Creating Scientists : Teaching and Assessing Science Practice for the NGSS

This book shows you how to create living, breathing scientists by shifting your teaching from a content focus to a hands-on, practice focus, where students discover science by doing science. As required by the new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), this practical book provides a clear, research verified framework for building lessons that teach science practice abilities, such as gathering and making sense of data, constructing explanations, designing experiments, and communicating information. Creating Scientists features reproducible, immediately deployable tools and handouts that you can use in the classroom to assess your students' learning within the domains for the NGSS or any standards framework that focuses on the integration of science practice with content. This book is an invaluable resource for educators seeking to build a "community of practice," where students discover ideas through well-taught, hands-on, authentic science experiences that foster an innate love for learning how the world works.

Christopher Moore is a former physical science teacher and the Dr. George F. Haddix Community Chair in Physical Science and associate professor of physics education at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Holding a M.S. in applied physics and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Virginia Commonwealth University, Dr. Moore has worked as a physical science teacher at several secondary schools in Virginia, as a professional materials scientist, and as a scholar of and consultant on science education. His education research focuses on the development of scientific reasoning and expert-like science practice abilities, with emphasis on practices that cross disciplines. This work has resulted in the publication of several dozen articles, invited speaker roles all over the world, and multiple awards including a Fulbright Scholar award. He has developed pre- and in-service teacher training workshops on science practices in the Czech Republic, Mexico, and for school districts across the USA. Dr. Moore's website is creatingscientists.com, where printable tools from this book can be found.