The main purpose of The Oregon Science Teacher (TOST), is to provide a forum to share information, resources and ideas. The content reflects the needs of classroom teachers, science supervisors and administrators, teacher educators, pre-service teachers and informal educators.

Publishing in TOST is your opportunity to make a significant contribution to science programs at your level or area of practice.

September/October 2013: The Next Generation Science Standards
Deadline: August 15, 2013

November/December 2013: STEM/Science Fairs
Deadline: October 15, 2013

March/April 2014: Professional Development for In-service and Pre-service Teachers
Deadline: March 15, 2014

June/July 2014:  Engineering & Technology
Deadline: May 15, 2014

September/October 2014:  Diversity & Equity

Deadline:  August 15, 2014

• Effective science, engineering and/or technology learning experiences that are original and creative
• Interdisciplinary science experiences
• Successful partnerships or programs
• Current issues and topics in science education
• Oregon specific topics and experiences
• New resources for teachers and students

In your article, share the complete experience, including what you did, what worked, and what didn’t. When describing an activity, identify its place in the curriculum, the appropriate grade level, assessment techniques, and any safety considerations. Include how the activity addresses current science standards. Tell us what students were wondering about that led you to conduct the activity. What did students say as they conducted the activity? What changes will you make to the activity in the future?

When describing a successful partnership or program, give complete details. How was the program set up? Why was it begun? What are its goals? What were students’ reactions as they participated? 

With these suggestions in mind, your article will have a better chance of being published.

Your narrative should not exceed 2 pages. Longer narratives may be returned for revision without being reviewed.

• Include an abstract for your article of up to 200 words.
• SI (metric) units should be used throughout the article.
• Tables, graphs, and charts should be appropriately labeled.
• Bibliographies and resource lists should be alphabetized and limited to current, readily available items.
• Photographs

When taking photographs for the publication, students in laboratory settings must be shown following appropriate safety guidelines and wearing proper safety attire, including full-wrap, splash-proof goggles. Students’ faces should be visible, but they should not look directly at the camera. If a photograph is used, a signed photo release will be required of each student pictured.

Submit your narrative in MS Word. Provide title, author, and contact information. Use 1 hard return after a paragraph; use 1 space after the end of a sentence. Place file name, date, and page number on all pages as a header.

For pictures, graphs or charts: Do not include in the text, but submit as separate files. Name or number them, so their place in the story will be obvious (e.g., “001_Students_making_toothpick_bridges”) and place the corresponding number in the text in [brackets] making it obvious where that item should be placed.

For photographs, what looks good on screen won’t necessarily look good in print, so we need the highest resolution files you can provide. We prefer files that are at least 300 dpi. If this doesn’t mean anything to you, just set photo-quality setting on your camera as high as possible. Typically, a suitable graphic file will be anywhere from 400 KB to a few MB in size. If your file size is smaller than this, chances are we won’t be able to use it.  

Provide photographer credits, date, place, event and any other pertinent information for caption (picture description) and additional information (copyright permission, picture permission for student or other photos, credits, etc.) at the end of the article. Use ##### to show end of article and beginning of additional information.

If you have included live hyperlinks in your narrative, whether it be a pre-formatted PDF or a MS Word document, please provide a table at the end of the narrative that shows the text link and the target URL matching the text link.

Email TOST narratives and pictures to OSTACommunications@gmail.com. Send the photo release forms by mail to: OSTA, PO Box 80456-1456, Portland, OR 97280-1456, or by fax to 503-534-9112.

The Oregon Science Teacher (TOST), the official Journal of the Oregon Science Teachers Association.

The rates for advertising in the journal are as follows:

Contact OSTACommunications@gmail.com if you have additions, recommendations, corrections, suggestions or questions.