Where to Find Free Science Articles

As teachers we want our students to increase their reading comprehension skills. I've found that most of my students don't mind reading when you give them an interesting piece of text. If you assign textbook reading the moans will follow (and honestly, as adults we don't love to read textbooks so why do we expect our students to enjoy it?)

Instead, try and find an interesting topic or scientific phenomena that goes along with the concept you are learning about. For example, as a biology teacher one topic I teach is the biogeochemical cycles. My students would NOT enjoy reading about the carbon cycle out of a textbook. So instead I gave them an article to read about Lake Nyos, a lake that formed in a volcanic crater that was slowly releasing dissolved carbon dioxide into the water. To introduce the lesson, I show them a video clip of the villagers and livestock living around the lake who don't wake up one morning. By the end of the video students were hooked- what happened to these people?! They were absolutely ready to read the article and discuss carbon.

Here are a list of websites you can peruse to look for free, engaging articles for your students:

1. NEWSELA: Newsela articles are free. You can pay to set up classes and assign articles through their site, but completely not necessary.

2. SCIENCE NEWS FOR STUDENTS

3. SCIENCE JOURNAL FOR KIDS: Primary literature can be hard to comprehend, but this site makes the articles understandable for students.

4. GOOGLE SCHOLAR: Want students to read primary literature? Most of the time it costs money for articles, but Google Scholar provides free journal articles.

5. COMMON LIT: Lessons and articles are free after you create an account.

6. READ WORKS

7. TWEEN TRIBUNE: Student-geared articles published by the Smithsonian.

8. NATURAL INQUIRER: On this site you can not only download articles but also order magazine copies for your classroom.

Do you have a topic that your students consider boring? Need help coming up with related phenomena? Leave them in the comments and I'll do my best to help!

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