First, I want to preface this by saying I am not a teacher by profession. I’m not completely ignorant of what goes on in the classroom — I’ve spent a little time as a substitute teacher and I’ve put in many volunteer outreach/instructional hours (See the about page if you want to know a little more). But I haven’t had to deal with the challenges K-12 teachers face with yearly, term-long, and extended lesson planning.
On the other hand, as a working engineer and science writer I have heard the gripes from scientific and technical personnel about how our schools are failing to properly teach science to our students. I’ve seen and participated in many of the outreach activities those folks design to help teach science in the classroom. Unfortunately, the outreach activities I’ve seen may have been full of topic-specific content, but they fail in a few ways:

• They don’t integrate well with the existing curriculum.
• They ignore child development and pedagogical techniques.
• They can be successful in motivating already interested students, but fail to connect with others.
• They are generally not open-ended.

This tools available on this site attempt to overcome all those drawbacks.
One more introductory note. Although I feel my combination of experience has placed me in the rare position of being fairly well informed on both the scientific and educational challenges to teaching science in the classroom, I don’t intend to pose as an expert in all related matters. Specifically, I haven’t memorized the Next Generation Science Standards, especially across the grade levels. Ideally, we can work together to support your efforts to add depth and breadth to your students’ acquisition of scientific knowledge. With that in mind, please consider this site to be a resource to help you teach science in the classroom, and don’t hesitate to request the addition of specific elements to help you and your students succeed.
Here you’ll primarily find resources of two types:

• Straightforward descriptions of cross-cutting concepts that are at the foundation of all scientific inquiry.
• A conceptual model and pedagogical tool to help teach science — one you can easily integrate into your classroom, no matter your grade level.

To get access to these free resources sign up to get on our email list. Here’s our promise to you:

• We will never, ever, sell, distribute, or make available in any way whatsoever your email address to anyone else, unless the sheriff shows up with a court order.
• We will only send you notifications of resources that directly support the mission of teaching science.
• We will not overburden your email inbox.

Please sign up to take advantage of these free resources so we can work together to increase the quality of science education.
Is this a clever ploy to get you hooked on this material and then charge you for the good stuff? Yes. Well, sort of.
As of this writing, all our resources are free with registration. At some point, if I’m going to be able to continue to provide high-quality information you can put right to use in the classroom, it’s likely I’ll offer some paid resources. Here’s my pledge. They’ll always be affordable. They’ll always be valuable. They’ll always come with an unconditional guarantee. And they’ll always be discounted for K-12 teachers.