Student-driven science, made classroom-real.
Teaching Science In 3D is grounded in the everyday pressure of science teaching: limited time, testing schedules, mixed student needs, and the challenge of making learning stick. Its conversations favor usable classroom moves, from phenomenon-based units to clearer directions and calmer testing weeks.
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Teaching Science In 3D is a teacher-development show about making science class more student-driven, hands-on, and manageable. It begins from classroom reality, not idealized planning. Students stare silently one minute, then erupt with ideas the next. Testing week scrambles routines. Labs take time. Directions are too wordy. Some students need more processing time, while others need structure that gives them a real role in the work. The show treats those moments as design problems teachers can work with. Episodes return to 3D learning, phenomenon-based units, community building, and the small choices that help students explain their reasoning instead of simply producing more work. Newer material pulls toward elementary STEM, especially the challenge of protecting curiosity when science can get pushed aside by math and ELA demands. Nicole Van Tassel connects that shift to fifth grade teaching, parenting, and the need to catch students before they decide they are not science or math people. Earlier episodes with Erin Sadler keep the show rooted in middle and high school science classrooms, where student ownership and relevance remain central. Guest conversations add student and teacher perspectives on respect agreements, group work, visual supports, notebook checks, and classroom culture. The show is at its best when it slows down a familiar teaching problem and makes the hidden decisions visible. A single ecosystem card sort can become a richer discussion. A testing week can include grounding exercises rather than only review. A set of instructions can be shortened, recorded, pictured, or demonstrated so more students can access the task. The style is conversational, practical, and mildly messy in a recognizably teacher way. It does not pretend that better pedagogy erases pressure. It offers smaller, clearer ways to teach science with more student thinking and less teacher exhaustion.
Made for: The show suits science teachers and upper-elementary STEM teachers who want practical ways to build inquiry, discussion, and classroom community. It is especially relevant for educators trying to fit meaningful science into crowded schedules.
What sets it apart: Teaching Science In 3D connects 3D learning to the small mechanics of classroom life: directions, testing weeks, student anxiety, group roles, and lesson pacing. Its strength is turning big instructional ideals into low-risk adjustments teachers can actually use.
An on-the-go professional development podcast for busy science teachers. Get a grip on the new science standards and discover ready-to-use strategies to “NGSS your science class.” Don’t just teach the NGSS -- become an NGSS teacher.
Erin's daughter gets the mic on lab jobs; suddenly your group-work headache has a witness.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A candid case for making elementary STEM feel possible, connected, and worth protecting.
A classroom falls quiet when students worry about being wrong, then opens up once Nicole changes the shape of the moment. She uses that shift to explain why she built iExploreScience in 2018, and why its focus is moving toward upper-elementary STEM, a space where teachers often…
Char Ritchie shows how visible directions can make science routines easier to follow and revisit.
Building a Classroom Community Series Part 3 frames classroom community as something students can see, point to, and return to when they need it.
A student's view of how classroom roles and respect shape the willingness to learn.
Erin Sadler's conversation with her daughter keeps classroom community close to the student's seat. Her daughter remembers hands-on labs and group activities working because everyone had a job, stayed with it, and was graded on whether the job got done.
Australian teaching, examined from the classroom outward.
Practical ESL teaching, beyond the lesson plan.
Practical momentum for modern FCS educators.
Staffroom honesty for better education.
What male educators carry behind the face they show students.
A science teacher reflects on a classroom moment where students were afraid to be wrong, sparking a discussion about fostering a growth mindset and inquiry-based learning.
Nicole of I Explore Science STEM in LM argues that testing week disrupts classroom routines through split groups, altered lunch and recess schedules, anxious students, and quiet-testing requirements.
The host announces changes to the podcast, explaining the shift from co-hosting to solo hosting and her move to teaching elementary school.
Teaching Science in 3D's Building a Classroom Community Series Part 3: The Science Classroom centers on Char Ritchie, a 7th- and 8th-grade science teacher in California who now teaches in Erin Sadler's old room.
Erin Sadler interviews her daughter Bailey Sadler on Teaching Science In 3D about routines, respect, and what middle school students notice first.
Erin Sadler describes medication reducing her thoughts from about 20 competing concerns to two or three manageable ones.
A podcast for science teachers offering strategies to implement NGSS standards and create student-driven learning experiences.