Science Education
The National Science Teachers Association is the umbrella professional organization for science education...
Links
The National Science Teachers Association is the umbrella professional organization for science education. NSTA has constructed a Web site which will offer science mysteries for students to solve via telecollaboration. Other capacities of NSTA are shelved in other sections of this library.
CEISMC (Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing), at Georgia Tech has pulled together a short but comprehensive list for Busy Teachers. It is organized by traditional school topics.
At XPLORA - the European gateway to science education - you can find educational resources, school projects, teacher explaining their pedagogical projects, approaches and methodologies, eCourses and more.
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics provides leadership and professional development to support mathematics teachers.
A seven step model for science education is illustrated at the Miami Science Museum/School Consortium by the topic of pH. These steps are: excite, explore, examine, explain, expand, extend and exchange. The method is matched with the special capabilities of the Web.
Discovery School, sponsored by OERI within the Department of Education and Hewlett Packard, pulls together some hands-on, interdisciplinary collections from other sites, such as Bill Nye and Little Shop of Physics. Such integration is a useful model for new teachers.
At Cal State Long Beach science activities for pre-school settings have been developed. The activities, while not taking advantage of these newer technologies, nonetheless are sequentially presented. Keeping in mind that many pre-school teachers have no training in science education, this site offers one key lesson: listening to and guiding student responses rather than jumping the gun too soon. Some of the nuggets are in Spanish, also.
Check out the Bad Science site, which highlights common misunderstandings of many science concepts. This site is included in this library in the spirit of "let's keep learning". Requests for this reference appear frequently on the ed networks. We have to say, however, that the author's attitude towards science teachers is quite arrogant; his criticisms are unduly strident.
Annotation
Since studies indicate that good curriculum development should precede technology implementation, finding your home base in such groups is essential.
