If you work with students who struggle to understand their Earth science texts, this book provides everything you need to boost their skills in both science and reading. Once Upon an Earth Science Book starts with advice on teaching reading comprehension strategies to middle school students. Then, the 12 content chapters give you * hands-on science activities with engaging titles such as " Mountain Mayhem," " Oceans on the Move," and " Trash Soup" ; * readings that cover important Earth science concepts and support the Next Generation Science Standards; * writing activities that prompt students to connect what they did with what they read; and * assessment exercises to give you feedback on what your students are learning. You' ll love how practical and easy this book is to use. Jodi Wheeler-Toppen is an experienced teacher who couldn' t find a resource that integrated reading, writing, and science-- so she wrote it herself. She' s also the author of NSTA Press' s Once Upon a Life Science Book (see p. 7). " As you and your students work through these lessons together," she predicts, " you will be able to watch their confidence as readers-- and your confidence as a reading educator-- grow."

"Science education's two-fold challenge is clear: Schools need to (1) align their curricula with contemporary state standards and (2) meet the growing demand for STEM education. What's not as clear: how to meet the challenge if your school doesn't have the right instructional materials. STEM, Standards, and Strategies for High-Quality Units is designed to address both these needs. Thought leader and curriculum expert Rodger W. Bybee has assembled a guide to creating coherent, high-quality classroom materials that support the standards and STEM. The book provides practical background information and activities that can be adapted by individual teachers, professional learning communities, and professional developers. It starts with a section on making foundational decisions about your STEM unit's development. Later sections discuss getting started with preliminary designs, improving the designs with new knowledge and skills, developing the unit, and then teaching and further improving the unit as needed. Throughout, Bybee integrates contemporary educational strategies such as the 5E Instructional Model, backward design, and lesson study. "Because most states have new science standards, it only makes sense to incorporate various aspects of those standards in STEM activities," he writes. STEM, Standards, and Strategies for High-Quality Units is the book to help you do this. It's useful whether your school is developing a new STEM program, adapting current instructional materials, or creating new materials of its own"--

Problem-Based Learning in the Life Science Classroom, K- 12 offers a great new way to ignite your creativity. Authors Tom McConnell, Joyce Parker, and Janet Eberhardt show you how to engage students with scenarios that represent real-world science in all its messy, thought-provoking glory. The scenarios prompt K- 12 learners to immerse themselves in analyzing problems, asking questions, posing hypotheses, finding needed information, and then constructing a proposed solution. In addition to complete lesson plans supporting the Next Generation Science Standards, the book offers extensive examples, instructions, and tips. The lessons cover four categories: life cycles, ecology, genetics, and cellular metabolism. But Problem-Based Learning in the Life Science Classroom, K- 12 doesn' t just explain why, how, and when to implement problem-based learning (PBL). It also provides you with what many think is the trickiest part of the approach: rich, authentic problems. The authors facilitated the National Science Foundation- funded PBL Project for Teachers and used the problems in their own science teaching, so you can be confident that the problems and the approach are teacher tested and approved.

Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.

Teachers of Earth and environmental sciences in grades 8OCo12 will welcome this activity book centered on six OC data puzzlesOCO that foster critical-thinking skills in students and support science and math standards. Earth Science Puzzles presents professionally gathered Earth science dataOCoincluding graphs, maps, tables, images, and narrativesOCoand asks students to step into scientistsOCO shoes to use temporal, spatial, quantitative, and concept-based reasoning to draw inferences from the data."

Encourage fifth-grade students to build their reading comprehension and word study skills using daily practice activities. Great for after school, intervention, or homework, teachers and parents can help students gain regular practice through these quick, diagnostic-based activities that are correlated to College and Career Readiness and other state standards. Both fiction and nonfiction reading passages are provided as well as data-driven assessment tips and digital versions of the assessment analysis tools and activities. With these easy-to-use activities, fifth graders will boost their reading skills in a hurry!

What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.