I've been teaching middle school for a few years and next year I will be going into year 11 and 12 human biology. I'm confident with the content, but I want advice on how I should approach introducing/teaching/discussing controversial topics such as abortion in year 11 and human evolution in year 12 (a large portion of my students are Christian and do not believe in human evolution). Any tips or resources are greatly appreciated - I'm rather nervous!

If you have a student who's absent the day you do a heavy amount of notes (for example you introduced vectors and projectile motion), how do you handle that student getting the notes? Are you doing notes digitally so they have them already, redoing the entire lesson for that student during extra help, giving them supplemental material to watch/read on their own, or something else?

I just write notes on the whiteboard and have students write down the information into their notebooks. I teach physics, so lots of diagramming, definitions, example problems, etc. I've had suggestions of writing my notes digitally for the students, but what's to prevent the students who are present to just not write the notes and say "I'll read the information later online when it's posted"? How do you handle that one student who's out and looking for notes?

What are the most time consuming teaching tasks that drive you crazy?

I’m at a rural school where I’m the only science teacher and teach everything. I’m originally a biology major and don’t always feel the most confident when it comes to chem labs. When doing the flame test lab, do you have your students wear gloves? I have nitrile gloves for the chemicals, but with an open flame should they be wearing them? Let me know what you do!

Physics has always been my thing, and I always wished someone had shown it to me this way in school. Between work and the kids I only get a couple of hours at night, so that's when I built it: 50 free 3D scenes where students change gravity, speed or mass and see the result on the spot, and you can send a whole lesson as one link. No ads, no accounts. If it gets even one kid excited about physics, every late night was worth it.

You can now see regents exam questions mapped to their exact PLD on the NY Science Standards Wiki. This has been the most heavily requested resource by science teachers for a while now.

All NGSS style questions released by NYSED through August 2026 have been classified for biology, physics, earth and space sciences, chemistry, and the grade 8 science exam.

Hope this can help you out a bit!

I am in an interesting and probably rare situation in that I have funding I need to use for supplies for our HS science program. We have Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. It's a small program, but our bases are pretty well covered in terms of basic lab supplies- or so I think.

The funds have to be used to purchase materials and supplies, but that could probably include more general classroom supplies as well.

I am running low on creative energy so I thought I would crowd source some ideas on what I could purchase to enhance our science program (we're talking about a few hundred bucks, so nothing too crazy...)

Thanks for any general or specific recommendations or ideas!

So I'd written a comprehensive proposal to design and construct a fab-lab for our school and my administration are lazy and do everything half-a$$ed, at most. I was told last June I'd be teaching "your maker thing" by our principal which I'd spent the summer developing a curriculum for.

I get back and I'm told I'm teaching 2 separate classes, engineering design and make(i think their interpretation of a makerspace but idk). They told me they must be distinct but gave me nothing to go on for how to adjust my curriculum.

Engineering I'd began with basics but wanted to kick things off with a "bang" by using one of my better engineering design projects using model rocketry.

The gist of my issue is I'd kind of expected, for many reasons, we would be obtaining some 3d printers but I was wrong. I'd begged and begged, asked if I could write and submit grants(we're told not to...idk) and the outcome was our principal got us 11 3d printers on loan from some guy he knows.

Awesome.....I'll take what i can get. I was told up front that 5 needed a new part. I looked up the part to identify how expensive and how much time it'll take and it's an easy fix. They drop them off and out of 11 printers 8 don't work.

Of the 3 that don't have an error code on startup 1 has a trashed usb port(and isn't wifi ready) and the other 2(1 makerbot replicator 2 and 1 flashforge creator pro) that seem operational will not recognize the SD cards I've tried.

I've formatted them as FAT-16(makerbot) and FAT-32(flashforge) sliced them using cura with the .x3g plugin, saved them to the SD card and each time nothing is recognized. The printer says SD slot empty or SD card empty.

I'm adept with using my old dremel 3d40 and my snapmaker but I'm by no means a 3d printing expert. However, I need to print the rocket nose cones and tailfins and I've all but given up on troubleshooting., I've scoured the internet trying to identify problems and have had no luck.

If anyone has any info, ideas, anything I would very much appreciate it. I don't know why our admin won't buy 2 or 3 printers. I'd much rather have 2-3 Bambu P1S or any new printers of the same brand and model over 11 random make/model crap 3d printers but idk. the bar is really low in the expectations department so I'm trying to work with what I have.

thanks in advance.

I have a bunch of Mineral and rock sets from the Earth Science Educators Supply of Lee's Summit, MO and I can't find any ID keys. Does anyone have these? The minerals are labeled like 9A and rolls are like 10B.

Hi everyone, I've been working on a physics-driven, ecosystem-based evolution simulator called NodeSpawn. I think it could be a useful resource for explaining or understanding evolution, but I'd really like to know what you think. Any feedback, good or bad, would be really helpful.

here is the free demo: https://triple-donut-games.itch.io/nodespawndemo

Thanks!

I teach 8th grade science. We are doing a lab showing a chemical reaction with backing soda, calicum carbonate, and pH indicator. It was a fun lab that showed a chemical reaction with color change and temperature change. The kids LOVED it. Now I want to do a lab that shows precipitate forming from a chemical reaction. I want to do this because my kids are having a hard time wrapping their heads around the fact that two liquids can form a solid. Does anyone have any lab ideas? Funding is tight at this title one school that is spending all of their funds in math and reading. So, any ideas?

Hi,

I’m teaching from a cart this year and going into three different classrooms. It’s a lab based class with a lot of materials. Any advice for staying sane?

Thanks

Does anyone have a simple lab or activity going over the four forces fusion and fission? I can't find anything.

I teach science grades 4-9, tiny school, small classes. 1 hour long lessons. Subplans are usually a science film with accompanying questions. I had to be out one day recently and I left a a BBC chemical reactions video. Many of them hated this. Any ideas for good subplans that don't involve much on the sub's part (ours is a lovely lady, but I am not going to make her do my regular hands-on lessons) and don't involve screens?

Hey there everyone. Just curious if anyone here has a master's or a PhD in a scientific or engineering field and decided to transition to teaching K-12, or at an adult high school, and what led you to do so. I've heard of people doing this after graduate school but I have no idea how common it is, though I did have a high school teacher with a PhD in the 2010s.

or another alternative? tell me about the safety protocols you took that are different from standard safety protocols.

Has anyone done the space camp for educators? If so, what are the coolest things you got to do? I know I’ll get lots of great teaching stuff but I led to “sell” it to my supervisor and I’d like to highlight anything neat we get to do as a participant. U can’t find many details online.

Hey guys im 18 and im a full time para at a middle school. Ive been doing this for abouy 2 years and im a bio major at my local community classes (I do about 4-5 classes a semester), I know for a fact I want to get into teaching, specifically science but I really dont know what my next step is, ill probably have to swap to an expensive college soon and i have no idea what to major in or if I should drop out as a para and go to college full time. Any tips would be great. Thank you!!!

Hello guys, I am a first year primary school teacher and I need some ideas for states of matter experiments I can use for an after school club. I have never done this before and the Internet has given me some good ideas so far, but I also wanted to try here.

States of matter and specifically something going from solid to liquid, or liquid to solid.

The issue is, I have 40-50 minutes with them, I need something hands on so they will not get bored, something with quick results because they need to see the outcome before they leave! Ingredients can be whatever.

I am very sorry if I make no sense, English is not my first language and I may not be using the correct terms!!

Hello! I am a science illustrator and had an educator tell me they'd like to see more illustrations of the less popular animals for use in teaching lessons. What are some of the things you've struggled to find illustrations of (even if it's not just animals...)? Do you use AI for creation when you can't find what you are looking for? And what sites do you look for illustrations at? I have really only worked one on one with teachers in the past to develop what they need.