61 Peer-Recommended Resources for Science Teachers

New Jersey Alternate Route candidates specializing in Science Education recently recommended free web resources that they’ve consulted when preparing lessons and engaging, relevant activities for students. Their suggested resources are a part of our blog series featuring go-to-websites, blogs, and other online teaching and reference materials for helping our state’s youth achieve the NJ Student Learning Standards. More than 300 teachers participated in this professional swap and share, with many contributing lesser-known resources that even seasoned educators will be excited to discover.  Read why our science educators love the resources they recommend.

Albert.io

"There are many multiple-choice questions on different topics and for different levels. Also, it shows great statistics on students' progress.  I usually use 2-3 questions as a short activity or as exit ticket or do now. There are great explanations for students and nice concept questions."
-Aleksandra G., Grades 9-12

American Chemical Society: Chemistry Education Resources

"The American Chemical Society provides detailed chemistry specific resources for multiple levels of education, elementary through college."
-Edward S., Grades 9-12

Apps on Physics

"Amongst simulations websites, I find this the simplest and most straight forward in showing students simulations of Physics while allowing them to modify parameters on their own."
-Mannix S., Grades 9-12

Better Lessons

"The site allows you to search the standard for which you are looking to create a lesson plan and provides you with lesson ideas related to that specific standard."
Melissa S., Grades 9-12

BioInteractive

"This site features classroom activities, videos, and interactive media for a variety of science subjects, easily filterable by grade and topic."
-Chelsea R., Grades 9-12

"Some of the benefits this site offers are that there are 3D images and interactives so students can gain a new perspective on topics such as cells and viruses. This website also has virtual labs that students can complete independently, which is helpful when they are absent.  Lastly, BioInteractive has different levels of material for each topic that students can choose--general biology, AP/IB biology, college level. Students can use this website as an additional tool to see real-life examples."
-Christina V., Grades 9-12

Biology Corner

"Sometimes I struggle with how to present a lesson in different ways or reinforce lessons; so, the number of resources available on the Biology Corner and how easy it is to search through them, helps me a lot with planning a lesson."
- George K., Grades 9-12

Bioman Biology

"This site has links to their YouTube channel which has useful videos to teach biological concepts as well as many interactive games students can play to learn different topics in biology."
-Haneen A., Grades 9-12

Blooket

"Blooket offers a new take on trivia and review games! Using this resource significantly improved student participation in reviews."
-Wilmot R., Grades 6-8

Boardwork

"Boardwork is free and features content-specific tools to use from PowerPoints to online activities or even worksheets to go along with the lesson. This resource is great to use as either part of your lessons or for extra support."
-Valerie A., Grades 6-12

Brainpop Science

There is a character named Moby. The students really relate to this character as he has an untiring quest for knowledge. The videos are very informative and humorous too. The website has a lot to offer in the form of worksheets and quizzes. 
-Arthi K., Grades 6-8

ChemCollective

"Offers scenario-based activities and forensics tie-ins. The activities have topics that high school students would gravitate toward, like coffee and camping. The site is organized by topic and features many resources."
-Barbara C., Grades 9-12

ChemEdx

"This is another site with a variety of activities and demonstrations."
-Jun Ye C., Grades 9-12

ChemMatters Online

"ChemMatters is an online magazine, organized by topic. It offers many interesting articles that nicely supplement lessons."
-Barbara C., Grades 9-12

CK-12 Foundation

"CK-12 is a more modern website. It splits the course into many major topics, and inside each topic, there is a list of articles, a study guide, video resources, animation, and simulation. It is great for teachers to explore extra resources outside of the curriculum. It is also helpful for teachers to make the class more fun for students. It is definitely a great site for teachers, but not for students. Since the website has many resources that overlap or are not part of the core curriculum. "
-Lawrence C., Grades 9-12

"CK12 is a science textbook. It's a full, free textbook online with activities and passages. We are moving to use it as our primary resource starting next year."
-Christian H., Grades 6-8

"The lessons on this website incorporate the Next Generation Science Standards which we use in our school district. The website has tons of material. It is like a virtual textbook. The site also has practice material students can access for tests. I use this website regularly as a supplement to the textbook."
-Arthi K., Grades 6-8

Codesters

"This site offers the transition to text-based coding in Python. Once students are in middle school, especially with the new computer science standards coming out next year, they are ready and need to be writing their own code. Codesters offers this option and has highly targeted lessons on basic programming concepts. I am using this in my class this year, and although there are some features that I do not prefer, the support team is very responsive and is always looking for ways to improve."
-Nicholas M., Grades 6-8

Discovery Education

"This site has really good short science videos to go along with my science lessons and offers visuals and opportunities for my ELLs to practice listening comprehension."
-Matthew B., Grades K-5

"The site has a variety of interactive content that can help bolster the curriculum."
-Max E., Grades 9-12

"Free daily learning activities from Discovery Education that save teachers time and spark student curiosity!"
-Orane F., Grades 9-12

Ecological Footprint Calculator

"For my environmental science class, I have my students take the short quiz on this website. It then calculates their resource consumption and provides interesting statistics about their lifestyle's effect on the environment. It then lets you compare these results to the rest of the world."
-Joseph C., Grades 9-12

EdPuzzle

"This allows students to watch a video of a subject and have them answer questions as they move through the video."
-Michele R., Grades 6-8

Edutopia

"When my science classes were focusing on invasive plant species, I used a lesson plan from Edutopia, which focused on cleaning up a local watershed. My two classes worked diligently to remove invasive plants from the creek on campus and the surrounding areas. Edutopia was very helpful for planning the project."
-Christopher B., Grades 6-8

EPA- My Environment

"Excellent source for real-world data on local pollution, energy production, hydrology, and toxic waste management that gives students the ability to explore independently after receiving guidance from the teacher. Also helps give examples of environmental laws out in place such as Superfund Sites."
-Yashar A., Grades 9-12

Flipping Physics

"Gives both in-depth and engaging coverage of physics topics and excellent review videos for students to study from."
-Michael M., Grades 9-12

Generation Genius

"This gives a lesson with questions as well, like EdPuzzle, but it's more like a Bill Nye video with "real life" labs being done, and it also explains relationships to jobs."
-Michele R., Grades 6-8

Get Body Smart

"Includes mostly free material such as interactive lessons and models. Content is broken down into specific topics that students can explore independently."
-Yashar A., Grades 9-12

Gizmos

"Gizmos features great interactive activities with guided problem sets for students to complete."
-Andrew B., Grades 9-12

"Gizmos is another website that provides simulation labs for which our district has a subscription. One of the labs that I will be using is the periodic trend. There is a ruler with which students can measure the radius of different atoms across a period or in a group. The process of "measuring" the radius and seeing the Bohr diagrams will get students to think about their hypothesis related to the measurement and how they may explain it."
-Qinghong L., Grades 9-12

"Gizmo provides you with electronic interactive activities/ labs, as well as the student worksheet and quiz for each activity. I love how the Gizmo site provides amazing visual aids to help students learn."
-Melissa S., Grades 9-12

"This site is one that we picked up last year for virtual instruction because it has some amazing content. It brings labs to the computer and has really good categorical data collection on student answers. Of course, now we can do labs in person, but it still provides some much-needed graphing help and ideas for other labs that you can shift back from virtual to physical."
-Nicholas M., Grades 6-8

"I just recently used this website to show the students what free fall is and demonstrate acceleration. Although it was nice to have them start the lab in real life and see that the acceleration comes out less than 9.8 with air molecules, it was also nice to show them what would happen if there were no air molecules and the Free Fall Lab on Gizmos allowed me to do so. Gizmos also has lab activities you can use with worksheets if you would like to give those to the students."
-Jaslin S., Grades 9-12

It's Not Rocket Science

"This website includes a blog with tons of tips for those who teach science - whether novice or seasoned teachers. There are also reasonably priced full-year curricula for teachers of Biology, Anatomy & Physiology, and Physical Science. This is especially good for newer teachers. The resources on this website have helped me save a lot of time and learn many tricks of the profession. It has helped me adjust to my relatively new role as a teacher going into my third year."
-Haneen A., Grades 9-12

Khan Academy

"Khan Academy has thousands of great tutorials and instructional videos which help review different problems and concepts for topics of all different grades. It is great for multiple different subjects."
-Lexie N., Grades 6-8

"Khan Academy provides resources in many specialized subjects including environmental science."
-Ayesha Z., Grades 6-8

Kurzgesagt

"This site is home to a well-respected group of YouTubers that create simplified content for various audiences to enjoy. The topics they cover range from philosophy to science. They also link all documentation and research on their videos for their audience and appropriately credit consulted experts. The videos are unique and engaging to an audience that may not have been exposed to the art style and presentation. My recommendation is to use this resource sparingly, though."
-Neil V., Grades 6-8

Legends of Learning

"I really enjoy this resource for review or extra help because you can search for instructional games by specific standards which match up to my lessons. My students find the games to be very fun and helpful with learning difficult concepts. It can be used for science and math."
-Lexie N., Grades 6-8

"This site provides content-specific games and lesson overviews related to several topics according to the learning standards. It gets students excited about the topic either as an introduction or an exit ticket."
-Kendra S., K-8

MnSTEP

"MnSTEP provides a large list of grade-level appropriate STEM activities sortable my content and grade."
-Ian B., Grades K-5

NASA Science Share the Science 

"The site provides teacher lesson and activity ideas using data from NASA."
-Sarah M., Grades 6-8

NASA.gov

"Astronomy and rockets are like a secret key to high engagement with students. NASA's website has plenty of videos and activities for STEM."
-Ian B., Grades K-5

National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science at the University at Buffalo

"Integrating case studies into Anatomy and Physiology classes gives students glimpses into how the content they are learning in class has real-world use and impact. This site helps me with sparking ideas for case studies to use that are more relevant to the students."
-George K., Grades 9-12

National Center for Science Education

"This site helps connect science to the real world by addressing and tackling the problems associated with topics like climate change."
-Max E., Grades 9-12

National Geographic Education Resources

"National Geographic Education features a resource library for explaining different topics and ideas for lessons as well as diagrams/interactive models."
-Laura M., Grades 9-12

National Science Foundation

"This site provides multimedia and external resources that connect to various disciplines. It's useful to also find other sites of interest to extend on topics covered within the classroom."
-Neil V., Grades 6-8

Nearpod

"I actually like most of the resources on this site. One of the resources that I like a lot is the "Time to Climb" because I can easily create multiple-choice assignments for my students."
-Isbel G., Grades 9-12

"You can make your slides interactive using Nearpod. There are also ready-made lessons you can use. The students can do a live session and/or a lesson in their own time. You can create your own lessons and add from other resources."
-Vanessa M., Grades 9-12 

"Interactive lessons on various topics. You can also create your own Nearpod lessons. A wonderful formative assessment tool!"
-Sarah M., Grades 6-8

New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning

"The free k-12 science teaching materials are excellent in quality and provide slides you can readily use for your classes. I base my own lesson plans and slides on the material I read from their presentations, adapting it to the level of my students, and it has been very well received."
-Shyamoli P., Grades 9-12

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are K–12 science

This site provides lessons along with different phenomena to help with student engagement.
-Jigna J., Grades K-5

NGSS Phenomena 

"NGSS Phenomena provides visual resources for students that are aligned directly to Next Generation Science Standards."
-Joseph P., Grades 6-8

Nova Science Now

"Nova Science Now is a great site that has lesson plans for different topics as well as relevant videos for today’s science community."
-Laura M., Grades 9-12

Pear Deck

"You can make your slides interactive with Pear Deck. There are also ready lessons you can use. The students can do a live session and/or a lesson in their own time."
-Vanessa M., Grades 9-12

Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences -Department of Ecosystem Science and Management

"This valuable resource has provided me with a number of interesting activities to deliver to my environmental education students."
-Christopher B., Grades 6-8

PhEt

"This site offers simulations for different grade levels and subjects. Signing up is free and when you sign in, depending on the simulation you pick, there are a bunch of teacher resources that are uploaded that go along with or were used along with the simulation. For example, for the physics simulations for vectors, there's activities or even PowerPoints included from different sources that you can download and use along with it or as a supplement."
-Valerie A., Grades 6-12 

"PhEt offers virtual labs with all the hands-on experience with none of the cost.   It’s very friendly for low budgets and tech savvy students."
-Gregory F., Grades 6-8

"I use it for interactive simulations for science and math."
-Orane F., Grades 9-12

"It is a great website with simulations. Usually before learning concepts or actual labs, we do the lab activity where students observe relationships between the variables or some patterns. Basically, I make inquiry-based activities and assignments while using the PhET simulations."
- Aleksandra G., Grades 9-12

"We use PhET for simulations in class. They are high quality and provide multiple related activities in each simulation."
- Christian H., Grades 6-8

"The site features simulations including those for Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Earth Science, all maintained and updated by science educators at the University of Colorado."
-Devin M., Grades 9-12

"There are beautiful simulations which children can explore in physics, chemistry, biology and earth science for all grade levels. I found it to be very helpful during the pandemic when we could not have hands on labs."
- Namrata P., Grades K-8

"The free online simulations are a great benefit to interactive, student-centered, science teaching. Some can easily be built into a laboratory exercise, by adding your own directions or posting data into a graph."
- Shyamoli P., Grades 9-12

"PhEt allows students to work with interactive simulation models for all physics content."
-Joseph P., Grades 6-8

"Provides interactive simulations of concepts and experiments in a variety of science subjects."
-Edward S., Grades 9-12 

"It provides interactive simulations for topics in science."
- Ayesha Z., Grades 9-12
 

Physics Classroom

"The Physics Classroom is a pretty old resource, but it’s still very useful. It covers every single topic from beginner basic physics to AP Physics. It is composed of almost exclusively text. However, it is organized and easy to digest for both teachers and students. I recommend the site for students to utilize. I use it to prep lessons regularly because there are amazing practice problems for every topic. It also provides solutions for students to check their work."
- Lawrence C., Grades 9-12

Pivot Interactives

"There are simulation labs that visualize some chemistry concepts such as Build an Atom, Isotopes, Bohr model, energy level, and spectrum. These help students understand challenging chemistry concepts."
- Qinghong L., Grades 9-12

"This is a great site to use for physics and other science-related labs. For instance, if you don't have access to certain lab materials in your classroom/school or if you don't have enough time for the students to do the lab in class, you can have them do it virtually on this website so that they still learn the concepts. What's great about Pivot is that you can customize the questions they have after labs. The site provides great questions, but you can also add your own or change the wording as you see fit."
-Jaslin S., Grades 9-12

Positive Physics

"Positive Physics provides a plethora of workable custom problems for all of physics, with each student getting unique numbers to use.  The site allows students to get instant feedback on both inquiry-based problems as well as more complete problems that are similar to what they might see on a test or AP exam."
-Michael M., Grades 9-12

Purpose Games

"I teach marine biology, and a large part of studying this subject is not only knowing what the major groups of organisms are in the sea, but also what anatomical features distinguish them. This site provides games that help students learn the anatomy of various creatures."
-Joseph C., Grades 9-12

"Within this website, you can search for a specific science topic and discover interactive games. Students can test their knowledge using the games in a fun way."
-Allison V., Grades 9-12

ReadingWorks

"This site has a lot of good reading material for my ESL students to practice reading comprehension and there are readings on a number of subjects and topics so I can easily find readings that are science related as I have to teach science and ESL at the same time with my students."
- Matthew B., Grades K-5

Science Buddies

"This site allows you to explore various topics, lesson plans, projects, labs, activities and ideas pertaining to a specific idea and grade level. Teachers can use this information in their own classroom."
-Allison V., Grades 9-12

Science Experiments at Home

"I found this site as a means to find cheap science demonstrations I can do with items you would typically find from a dollar store."
- Mannix S., Grades 9-12

Science Snacks

"This site features ideas for science labs with high student engagement."
-Gregory F., Grades 6-8

Scientific American: 60-second Science

"This site has mini podcast episodes about various scientific topics that are relevant to current events and are a way to have discussions around some of our lesson themes."
- Kendra S., Grades K-8

Sim Bucket Science Simulations and ChemThink

"One benefit of this site is that resources and assignments can be streamlined right into Google Classroom. This website also offers virtual simulations for students to reinforce high school science topics, specifically density, chemistry of life, and basic physics. The ChemThink tab has been useful for students as they are first introduced to chemistry of life topics and more abstract visuals to create atomic structures and see how elements bond relating to biological functions."
-Christina V., Grades 9-12

Smithsonian Institute For Educators

"This site gives teachers access to thousands of articles, digital media, and slideshows curated by the Smithsonian Institute within a filterable database so nearly any lesson can be enhanced or built around museum-quality digital artifacts."
- Chelsea R., Grades 9-12

Socrative

"This resource allows teachers to get instant feedback on students' understanding of concepts."
-Andrew B., Grades 9-12

STEMscopes 

"Although for STEMscopes the school has to pay for access, it has great resources to use as either part of your lessons or for extra support. There are also different levels of difficulty for the STEMscopes and even labs with a list of materials you may need for each one. There's also an option to have the site calculate lab supply quantities based on the size of your class."
-Valerie A., 6-12

Teach Chemistry

"This site breaks down twelve common topics usually covered in traditional chemistry classrooms, and it is filled with ideas for activities, simulation, demonstrations and videos."
- Jun Ye C., Grades 9-12

Teach Engineering Stem Curriculum for K – 12

"This site has STEM Lessons, projects and labs all in one place. I find this very resourceful when I am planning projects for my children."
- Namrata P., Grades K-8

"You can browse the online curriculum and select lessons and activities based on grade level, subject area, duration, and difficulty. Also helpful is that related science standards are provided for reference."
-Jami S., Grades 9-12

Teachers Pay Teachers

"On this site, there are a lot of resources for teachers. The ones that I like the most are the worksheets."
-Isbel G., Grades 9-12

TryEngineering

"There are a bunch of teacher resources that provide lesson plans, slides, handouts, etc. You can browse the site by grade and subject. Also helpful is that related science standards are provided for reference."
-Jami S., Grades 9-12 

Universe & More

"The site is great for physics simulations and related activity material. It also features engaging educational games for physics students."
-Devin M., Grades 9-12

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