Science Teacher Job Description

A Science Teacher runs the classes where students first work with real evidence: a pig heart on a dissection tray in biology, a burette and an indicator in chemistry, a cart rolling down a ramp past a motion sensor in physics, a stream table or a seismograph trace in earth science. The job is done in middle and high schools, public, charter and private, and the week divides into three kinds of work. There is instruction, where the teacher frames a question students can actually investigate. There is lab time, where students collect measurements with probes, glassware, microscopes or computer simulations and then argue about what the numbers mean. And there is the preparation behind both: mixing solutions before first period, grading lab reports, updating the gradebook and building accommodations into the next unit.

BLS sorts teachers by school level, not by subject. Its 2018 SOC direct-match title file places the high school biology teacher under Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education. A science teacher in grades 6 through 8 is counted under the separate middle school teacher occupation. Licensing and contracts follow the same split, which is why a district may post one opening for a high school physics teacher and another for a middle grades general science teacher.

Under standards built on the National Research Council's Framework for K-12 Science Education, a unit can open with a phenomenon, such as a pond that turned green over the summer or a phone battery that drains faster in the cold. Students ask questions, design a test, gather data, build a model and defend an explanation in writing. The teacher's craft is in choosing phenomena that lead to the core ideas of the course, sequencing labs so each one answers part of the bigger question, and running discussions where students challenge each other's claims instead of waiting for the right answer.

Safety is written into the job. A science teacher works with open flames, acids, bases, sharps, live electrical circuits and biological material, with a full class in the room. Before an activity the teacher checks goggles, eyewash stations, fire blankets and fume hoods; afterward the teacher handles waste and cleanup. The National Science Teaching Association's position statement on liability says science classes should have no more than 24 students to allow for adequate supervision during science activities, and recommends 60 square feet for each secondary student in a lab or classroom. Chemical inventories, Safety Data Sheets and signed student safety contracts are part of the paperwork.

The role reaches past the bell. Science teachers may coach Science Olympiad, judge or run the school science fair, sponsor robotics or environmental clubs, or teach summer credit recovery. Some teach Advanced Placement or dual-credit courses, which bring college-level lab expectations and exam preparation into the calendar.

The usual path is a bachelor's degree in a science or in science education, a state-approved teacher preparation program and a semester or more of student teaching. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook notes that public school teachers must have a state-issued certification or license, which may require an academic background in the subject or subjects they will be certified to teach. For a science teacher that means coursework deep enough in biology, chemistry, physics or earth science to earn the matching endorsement, plus the lab hours that come with those majors.

Licensing usually includes a content test. In states that use the Praxis series from ETS, the content tests include Biology (5236), Chemistry (5246), Physics (5266) and Middle School Science (5442). ETS lists the Biology test at 150 questions over 2.5 hours, and the Middle School Science test at 125 questions in 150 minutes. States that do not use Praxis set their own exams, so check the state education agency before registering. Depending on the state, the process can also include a pedagogy test, a background check and fingerprinting.

Career changers come in through alternative routes: a residency program, a district intern credential or a provisional license that lets a person with a science degree teach while finishing preparation coursework. Lab technicians, research assistants, engineers and health workers bring useful habits, especially around measurement, documentation and safety, but they still need to learn classroom management, lesson design and how to teach students who struggle with reading or math.

As a rough guide, a new teacher needs two to three years of teaching a course before the labs, pacing and assessments run smoothly. Experience that helps a first application includes tutoring, summer science camps, lab assistant work in college, and any time spent with middle or high school students in an organized program.

Skills that matter on the job:

• Laboratory technique and the judgment to know when an activity is too risky for a given group
• Chemical hygiene: storage by compatibility, labeling, spill response and waste disposal
• Designing investigations that produce clean enough data for students to argue from
• Teaching data analysis, graphing and claim-evidence-reasoning writing
• Differentiating labs and readings for English learners and students with IEPs or 504 plans
• Comfort with probeware, simulations, spreadsheets and the district's learning management system

For teachers who stay, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) offers National Board Certification in Science at two levels: Early Adolescence/Science for teachers of students ages 11-15, and Adolescence and Young Adulthood/Science for teachers of students ages 14-18+. Other growth paths include department chair, instructional coach, district science coordinator, or a master's degree that moves the teacher across the salary schedule.

BLS expects flat employment, with openings coming from replacement. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook projects 0 percent change, described as little or no change, in high school teacher employment from 2025 to 2035, a net change of -2,500 jobs. Even so, it projects about 63,500 openings for high school teachers each year on average over the decade, mostly to replace workers who move to other occupations or leave the labor force, for instance to retire. The Handbook projects the same 0 percent outlook for middle school teachers, with an employment change of -2,600. BLS does not publish separate projections for science teachers within those occupations.

Science appears near the top of state shortage lists. The Learning Policy Institute's 2026 overview of teacher shortages reports that in the 2024-25 school year, states most commonly reported shortage areas to the U.S. Department of Education in special education (45 states), science (41 states) and math (40 states). LPI also counted 37,569 unfilled teaching positions in the 29 states plus the District of Columbia that published vacancy data, and estimated that at a minimum 425,412 positions were either unfilled or filled by teachers not fully certified for their assignments. Those figures cover all subjects, and LPI calls them an undercount.

Pay follows the occupation and the district. Secondary school teachers earned a median of $72,040 in May 2025, with the 10th percentile at $48,780 and the 90th percentile at $107,600, across 1,065,210 jobs. Middle school teachers had a median of $64,370 in the same survey. Within a public district, the offer comes from the district's published salary schedule, which places a new hire by years of service and graduate credits.

In 2026, two efforts aimed at AI in science teaching. On June 23, 2026, the National Science Teaching Association and the Science & Technology Advancement Center announced a workshop, Sensemaking in the Age of AI: Empowering Critical Thinkers in Science Classrooms, meant to help educators build AI literacy and explore what AI means for teaching and learning. The National Science Foundation funded a $750,000 project at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, starting Aug. 15, 2026, that develops and studies an AI-assisted professional development program for high school science teachers, in which teachers collaborate with an AI partner to co-develop lesson plans and co-analyze students' learning artifacts. The parts of the job that resist automation are the physical ones: setting up a lab, watching a full room of students around Bunsen burners, and deciding in the moment that an activity has to stop.

For someone entering now, the practical advice is to earn an endorsement in a shortage discipline, keep lab safety training current, and build a record of investigation-based units that a hiring committee can review.

Dear Ms. Okafor,

I am applying for the Science Teacher position at Riverside High School, teaching Biology and Environmental Science beginning in the fall semester. I hold a bachelor's degree in biology, completed my teacher preparation program at Lakeshore State University this spring, and passed my state's biology content exam in March.

My student teaching placement was at Hillcrest High School, where I taught two sections of ninth-grade Biology and one section of Environmental Science under Mr. Daniel Ruiz. I designed a five-week ecology unit built around a question my students cared about: why the creek behind the athletic fields smelled worse every August. Students measured dissolved oxygen and pH, counted macroinvertebrates, and presented their findings to the school's facilities manager, who adjusted the fertilizer schedule for the fields. That unit taught me how to sequence labs so that each one answers part of a bigger question, and how to grade written arguments fairly when students reach different conclusions from the same data.

Lab safety was my responsibility from the first week. I reorganized the prep room chemical storage by compatibility group, updated the Safety Data Sheet binder, and wrote a one-page safety contract in English and Spanish that families signed before our first dissection. Not one incident report was filed during my placement.

Before teaching, I spent two summers as a field assistant for a county watershed program, which is where I learned to calibrate probes, keep a clean field notebook and explain data to people who are not scientists. I would welcome the chance to coach Science Olympiad or start an environmental club at Riverside.

Thank you for considering my application. I would be glad to share my ecology unit and student work samples in an interview.

Sincerely, Jordan Ellis