future Mystery Photo, you should send nonreturnable prints (no negatives, please) or a digital image. For digital images submitted electronically (as an attachment to an e-mail or on disk through the mail), the preferred format is ...
December's answer: Aztec calendar.(MYSTERY PHOTO: Can you identify our Mystery Photo?)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2009 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Last month's photo was correctly identified by Kristie Mabry's seventh-grade science class at A. L. Stanback Middle School in South Hillsborough, North Carolina. Kristie and her class will receive a copy of Visual Thinking Puzzles by Michael J. DiSpezio ....