This interactive Flash puzzle helps children develop number sense and an understanding of our decimal number system. A 0-99 square has been cut into 11 irregular pieces which the user re-assembles. A printable (pdf) version is included along with questions for Getting Started and a Teachers' Resources page with implementation suggestions.

Advising guidelines put together at the University of Arkansas as the undergraduate program grew and developed. Presented at the 2012 SPIN-UP conference in Austin and the PhysTEC leadership meeting at the AAPT summer meeting in Edmonton.

This web page provides links to resources aligned to the CCSS that guide and support first grade mathematics teaching and learning. Tasks developed by the Mathematics Assessment Resource Service (MARS) and Problems of the Month, (POM home page is cataloged separately) developed by the Noyce Foundation are included. The activities were designed to measure students' ability to solve non-routine problems, explain and justify their solutions, and promote high level thinking skills. Resources are listed for specific grade 1 standards and are also organized by progression for an alternate search route.

This blog page offers more than 25 activities and games that use a Hundred Chart to develop students' skills and concepts in a variety of math topics: basic operations, number sense, patterns, number theory, fractions, decimals, and logic. The suggestions include links to materials and to other websites.

This 34-page document (pdf) identifies student learning outcomes for each of eleven 21st Century Skills and provides examples of tasks for grade 4, 8, and 12. It strives to fuse mathematical content and mathematical practices with the 4Cs (communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity) and integrate them with interdisciplinary themes. Each skill is aligned with CCSS mathematical practices. This map was designed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) in cooperation with the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and dozens of math educators across the country.

This web page provides links to resources aligned to the CCSS that guide and support second grade mathematics teaching and learning. Tasks developed by the Mathematics Assessment Resource Service (MARS), Problems of the Month, (POM home page is cataloged separately) and videos of public lessons and number talks developed by the Noyce Foundation are included. The tasks were designed to measure students’ ability to solve non-routine problems, explain and justify their solutions, and promote high level thinking skills. They include the scoring rubric, student responses, and discussion of student understanding and misconceptions. Resources are listed for specific grade 2 standards and are also organized by progression for an alternate search route.

This web page provides links to resources aligned to the CCSS that guide and support third grade mathematics teaching and learning. Tasks developed by the Mathematics Assessment Resource Service (MARS) and Problems of the Month, (POM home page is cataloged separately) developed by the Noyce Foundation are included. The tasks were designed to measure students’ ability to solve non-routine problems, explain and justify their solutions, and promote high level thinking skills. They include the scoring rubric, student responses, and discussion of student understanding and misconceptions. Resources are listed for specific grade 3 standards and are also organized by progression for an alternate search route.

This web page provides links to resources aligned to the CCSS that guide and support fourth grade mathematics teaching and learning. Tasks developed by the Mathematics Assessment Resource Service (MARS) for the Noyce Foundation, Problems of the Month, (POM home page is cataloged separately) and videos of public lessons and number talks developed by the Noyce Foundation are also included. The performance tasks were originally designed to measure students' ability to solve non-routine problems and then to explain and justify their solutions. The task scoring rubric, student responses, and discussion of student understanding and misconceptions are provided to improve instruction. Resources are listed for specific grade 4 standards and are also organized by progression for an alternate search route.

This web page provides links to resources aligned to the CCSS that guide and support fifth grade mathematics teaching and learning. Tasks developed by the Mathematics Assessment Resource Service (MARS), Problems of the Month, (POM home page is cataloged separately) and videos of public lessons and number talks developed by the Noyce Foundation are included. The tasks were designed to measure students' ability to solve non-routine problems, explain and justify their solutions, and promote high level thinking skills. They include the scoring rubric, student responses, and discussion of student understanding and misconceptions. Resources are listed for specific grade 5 standards and are also organized by progression for an alternate search route.

This classroom activity will show students that there is a lot we don't know about science, for example life throughout the universe. It will hopefully encourage students to question what we know and don't know, and exploration and study of the unknown.

In this lab, students use BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) to compare several genes, and then use the information to construct a cladogram (also called a phylogenetic tree) to depict the evolutionary relatedness of species.

This web page presents information about using math templates during instruction to keep each student actively involved and to allow the teacher to informally assess each student's proficiency with the skills and concepts addressed throughout the lesson. The web page provides suggestions for using templates and explanations for why templates should be used. There is a link to the template library, which includes available templates (in PDF format) for the following categories: Number and Operation, Patterns and Algebra, Geometry and Measurement, Data Analysis and Probability, Discrete Math and Logic and Problem Solving.

Selected resources provide three web-based activities to complement science lessons in an issue of Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle. The free, online magazine for Grades K-5 teachers explores the essential principles of climate literacy.

This resource from the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives shows students how to rename fractions to have a common denominator and then add them. It is appealing because it visually engages the students by showing them what happens to a unit (a rectangle is used here) as the denominator increases or decreases. As the denominator increases or decreases, the partitions are shown accordingly, and the effect on the numerator is shown as well. This is a convenient, visual way to show students how to manipulate fractions for adding.

Kahn Academy video - How to add and subtract fractions with like and unlike denominators.

Dear colleagues
We would like to submit our Journal "Advances in Biology & Earth Sciences"
ISSN 2519-8033
to NSDL
Thank you in advance.

Sincerely
Farzali Aghamaliyev
Editor in-Chief

This 1-minute video created by the UK Department of Education as an algebra lesson starter is based around how many friends can sit at a birthday party table. The video shows the birthday boy and girl sitting at opposite ends of the table with their guests sitting two on either side. As more tables are added and the number of children grow, a pattern starts to appear. Children are asked to predict how many children could come to the party if there were 100 tables.

This 3-minute video created by UK Department of Education as a math lesson starter on algebra, presents a story of a cold apple seller who can't afford a scarf and manages to exchange some apples for a scarf. The scarf seller then goes and exchanges some of her scarves for a coat. The story finishes by asking students to work out the formula for how many apples will be needed to get a coat.

In this informational text, elementary school readers learn about the difference between weather and climate and about components of the climate system. The text can be used to practice visualizing and other comprehension strategies. Available in K-2 and 3-5 grade bands and as an illustrated book as well as a text document, the story appears in the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle.

This 8-page monograph offers strategies for effective questioning that engages students and that deepens their conceptual understanding in mathematics. It suggests questions and prompts that help students progress through various stages of the problem solving process and that help teachers assess the thinking of students. The article describes the purposes of questions at different stages of a lesson and describes situations when it is appropriate to convey information to students. A list of references is included.

The ability to ask and answer questions while reading is essential to comprehension. This article discusses instructional strategies used to teach questioning and provides many online resources. The article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which explores the seven essential principles of the climate sciences for teachers in k-grade 5 classrooms.

Khan Academy video tutorial with practice exercises. Introduction to averages and algebra problems involving averages.

This professional development article describes approaches to using social media in harnessing the power of Web 2.0 technologies to reinforce the connection between multimedia literacy and powerful content-area learning in grades K-5. The emphasis is on collaboration with the school librarian. The article appears in the free online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which is structured around the seven essential principles of the climate sciences.

This 8-page monograph explains bansho, a research-informed instructional strategy for mathematical communication and collective problem-solving. Following a brief overview, the article outlines how bansho can be used to plan and implement an effective three-part problem-solving lesson. Bansho can be incorporated into collaborative planning sessions, in which teachers work with partners or in groups within communities of practice to learn about mathematics for teaching. The author provides a sample grade 2 lesson on the development of multiplication concepts and a list of references.

This blog is dedicated to sharing ideas for integrating children's literature with elementary mathematics. Entries include descriptions and commentary on specific books as well as teaching tips for using them. The author includes external links to lesson plans and to authors' home pages. Readers can browse for books by math topic and leave comments to share their own teaching tips.

The purpose of this resource is to measure and classify the plant life at a Land Cover Site to help determine the MUC classification.

This article continues an examination of each of the seven essential principles of the climate sciences on which the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle is structured. Principle 3 states that life on Earth depends on, is shaped by, and affects climate. The climate dictates where and how species can survive. The author discusses the scientific concepts underlying the life forms' dependence on the climate and expands the discussion with diagrams, photos, and online resources.

The purpose of this resource is to quantitatively evaluate the accuracy of a classification system. Students sort birds into three possible classes based on each bird's beak: carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. Students compare their answers with a given set of validation data.

A new instructional model, called Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI), is introduced to elementary teachers in this article. The author shows how school librarians and classroom teachers can collaborate to help students construct and communicate evidence, or arguments. Evidence buckets, a collaborative activity, and related online resources are presented. The article appears in the free online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which is structured around the seven essential principles of climate literacy.

In this nonfiction story, young readers and listeners learn how scientists use cross sections from trees to reconstruct past climates. Versions are provided for readers at two levels, k-2 and 3-5, and in text-only and illustrated formats. The story is also available as an electronic book with recorded narration. An original story is a regular feature of each issue of the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle. The story can be used in science and literacy lessons and activities throughout the magazine.

This article provides links to six web sites that provide an overview of cause/effect relationships, graphic organizers, and teaching strategies for elementary teachers.

This page from the Math Forum blog of Suzanne Alejandre links to a one-minute video during which Max Ray acts out the "Charlie's Gumball" Problem of the Week. The page includes links to PDFs of the scenario, the PoW Packet with the solution and teaching suggestions, a scoring rubric and the "Notice/Wonder" strategy handout that can be used to introduce the problem.

This activity is a field investigation where students gather leaves from various trees on school property, interpret findings, name tree and leaves, journal activity and develop a new "aha" for nature!

This article continues an examination of each of the seven essential principles of climate literacy on which the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle is structured. Principle 2 covers the complex interactions among the components of the Earth system. The author discusses the scientific concepts underlying the interactions and expands the discussion with diagrams, photos, and online resources.

This professional development article identifies resources that show young learners (K-grade 5) how scientists study Earth's climate and make predictions. The online lessons either allow students to collect and analyze data or learn about tools and technologies that make data collection possible. The lessons are aligned with national content standards for science education. The article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which examines the recognized essential principles of climate literacy and the climate sciences for elementary teachers and their students.

This blog post presents strategies, one of which is the Math Forum's "I Notice, I Wonder" brainstorming activity, to help students make sense of problems. The strategies help students who are having trouble connecting to the action in story problems, seeing what the problem is about, or connecting the problem to their own experience.

This 8-page monograph discusses the importance of developing student communication in mathematics, both oral and written, and the elements that make communication effective. It describes three approaches for organizing and facilitating students sharing their thinking about problem solving: Gallery Walk, Math Congress, and Bansho (Board Writing). The author provides tips for getting started with these strategies and a list of references.

This article from the free online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle provides appropriate science lessons for Grades K-5. The focus is on acquainting young learners with climate-change concepts that are not too complex for their grade level and will not frighten them. In each issue, the magazine develops articles around one of the seven essential principles of climate science. The author believes early lessons about water availability and extreme weather events will prepare students for complex climate concepts they will encounter in later grades.

The national shortage of highly qualified math and science teachers points to a need to focus more attention and resources on teacher preparation. However, physics faculty often have little time to spare for activities outside of traditional research and teaching. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has strongly supported teacher preparation efforts, primarily through the Directorate of Education and Human Resources. What may be lesser known is that the NSF "broader impacts" criterion opens the door for more conventional research proposals to include teacher preparation activities as well.

This article discusses an inquiry practice that encourages students to develop their mathematical thinking through discussion. The author describes examples of students taking ownership of their learning when they are encouraged to justify their positions through sound mathematical reasoning. This practice builds a foundation for formal proofs.