10 Reasons to Use Science Buddies for Classroom, Remote, or Hybrid Learning

By Amy Cowen on August 6, 2020 6:00 AM

Feeling overwhelmed by the coming school year and scrambling to find flexible solutions that can work in a range of teaching scenarios? From classroom instruction to remote or hybrid learning, we can help! Science Buddies is a trusted, go-to resource for thousands of educators. Find out why you, too, should be using Science Buddies as part of your planning. Find out why Science Buddies should be part of your STEM teaching strategy — no matter what system you will be using this year.

Classroom, Remote, Hybrid, or Something Else?

Will you be teaching in the classroom, from home, or using a hybrid combination of in-person and remote learning when school starts again? Teachers and school districts around the country are weighing options and putting plans in place for the start of the coming school year. Many schools will be using remote or hybrid (partly remote and partly in-person) strategies to balance instructional needs with health and safety during the continued COVID-19 pandemic.

With plans continuing to shift, we know that teachers need flexible, trusted, readymade solutions for STEM instruction that can work in any setting. No matter what approach your school adopts, Science Buddies has tools and resources that can help you plan and teach STEM units with confidence.

10 Reasons to Use Science Buddies for STEM Education

1. Resources in more than 30 areas of science

No matter what STEM subjects you are planning to teach, you will find quality resources at Science Buddies. We have projects, lesson plans, and activities in classic areas of science (like biology, chemistry, and physics) as well as in career-focused areas like biotechnology, robotics, genetics, and genomics. In addition to core areas of science, we are developing cutting edge resource collections to help you and your students dive in and explore the hottest STEM topics. The first cutting edge collection focuses on Exoplanets. Additional cutting edge collections related to Viruses and Pandemics, Space Exploration, and Gene Editing will soon be available.
2. Resources available for grades K-12

Science Buddies has resources to meet your teaching needs at all grade levels. Students doing independent science projects have access to more than 1,200 project ideas that are each labeled with a recommended difficulty level and include suggestions for modifying or customizing the project to meet individual needs. Teachers using Lesson Plans can browse NGSS-aligned lessons by grade level or area of science. The hands-on STEM component for most lessons can be easily adapted for use with older or younger students. Our library of STEM activities contains short experiments that can be used with students of all ages.
3. Resources differentiated for teachers, students, and families

With three distinct categories of hands-on resources — projects, Lesson Plans, and STEM activities — we have materials that scale to meet the varying needs of teachers, students, and families. Our complete library of STEM materials includes more than 1,200 projects for students who will be working on independent science projects, more than 200 short activities that can be used at home or by teachers, and 100 Lesson Plans that have been specifically developed for educators. These lessons contain NGSS-alignment information, background materials to help teachers prepare, discussion and reflection prompts, guided activities, worksheet and assessment materials, supplemental videos, and push-button integration with Google Classroom.
4. Resources are scientist-authored and tested — they work

Our materials are authored by our staff of inhouse Ph.D. scientists and developed specifically for use by K-12 educators, students, and parents. Resources are rigorously reviewed and tested by our staff to ensure accuracy and accessibility. Our projects are designed to work. This ensures educators can plan and lead hands-on STEM exploration with confidence.
5. Easy integration with Google Classroom

Google Classroom is one of the easiest ways to manage classroom assignments and stay connected with students who are working remotely. All of our resources can be assigned (or shared as an announcement) for Google Classroom with the click of a button. (Note: Our Google Classroom integration is not available in Great Britain or the EU.) Learn more about using Science Buddies with Google Classroom in the post.
6. Support for teaching the scientific method and engineering design process

In addition to projects, activities, and lessons, we offer Project Guide resources to help students learn about and use the Scientific Method and Engineering Design Process. These Project Guides help students understand how to approach each step of their science or engineering project, from formulating a science question to identifying variables and forming a hypothesis.
7. We don't give the answers

We believe the value of hands-on science is in the experiential learning that comes from doing the experiments — not copying the results. Our projects ideas for students do not contain answers or results. When students choose one of our projects, they will have to do the experiment to gather their own data and draw conclusions. Many of our projects provide some scaffolding in the form of an experimental procedure, but students have to do the experiment to find out what happens. Teachers recommending students use Science Buddies to choose a project know that the student will have to complete the project independently to gather data and draw conclusions. (Note: our STEM Activities and Lesson Plans do contain scientific explanations to help give context to science experiments and to make sure that all educators have the background they need to teach with confidence.)
8. Our Ask an Expert forum provides extra support

Our Ask an Expert forum is an online space where students can ask questions about their independent science projects and get assistance from our team of science professionals and top science students. Experts will not help with homework or test questions, but if students have questions while working on their projects, they can get help at any stage of the project.
9. We continue to add new materials and features

Our scientists and staff work year-round to develop new materials for STEM education and new and exciting ways to demonstrate and explore science and engineering concepts with K-12 students. In addition to the development of new projects, lessons, and activities, our team works on the creation of new videos for our YourTube channel, aggregation of materials into thematic collections to help with educator planning, development of explanatory materials and tutorials to help educators use our resources, and more.
10. All of our materials are free to use at Science Buddies

Ensuring access to quality science education materials for all students has been part of our mission since 2001. All projects, activities, lessons, and resources (including the Project Guide, Topic Selection Wizard, STEM Career Library, and Ask an Expert forum) are free to use on our site.

Approaching Twenty Years of Supporting Science Teachers

As an online provider of quality science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) resources since 2001, we are a trusted partner and one-stop resource for thousands of teachers around the world. This year, with school schedules in flux, we know that teachers need quality resources and plug-and-play materials that will help you do what you do best - inspire and educate students - whether you are interacting with them in a classroom or from a webcam. We also know that you need flexible materials that will allow you to seamlessly shift and adapt if things change.

With Science Buddies, you have access to all of this and more.

Stay Up to Date with New Releases

Our team of scientists work year-round developing new materials to support you and your students. We highlight new materials in our free weekly newsletter, which is sent to all educators who are registered on the Science Buddies site. (Registration is free!) We also share highlights at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. We encourage you to follow us in the social media spaces you use and tag us to let us know how you use Science Buddies!