The Productive Teacher

I use the latest in brain science research to create lessons that are engaging for students and easy for teachers.

There are tons of activities, presentations, and reading passages to help teach (and learn) a variety of topics! Click the topics to learn more!

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How to Remember the Steps of the Nitrogen Cycle

An Overview of the Nitrogen Cycle The nitrogen cycle describes the different ways nitrogen moves through the environment. Nitrogen is an...

4 min read

Teaching about Earth’s seasons is a great way to integrate your science and social studies lessons. You can teach about the Earth’s...

3 min read

At first glance, the difference between living and nonliving things seems pretty clear, but digging deeper, it gets complicated....

4 min read

I love teaching the theory of plate tectonics because I love it when history and science overlap. First, it allows us to tell a story,...

4 min read

Teaching chemical reactions in middle school science can be tricky because you provide the foundation for lessons that will be taught in...

3 min read

I love teaching the biomes of the world because it brings together so many science topics. We can talk about how the angle sunlight hits...

3 min read

Do you need to get your students excited about learning earth history? Unfortunately, science can often seem boring to students, but we...

4 min read

What are the layers of the atmosphere? Can your middle school science students answer this question? I like to think about the layers of...

3 min read

Food chains and food webs are one of those topics introduced during elementary school that we expand upon during middle school. Your...

3 min read

Teaching Earth’s compositional layers is always a good way to start your middle school earth science unit. First, it is a pretty simple...

8 min read

Prokaryotes and eukaryotes are organisms made up of two basic types of cells. You may also hear them called prokaryotic and eukaryotic...

2 min read

What is the geologic time scale? If you are teaching Earth history, you need to help your students answer this question before they can...

3 min read

The water cycle is one of those science topics that keeps coming back in school. Kids first learn about the water cycle steps in first...

3 min read

Teaching the types of energy is a huge topic! Students have to know about potential energy and kinetic energy, but they also need to know...

3 min read