Science Scope – Systems Thinking

The articles this month provide “examples of how to integrate the crosscutting concept of systems and system models” into the classroom. (From the Editor’s Desk: Systems Thinking Solutions) Featured articles that describe lessons include a helpful sidebar (“At a Glance”) documenting the big idea, essential pre-knowledge, time, and cost.

The lessons also include connections with the NGSS.

• Although students may be familiar with the term “system,” the authors of Using Systems Mapping to Plan Scientific Investigations and Integrating Technology: Students Making Systems Models: An Accessible Approach describe how to help them learn about system components and provide examples of systems mapping and modeling in several content areas.
• Students get hands-on experience in Building Bots to Develop Systems Thinking.
• Diving Into Buoyancy describes how designing, building, and testing submarines can help to correct misconceptions about sinking and floating.
• In Call the Plumber! Engaging Students With Authentic Engineering Design Practices, students incorporate the design process, online simulations, and physical models to solve a problem.
• Students explore gravity and why objects “fall” in this Classic Lessons 2.0: Falling Into Understanding with a probe for understanding, a 5E lesson, data tables, and examples of student work.
• Citizen Science: Ecosystems and Eagle Populations describes a yearly project that monitors populations. The article includes other year-round resources and how to access the data.
• Disequilibrium: A Balancing Act includes a 5E lesson on how students can study the relationships between components of a system.
• Find ideas from other teachers in this month’s Listserv Roundup: From the Archives: Systems.
• Teacher to Teacher: Assessing Crosscutting Concepts and Teacher’s Toolkit: Using Rubrics to Integrate Crosscutting Concepts have ideas to help students focus on these concepts.
• Scope on the Skies: Flipped Constellations describes systems of stars.

For more on the content that provides a context for these projects and strategies see the SciLinks topics Buoyancy, Constellations, Ecosystems, Equilibrium, Fluids and Pressure, Force of Gravity, Galileo, Gravity, Matter and Energy, Newton’s Laws of Motion, Robots, Submarines and Undersea Technology, Systems

Continue for Science and Children, The Science Teacher

Science & Children – Instructional Technology

In the classroom we’ve been incorporating technology since the 1980s and 90s. The Editor’s Note: The Dilemmas of Technology describes somequestions we continually need to address. We may never have the answers, as technology changes rapidly!

The lessons described in the articles include a graphic showing connections with the NGSS.

• Students are involved in Constructing Arguments With 3-D Printed Models as they design and use models to investigate the adaptations of bottom-dwelling fish (including photos of student work and suggestions for 3-D printing in the classroom).
• Crime Scene Soil Investigation turns students in scientific detectives as they use mobile learning technologies (e.g., tablets with microscope attachments, probes) to collect and analyze soil samples. The authors include photographs and teaching suggestions.
• There can be more to gardening than planting seeds! Zooming in on Science
• Students learning with technology rather than from technology? Science Notebooks for the 21st Century examines the use of electronic notebooking applications as tools for learning.
• Mark August 21, 2017, on your calendar. Here are some suggestions to Get Ready for the Great American Eclipse!
• The ideas in What’s Lurking in Our Lake? uses the DIY Lake Science app to collect and analyze data. The concepts could be applied to a study of any body of water near your school.
• Writing poems about inventions? The Poetry of Science: Think It, Build It, Make It has an example of how scientists use technology to solve problems.
• The Early Years: Integrating Digital Tools summarizes position statements on the appropriate use of digital tools with PreK-2 students, with an ongoing lesson idea on using different technologies to send messages.
• Teaching Through Trade Books: Teaming Up: Trade Books and Technology provides two lessons in which students use technology to find information or show their understanding of how animals adapt for survival.
• Engineering Encounters: Optimizing Your K–5 Engineering Design Challenge and Methods and Strategies: Using Argument-Based Inquiry Strategies for STEM Infused Science Teaching have ideas for STEM-related activities, engineering design, and argumentation.
• Zooming In on Science illustrates how enhanced photography (GigaPan) can add to garden-based learning.

For more on the content that provides a context for these projects and strategies see the SciLinks topics Adaptations, Adaptations of Animals, Body Systems, Bridge Structures, Catapults, Eclipses, Explore Soil, Forensic Science, Inventions/Inventors, Plant Growth, Rockets, Soil Types, Sound, Waves, Watersheds

The Science Teacher — Literacy in Science

The featured articles in this issue offer tips and techniques for engaging science students in reading critically and writing clearly. Note: These ideas are also appropriate for middle school.

The lessons described in the articles include connections with the NGSS.

• Help students learn to Read Like a Scientist with strategies for popular texts (generating interest), textbooks (finding information), and primary sources (investigations and arguments).
• Long-Form Science has suggestions for how to incorporate nonfiction texts into science topics with before-during-after reading strategies.
• If you’ve wondered what “close reading” is, Short-Form Science illustrates how to blend reading of challenging text with other instructional methods. A list of readings is included.
• English Language Learners can become more Text Savvy with the suggestions from these authors on selecting and using text and guiding students through the reading.
• The Green Room: The Top Five Environmental Stories of 2016 has links to readings on these topics.
• Focus on Physics: When What You See Is What You Hear has a basic discussion of the science of sound and acoustics.
• Looking ways to encourage students to write? See this month’s Idea Bank: Keep Current With a Journal Club with suggestions for readings.
• Show students how to combine passions in writing and science with Career of the Month: Television Writer.
• Right to the Source: Why Scientists Write has links to primary sources for Alexander Graham Bell’s writing as a example.

For more on the content that provides a context for these projects and strategies see the SciLinks topics Acoustics, Asexual Reproduction, Atomic Structure, Modern Atomic Theory, Climate Change, Marine Ecosystems, Meiosis, Mitosis, Mutations, Renewable Resources, Sound Reflection