My name is Liz LaRosa and I am an Upper School Science Teacher at The Peck School – an independent, coed, K-8 school in Morristown, NJ.
I have been teaching science since 1996 and have been on the web since 1997 (via geocities.com) and I bought the domain http://www.middleschoolscience.com in 2000. In December of 2014, I moved my content to WordPress and will continue to add lessons that are free to use in the classroom. You can also follow me on Twitter @MSScienceBlog for page updates: https://twitter.com/MSScienceBlog
New Jersey Teacher Certification:
- Elementary Education K-8
- Teacher of Biology 7-12
- Teacher of Agriculture 7-12
- Elementary School with Specialization: Science 5-8 (Praxis Exam Only)
Middle School Science Blog 
i was a Middle School Science teacher for 38 years. I maintain a website that archives FREE materials that are now in the public domain. These materials are hand-on, self-paced and inquiry approached middle school science curriculum developed in the early 70’s at Florida State by a team of 100 science teachers from all over the country. It is called ISCS (Intermediate Science Curriculum Studies). One of the techniques they use that I like is that there are step by step drawings showing how to do the experiments. Also there are questions along the steps asking the students why they think they are performing certain steps and also predicting what will happen next. The link is https://sites.google.com/view/iscs-curriculum-page/
Take a look it is all PDFs with great experiments.
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Thank you!
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Hi Liz,
I just want to thank you for your time and generosity! Your resources have helped me SO much and the sequencing just makes sense! I have shared your website with my colleagues and they love it as well. Thank you again! Have a great year!
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Thank you so much for letting me know and sharing it with fellow teachers! Have a great school year! ~ Liz
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Thank you for these helpful resources. I taught high school biology for 14 years, and this year I’m teaching middle school Earth Science for the first time. I feel like a first year teacher again! Your site has made things much easier.
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Thank you! 🙂 Have a great rest of the year! Liz
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Great site. I can appreciate the amount of work you put into the website. I have a Math ad Science website and Youtube channel and my hosting company was weak and I need to move to WordPress but can’t just come to terms of recreating 300+ pages. Ouch. This is my 26th year in middle school science. I have taught Life Science the last15 and coach cross country
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Thank you! Good luck moving all of your material to Word Press 🙂
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Liz, I have been following your website since 2005. I love that you added info about the Google apps. I am using blended learning for the first time in my school and I am nervous. Your site just made things easier.
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I love Google Drive and Apps! It has made using technology with students so much more efficient. Start small, and work your way through each assignment, you and the kids will get the hang of it quickly, and they will be more than happy to help you, I’ll often ask my kids how to do something and at least one will know how 🙂 Have a great school year and thank you for letting me know that my site has been helpful all these years! ~Liz
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Although I like the new site, I am wondering what happened to the content of the old site. There was some amazing content there as well.
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I moved over most of the material I had on the website, as well as added new lessons that I created last year and this year. I will continue to update this spring, too. Be sure to use the ‘search’ feature and the tags to find what you are looking for. ~Liz
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Thank you. I love the new site!
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thanks! 🙂
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Ms. LaRosa,
Thank you for this wonderful blog. I came across this blog while I am looking for the science summer activities for my sons. My sons are also in NJ private school but the Science program in their school is still emerging. As a parent with the Biology background, I am planning to set up a few lesson plans and see if I can volunteer for the science curriculum. You material is very very helpful and I see your devotion to your students. Thank you very much. Blessed,
Amy
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Thank you for letting me know and for planning to volunteer at your children’s school
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Hi Liz- this is an amazing resource. You are doing a great service for all new and experienced teachers out there. Thanks! I was wondering what your schedule looks like? I notice in your plan book you have “drop days” can you show me an example of your teaching schedule? We are looking at variations for our schedule and I’ve not heard of “drop days”. Thanks in advance.
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Hi Carey,
Thank you for your kind words. For the schedule, we have ‘drop days’ which means that during the 6 day rotation, students will not have class for that subject during either 1 or 2 days of the rotation. This allows the schedule to fit more classes/electives. Most high schools do this when they have a lab period for science, they will then ‘drop’ either health or PE to accommodate the extra class period in science.
For our 5th-8th grade students, for example, one science class may meet on A, B, C, E, & F days and drop on “D” days. They may have music or art during that period, or another class that drops during a different day of the cycle.
Some schools do block schedules with “A” and “B” days, where you would meet for a double period on “A” day, then drop for “B” day.
Hope that helps clarify it.
~Liz
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I am beyond excited that you decided to bring back this website. As a new teacher, I would search the web for resources for my students. I share everything with any teacher and I am so glad that you are willing to do the same! It is about student learning! Thank you again! I really enjoy your way of teaching and creating resources!
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Thank you, it is all about the students, you are right!
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