Tara C. Dale is a Nationally Board Certified Teacher (NBCT), currently teaching high school science, and is an instructional coach. Previously, she has taught middle school science and social studies in addition to the following high school classes: biology, ecology, earth and space science, AP psychology, and AP environmental science. She earned her Bachelors of Science degrees in psychology and biology from Arizona State University. She earned her Master's in Secondary Education from University of Phoenix. In 2014, she was an Arizona Teacher of the Year Finalist and in 2011 was honored as a STEM Innovation Hero by Science Foundation Arizona. She sits on the Board of Directors for the Arizona NBCT Network and is on the Superintendent Teacher Advisor Team for Maricopa County, Arizona. Her field work includes the effects of deforestation on biodiversity in the rainforests of Ecuador and the diurnal movement of plankton in the surface of the ocean as it relates to water temperature.

Tara has facilitated professional development classes and presented at conferences throughout the United States, most notably with ACT, the National Network of State Teachers of the Year, Student Achievement Partners, and Collaborative for Student Success. She and Mandi White have contributed to Larry Ferlazzo's Education Week Teacher blog and his BAM! Classroom Q&A radio show.

Tara was in the financial industry for 14 years prior to becoming a public school teacher. She is married with two children.

Mandi S. White has worked in education for 13 years and is currently an academic and behavior specialist at Kyrene del Pueblo Middle School in Chandler, Arizona, where she works with students and teachers across all settings to improve student success in school. Mandi began her career as a middle school special education resource teacher and later moved into a middle school English language arts teaching position. Mandi also has experience teaching middle school social studies and math. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Interdisciplinary Liberal Studies and her first Master's of Education degree in Special Education from James Madison University. In 2017, she earned her second Master's of Education degree in Educational Leadership from Arizona State University. Additionally, Mandi has earned a graduate certificate in Positive Behavior Support from Northern Arizona University.

Mandi has worked with Tara Dale on presenting professional development to educators on teaching for understanding both through their school district and at an ACT conference in 2018. She has also contributed to Larry Ferlazzo's Education Week Teacher blog and his BAM! Classroom Q&A radio show.

Mandi currently resides in Chandler, Arizona.

Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull Sypnieski wrote The ELL Teacher's Toolbox and conceived of a series replicating the format of their popular book. They identified authors of all the books in the series and worked closely with them during their writing and publication.

Larry Ferlazzo teaches English, Social Studies, and International Baccalaureate classes to English Language Learners and others at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California.

He has written nine books: The ELL Teacher's Toolbox (with co-author Katie Hull Sypnieski); Navigating the Common Core with English Language Learners (with co-author Katie Hull Sypnieski); The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide (with co-author Katie Hull Sypnieski); Building a Community of Self-Motivated Learners: Strategies to Help Students Thrive in School and Beyond; Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching; Self-Driven Learning: Teaching Strategies for Student Motivation; Helping Students Motivate Themselves: Practical Answers to Classroom Challenges; English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work; and Building Parent Engagement in Schools (with co-author Lorie Hammond).

He has won several awards, including the Leadership for a Changing World Award from the Ford Foundation, and was the Grand Prize Winner of the International Reading Association Award for Technology and Reading.

He writes a popular education blog at http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/, a weekly teacher advice column for Education Week Teacher blog and posts for the New York Times and the Washington Post. He also hosts a weekly radio show on BAM! Education Radio.

He was a community organizer for 19 years prior to becoming a public school teacher.

Larry is married and has three children and two grandchildren.

A basketball team he played for came in last place every year from 2012 to 2017. He retired from league play after that year, and the team then played for the championship. These results might indicate that Larry made a wise career choice in not pursuing a basketball career.

Katie Hull Sypnieski has taught English language learners and others at the secondary level for over 20 years. She currently teaches middle school English Language Arts and Social Studies at Fern Bacon Middle School in Sacramento, California.

She leads professional development for educators as a teaching consultant with the Area 3 Writing Project at the University of California, Davis.

She is co-author (with Larry Ferlazzo) of The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide, Navigating the Common Core with English Language Learners, and The ELL Teacher's Toolbox. She has written articles for the Washington Post, ASCD Educational Leadership, and Edutopia. She and Larry have developed two video series with Education Week on differentiation and student motivation.

Katie lives in Sacramento with her husband and their three children.

Tara C. Dale: First and foremost, I want to thank my husband, Joe, and our children, Josh and Sami, who have been supportive and patient throughout this project. They knew this was important to me and because of that, it was important to them.

I'm forever grateful to Mandi White, who was thoughtful, honest in her feedback, and a cheerleader. I believe we spent more time together than we did with anyone else this past year, and my admiration for her has only grown. Working side-by-side for more than a decade has made me a better teacher and a better person.

Thank you also to Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull Sypnieski, our editors. I thought writing a book would be simple because I'm passionate about the content. After receiving the eighth edited version from them, I quickly realized there is much more to writing than I had ever imagined. They were patient in their explanations, decisive when we couldn't make decisions, and a guiding force throughout the project. Their suggestions, not just with editing but also with the writing process itself, were appreciated, effective, and appropriate. They were an integral part of this book!

I am most appreciative of Pete Gaughan and Amy Fandrei at Jossey-Bass. They were continually accessible, willing to answer all questions, and address any issues we had throughout the writing process. It always felt as though we were a team. Every time we had to reach out to Pete and Amy, they responded quickly and professionally. And, yes, Pete, I finally learned how to take a picture—add more light!

Last but not least, I want to thank the thousands of students who have gone through my classroom during my career. I often asked them to try new learning strategies that required them to trust me. They never faltered as we enjoyed the learning process together. I often share that I wake up before my alarm clock and it's because I can't wait to get to school. I love going every day because I get to spend my time with amazing young people.

Mandi S. White: I would like to start off by thanking my family and friends, who have given me so much love and support through this process. Additionally, I am so thankful for my co-author, Tara Dale, who was patient, encouraging, and kept me sane as we spent countless hours together. I could not imagine embarking on this book-writing journey with any other person. Thank you to Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull-Sypnieski for their guidance and continuous support. Also, a big thank you to Pete Gaughan and Amy Fandrei at Jossey-Bass for their patience, understanding, and assistance with all the many aspects of book writing that we, as first-time authors, were unaware of. Lastly, the biggest appreciation goes out to all of the students I have had the honor of calling “my kids” throughout the years. You all have made me a better teacher and human and I am ever so grateful for that.

Both of us would like to express our appreciation to the many educators who have shared their ideas with us throughout the years to use both in our classrooms and this book.

“Science” comes from the Latin words scientia, meaning knowledge, and scindere, meaning “to divide.”

Mandi White and Tara Dale have done an incredible job of doing just that in The Science Teacher's Toolbox: identifying the critical knowledge that science teachers need and dividing it up into exceptionally practical and accessible chapters.

Though we are not formal science teachers, we often do incorporate science as language learning opportunities with our English language learner students, and Larry teaches science units as part of his International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge classes.

We know just enough science, and know more than enough about the “science of teaching,” to say with confidence that The Science Teacher's Toolbox will be an invaluable resource to educators everywhere, and not just those in the science classroom. Many of Tara's and Mandi's instructional strategies can be easily implemented in many different content classes.

We're proud to introduce their book as another member of the Teacher's Toolbox “family.”

Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull Sypnieski

Not having heard something is not as good as having heard it; having heard it is not as good as having seen it; having seen it is not as good as knowing it; knowing it is not as good as putting it into practice.—attributed to Chinese philosopher Xun Kuang.

(Knobloch, 1994, p. 81)

When people see a science classroom what do they expect to see? Is it a teacher in front of the class lecturing with a slideshow while the students diligently take notes? Or is it students forming hypotheses and creating experiments to solve a problem?

We firmly believe that regardless of the grade level or concept, students should be experiencing science. They should be provided with opportunities to be engaged beyond just hearing and reading about science. Yes, there is a time and place for direct instruction, but it should not be the primary focus of any science classroom. All of the strategies in this book focus on intellectually engaging all students to increase learning.

The learning activities in our book can be used to teach all science content. We focus on the four main disciplinary core ideas identified in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS): (1) physical sciences; (2) earth and space sciences; (3) life sciences; and (4) engineering, technology, and application of science. Each strategy, when applicable, will include the Science and Engineering Practices and/or Crosscutting Concepts, which are also found in the NGSS. When the NGSS were written, each performance expectation combined a relevant practice of science or engineering, with a core disciplinary idea and crosscutting concept (NGSS, 2013b, p. 382).

During Tara's second year as a seventh grade science teacher, a student asked, “When will we ever need to know the moon phases?” After reflecting on her response to this student, Tara felt as though she had failed to provide a valid answer. She realized that most of the content her state standards required her to teach would not be useful to the average student. As a result, she shifted her focus and made the content a vehicle through which to teach her students what we call the Skills for Intentional Scholars. We define an “intentional scholar” as one who is actively learning, engaged, and thinking while in school, not passively receiving information and spitting back facts on Friday's test. There are three skills we believe all intentional scholars should have: (1) to think critically; (2) to problem solve creatively; and (3) to communicate effectively. Each strategy in this book will address at least one of the Skills for Intentional Scholars, while also effectively supporting science learning in a classroom.

The NGSS highlight the need to incorporate Skills for Intentional Scholars. While answering a question on how critical thinking and communication skills are addressed in their standards, they state:

It is important to understand that the scientific practices in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), as defined by the National Research Council (NRC), include the critical thinking and communication skills that students need for postsecondary success and citizenship in a world fueled by innovations in science and technology. These science practices encompass the habits and skills that scientists and engineers use day in and day out. In the NGSS these practices are wedded to content. In other words, content and practice are intertwined in the standards, just as they are in the NRC Framework and in today's workplace. (NGSS, n.d., para. 2)

The NGSS support the idea that all science-related teaching strategies need to incorporate active learning and allow students to effectively demonstrate their understanding of scientific concepts while utilizing the three Skills for Intentional Scholars. Science classes must be more than simply requiring students to memorize facts.

The Teacher's Toolbox series consists of four books, including strategies for teaching English language learners, social studies, math, and science. The first book in the series, The ELL Teacher's Toolbox (2018) by Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull Sypnieski, uses an easy-to-read format that we've chosen to follow and modify slightly. This format breaks each strategy into the following sections:

• what the strategy is
• why we like the strategy
• research that supports the strategy
• which of the three Skills for Intentional Scholars is being taught while using this strategy, which will be indicated using an icon to help teachers quickly identify which of the three skills are being practiced. Where appropriate, we will also be listing the crosscutting concepts and science and engineering practices from the NGSS connected to each strategy.
• applications of the strategy (practical ideas for using it in the classroom)
• how to execute the strategy while differentiating for students with diverse needs, such as those with learning challenges, English language learners, and advanced students
• what could go wrong while using the strategy and how to proactively address those problems
• Technology Connections for the strategy (available online)
• attributions to recognize other educators who have contributed ideas to the strategy
• finally, each strategy ends with related figures (handouts and student examples). These are available online at http://www.wiley.com/go/scienceteacherstoolbox.

This book is divided into three Parts. Part I highlights several lab formats, such as the scientific method, project-based learning, and engineering process. Part II focuses on strategies that integrate reading, writing, speaking and listening, mathematics, and the arts into science lessons. The final Part is entitled Additional Resources, which contains strategies that did not necessarily fit into the other sections, for example, methods for activating prior knowledge, reviewing content, and assessing student learning.

This science strategy book will enhance science classrooms from fourth to twelfth grade. Additionally, many of these strategies can be integrated into other curricular areas with great success. We hope you get as much use out of them as we have throughout the years!