This column provides background science information for elementary teachers. This month's issue discusses the rotation of the moon. The author investigates what would happen if the moon did not rotate and addresses exactly why the Moon does what it does with respect to rotation.

This column provides background science information for elementary teachers. This month's issue discusses the science behind self-driving cars, but first explains how a car "with" a driver works.

Bill Robertson is the author of the NSTA Press book series, "Stop Faking It! Finally Understanding Science So You Can Teach It." In this month's issue, Robertson describes and explains the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle was discussed on "The Big Bang Theory," the lead character in…

Why Does It Take Longer to Boil Potatoes at High Altitudes? This column provides background science information for elementary teachers. This month's issue looks at why water boils at different temperatures at different altitudes.

Having written columns dealing with science fairs before, Bill Robertson notes that it's been a long time since he has tackled the subject of what passes for a "science fair" in schools these days. Because science fairs have changed over the years, Robertson revisits the topic and explains the scientific method. The main focus of the…

Since nearly every science curriculum in the country contains a section on living and non-living things, Bill Robertson believes that pretty much anyone who has taught the subject has run into difficulties. It seems as if no matter what criteria you use to distinguish between the two you can nearly always find exceptions. This article provides a…

The answer to this month's question, "Can electromagnetic waves affect emotions," is yes. Wherever there are electromagnetic (EM) waves (basically everywhere!), there is the potential for them directly or indirectly to affect the emotions. But what about the likely motivation behind the originally-posed question? Can EM waves affect your…

This column provides background science information for elementary teachers. Many innovations with computer software begin with analysis of how humans do a task. This article takes a look at how humans recognize spoken words and explains the origins of speech-recognition software.

In this article, author Bill Robertson attempts to help readers understand some of the Earth's heating and cooling mechanisms and how they relate to global warming. Figures are provided to help facilitate learning.

How is calculus used in science? That might seem like an odd question to answer in a magazine intended primarily for elementary school teachers. After all, how much calculus gets used in elementary science? Here the author guesses that quite a few readers of this column do not know a whole lot about calculus and have not taken a course in…

At first glance it seems easy to attribute cause and effect when it's not applicable, either through mistakenly taking every correlation as a cause and effect relationship, misinterpreting the meaning of independent and dependent variables, or not focusing on direct causes. Sometimes it's easy to help students understand where…

This task asks readers to figure out why when you stir a cup of hot liquid and tap on the side of the cup with a spoon, the pitch of sound starts low and ends up high. The solution to last month's tasks relating to the circumference of the Earth and how many stars are in the (visible) sky is also presented.

Contrary to popular opinion, electron microscopes are not used to look at electrons. They are used to look for structure in things that are too small to observe with an optical microscope, or to obtain images that are magnified much more than is obtainable with an optical microscope. To understand how electron microscopes work, it will help to go…

A convenient place to begin discussing overall wind patterns on Earth is to explain coastal winds. If you live near the coast (that would be near an ocean) or even near a large lake, you probably know the general pattern of winds there. During the day, breezes tend to blow from the water in toward the land, and at night, this tends to reverse,…

The question examined in this "Science 101" column was inspired by "Find Your School's Analemma" (in this issue). What causes the Sun's apparent position in the sky to trace a figure-eight pattern throughout one year? The analemma, or figure eight pattern that the Sun makes throughout the year, is due to two major…