Archives
“Cell-brating” Even When Things Go Wrong
This spring, I had the pleasure of teaching an elementary science methods course for the first time. Typically, I work with middle and high school credential candidates, so I was a bit nervous as I prepared to teach the class. While I taught…
Learning the Ways of the JEDI: Justice in Action
A group of students huddles over a map of their city. They are not just locating temperature variations—they are layering tree canopy data, income levels, and historic redlining maps that contributed to segregation in the first half of the 20th…
A Student's Experience with High School Dissection
Like most high school students, I took a course called Human Physiology. I knew it entailed learning about the human body and that I might see images that made me uncomfortable. I was also aware that dissecting an animal carcass was part of the…
Use the Study of Natural Selection to Challenge Racism
The Black Lives Matter protests last year led to many teachers talking about explicitly attacking racist ideas as part of classroom instruction. Most of these ideas were about history or humanities lessons. But race is a concept in biology, so why…
High School NGSS- “Where’s My Curriculum?”
At long last, Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) curriculum is finally here! The state has approved 29 instructional materials for use in K-8. The list can be found here. But wait a minute, those are all K-8, what about high school?