How do you envision science education in your classroom? Your school? Your district? In hectic life of a modern educator, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the initiatives, expectations, and pressures of our profession. As a first-year high school administrator, I admit I experienced a point last year when I was simply surviving—not managing adequately, but just barely managing.

Fortunately, I was assigned a leadership coach who recognized the signs of an impending collapse. He advised me to re-center myself by focusing on the one thing that would make the biggest difference in my school and ensuring that one thing was done well and consistently. He told me if I could devote time each day to that one thing—regardless of whatever else I might face—I would know I had made a difference.

The kicker is that this “one thing” had to include something tangible, some evidence to show I was working toward my “one thing.” The one thing I chose was instruction. I want the students in my school to have the highest degree of quality instruction, consistently delivered to them. For this to happen, I had to leave my office and visit classrooms and converse with teachers about instruction. The observations I made, the feedback I gave, and the discussions I had regarding what quality instruction is, what it looks like in a particular grade level and subject, and how we could make it happen consistently, provided clear evidence that I was focusing on my “one thing.”  

I want teachers in my building to have this same singular focus. The “one thing” I want them to concentrate on is teaching well every day. I want them to devote time and energy to designing challenging, engaging lessons that push their students to grow in their knowledge and understanding. I want them to start each day by reflecting on what their vision for education looks like in their classroom, and if they teach science, I want them to consider the vision set forth by the Framework for K–12 Science Education, and make that vision a reality.

While I would love to stand and say this to my faculty, I know my words would be received with skepticism at best. The truth is that we live and work in a state that still requires high-stakes assessments. The scores of those assessments are used to evaluate teachers, administrators, and schools. Those assessments aren’t perfect; everyone agrees they don’t provide a full picture of a student’s growth over a year; and they aren’t going away. So I can’t tell my teachers they don’t matter, because they do. What I can say is that how we define assessment in our school can change, and that the traditional summative end-of-year assessment isn’t the “one thing” on which we should solely focus. 

This summer, I studied the recently published National Academies Press report, Seeing Students Learn Science: Integrating Instruction and Assessment. One key idea that really resonated with me is that assessment should be an integrated part of classroom instruction and not an interruption or sole event. This shift in perspective has helped me better reframe this discussion on instruction and assessment and what they should look like at my school. To accomplish this, I have restructured key ideas presented in the book to create questions that teachers can ask themselves and that I can ask during our conversations about teaching and learning.  (see slide)

I would like to report that this second year has begun flawlessly and that we are consistently having rich discussions about integrating assessment into instruction. The truth is, after just more than a month into the school year, we are still taking baby steps. My teachers are still trying to grasp how to change their instruction and assessment practices, and I am still learning how to be an administrator. What we do have is a focus, a “one thing” that we believe matters most, and a belief that the little changes we make each day to accomplish that one thing will eventually result in an experience that matches the vision we have for our classrooms, our school, and our district. 

Zoe Evans

Zoe Evans is principal of Bowdon High School in Bowdon, Georgia. Before becoming an administrator in 2012, she taught middle level science for 19 years in Florida and Georgia. Evans is a National Board Certified–teacher in Early Adolescent Science and a Georgia Master Teacher. She is the 2005 Georgia recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. 

Evans served on the writing team for the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and has collaborated on many projects, including the NGSS EQuIP Professional Learning Facilitator’s Guide, NGSS Example Bundles, and NGSS Evidence Statements. She also is an EQuIP Rubric trainer, NGSS@NSTA Curator, and NSTA’s District V Director. Evans earned a bachelor’s degree in middle grades education, a master’s degree in middle grades science, and a specialist’s degree in middle grade science from the University of West Georgia. 

This article was featured in the September issue of Next Gen Navigator, a monthly e-newsletter from NSTA delivering information, insights, resources, and professional learning opportunities for science educators by science educators on the Next Generation Science Standards and three-dimensional instruction. Click here to sign up to receive the Navigator every month.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

Visit NSTA’s NGSS@NSTA Hub for hundreds of vetted classroom resources, professional learning opportunities, publications, ebooks and more; connect with your teacher colleagues on the NGSS listservs (members can sign up here); and join us for discussions around NGSS at an upcoming conference.

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• Milwaukee: Nov. 9–11, 2017
• New Orleans: Nov. 30–Dec. 2, 2017

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• Atlanta: March 15–18, 2018

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Commentary: Reasoning Versus Post-Truth in The Science Teacher is an important read in a time when dependence on unverified information from social media seems to be more prevalent than using trusted sources that value reasoning.

Science Scope – STEM Integration

From the Editor’s Desk: STEM Integration: A Tall Order: “The shift from teaching math and science in silos to intertwining them with technology and engineering makes education more relevant to students’ lives through exposure to authentic problems.”

Articles in this issue 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.

• Designing a Sustainable Neighborhood: An Interdisciplinary Project-Based Energy and Engineering Unit in the Seventh-Grade Classroom describes student collaborations in designing energy-efficient buildings. The article has examples of student work.
• Teaching Thermal Energy Concepts in a Middle School Mathematics-Infused Science Curriculum includes a 5E lesson that goes beyond traditional lab lessons by infusing math skills related to the investigation.
• Students often explore motion using toy cars and ramps. Exploring the Engineering Design Process Through Computer-Aided Design and 3-D Printing show how students can go further, designing and constructing their own cars. The 5E lesson includes a rubric.
• What happens in the schoolyard after the dismissal bell? Students investigate and submit their findings in What’s in Your School Yard? Using Citizen Science Wildlife Cameras to Conduct Authentic Scientific Investigations
• Teacher’s Toolkit: STEM Career Bingo raises students’ awareness of how STEM careers are interconnected.
• Integrating Technology: Enhancing a Scientific Inquiry Lesson Through Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning describes how students apply engineering design processes to solve a problem. The article also shows how the lesson was modified after initial implementation.
• Citizen Science: Navigate Classroom Citizen Science Throughout the School Year with Journey North incorporates technology into a study of monarch migration.
• Colleagues share their ideas and strategies in this month’s Listserv Roundup: Add More STEAM to Your Classes.

These monthly columns continue to provide background knowledge and classroom ideas:

• Scope on the Skies: Cassini’s Grand Finale
• Disequilibrium: Colorful Covalent Bonds
• Science for All: Breaking the Cycle: Thoughts About Building Grit in the Classroom
• Teacher to Teacher: Written Assessment in Three Dimensions

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Biodiversity, Careers in Science, Conductors/Insulators, Covalent and Ionic Bonds, Energy Transformations, Forces and Motion, Insects, Kinetic/Potential Energy, Law of Conservation of Energy, Migration, Renewable Sources of Energy, Satellite Technology, Sound. Sustainable Development, Winds

Read more from The Science Teacher and Science & Children:

The Science Teacher – Using Evidence-Based Reasoning

Editor’s Corner: Evidence-Based Reasoning: “Cable news and social media now allow us to view only the information and views that confirm our own biases, often accepted without evidence and with great confidence….Teachers—especially science teachers—are in a unique position to reaffirm the priority of facts and evidence-based reasoning.”

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

• Idea Bank: Setting the Stage: Your First Week of Science Class illustrates that it’s never to early in the school year to involve students in investigations (this one is about reaction times).
• The Case of Dinosaur Metabolism includes a lesson in which students research thermoregulation in dinosaurs and use a claim-evidence-reasoning process to guide their thinking. A rubric for C-E-R is included, along with examples of student work.
• The lesson described in Reasoning From Models integrates probes, physical models, simulations, and mathematical models to help students understand their learning about electric circuits.
• Modeling Periodic Patterns has ideas for repurposing an investigation of chemical reactions to include evidence-based reasoning.
• Rather than a once-and-done cookbook lab, Learning Iteratively shows how a series of activities can build on each other as students develop and refine models and reflect on their explanations.

These monthly columns continue to provide background knowledge and classroom ideas:

• Science 2.0: Enhancing Google Sheets for the Classroom
• Focus on Physics: Eight Tips for New (and not so new) Teachers
• The Green Room: Exploring Our Public Lands
• Health Wise: Be Prepared for Opioid Overdoses
• Career of the Month: Epidemiologist
• Right to the Source: A Nose for Poison Gas Saved Lives

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Chemical Reactions, Circulatory System, Dinosaurs, Drugs and Drug Abuse, Electric Circuits, Electric Current, Halogens, Homeostasis, Mapping, Metabolism, Metals and Nonmetals, National Parks, Paleontology, Periodic Table, Respiratory System

Science & Children – Preservice and Inservice Experiences: Enhancing Science Teachers’ Repertoires

Editor’s Note: Learning and Teaching (and Vice Versa): “This issue includes a variety of professional development strategies used in preservice and inservice settings. Not only do they provide ways to enrich your classroom science teaching, they also provide ideas concerning how you might go about sharing your expertise with colleagues and beyond.”

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

• Teachers learn by observing another teacher in Professional Development in Real Time, reflecting on their own teaching, and trying new 5E lessons themselves.
• Creating STEM Kits for the Classroom describes a win-win project: Teachers design “kits” based on lessons they created. Who learned more—the designers or the students?
• Integrating Science Methods With Professional Development illustrates a “third space” methods course connecting pre-service teachers with students in a real school setting to try out their lessons.
• Instead of a set of demonstrations, try a family STEM night with the ideas in Scientists Overnight.
• The authors of Discussing Science in Professional Learning Communities share their experiences in the effective form of professional development. The article includes discussion protocols and group roles.
• Preservice early-childhood teachers help children discover What’s in Our Soil?
• Teaching Through Trade Books: The Tool and Eye includes 5E lessons that address animal adaptations.
• Engineering Encounters: Teaching Educators About Engineering describes a hands-on professional development session designed to introduce teachers to engineering at the elementary level.

These monthly columns continue to provide background knowledge and classroom ideas:

• The Poetry of Science: What Do Scientists Do?
• Science 101: Can Electromagnetic Waves Affect Emotions?
• The Early Years: Experiencing Inquiry
• Formative Assessment Probes: Uncovering Preservice Teachers’ Ideas About Magnetism and Formative Assessment

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Adaptations of Animals, Decomposers, Electromagnetic Waves, Fluids and Pressure, Magnets, Rocket Technology, Roots, Seed Germination, Soil, Vibrations, Worms

As the old saying goes, sometimes less is more. And such is the case with the Carson SkeleScope. Whether used to teach optics, engineering or perhaps even astronomy, having a clear view of the internals of a telescope can be quite engaging. If you make that inspection explorable as well, students will no longer have to just imagine how the reflective magnification of light works. With the SkeleScope, students can construct and manipulate an inexpensive optical tube assembly with mirrors and an eyepiece that hides none of the components of a centuries-old telescope design that is one of the most popular today.

By producing a visible scope in the same vein as the “Visible Man” I played with as a kid, a new level of conceptual understand is possible. Until Marcel Jovine created his Visible Man and Visible Woman in the early 1960s, much of the under-skin workings of a human were relegated to drawings. I cannot help but wonder how many more doctors and nurses got their start “playing” with the plastic parts of this visible human toy.

As a company, Carson Optical was founded by Richard Cameron who actually left his job as a banker and started a business in his mother’s basement importing clever items and especially those with a scientific bend were imported from Japan. Many of the items involved optics from magnifiers to binoculars to telescopes. Today Carson Optical has 25 years of experience in the optical space and uses advanced CNC and 3D rapid prototyping to research and develop its own line of unique products. With over 100 patents, Carson Optical is a household name in science classrooms world wide. And Carson has appeared here in this blog before with their HookUpz 2.0.

Carson has made a name for itself as an innovator from the moment the first product shipped out of a Long Island, NY basement. So building a basic telescope that is arguably more exciting to look at than to look through should not be surprising.

The Carson SkeleScope is a 76mm aperture, 360mm focal length reflecting telescope that weighs less than a pound. The open-truss design common in reflecting telescopes is not uncommon, but rarely at this size. Usually open trusses are saved for when massive mirrors require it such as in observatory and Obsession telescopes that take the concept of a portable reflecting telescope as a “light bucket” to extremes.

Before exploring the telescope as a telescope, the SkeleScope optical machine had to be assembled. I solicited a pair of high school freshman for the task. They were given a box of SkeleScope parts and asked to make a time-lapse video of their work. Then I left.

Youtube now holds the proof of their work:

Even though they mounted the optical tube assembly (OTA in telescope-speak) reversed thus placing the majority of the OTA’s mass on the outside of the tripod’s balance point, I was impressed with their work and thanked them profusely!

Once up and running, the Carson SkeleScope proved to be a functional scope with reasonable optics. As a 14.4x the Carson SkeleScope preforms admirably. By using built-in extending eyepiece holder the works like a Barlow lens, 36x is possible. For reference, Gallelo’s telescope was about 6x and it provided him with views that would change the world. On the other end of the optical spectrum are the large reflecting telescopes. While a primary mirror diameter of three meters will get you on the list of major telescopes, the big guns at the top of the list are 10 meters or more in diameter. Well, there is only one more than 10m and that’s the Gran Telescopio Canarias in Spain. Of the next three 10m mirrors on the list, two are found on Mauna Kea in Hawaii and known as. They were also the world’s first 10m scopes.

On a side note, Mauna Kea is a glorious volcanic mountain in Hawaii touching the rarefied air at 4145m or 13,800 feet. That’s about the same as the tippy top of Grand Teton Peak in Wyoming. Now kids don’t normally summit Grand Teton so the effects of the reduced oxygen atmosphere at that elevation are not breaking news. However, if you drive up towards the summit of Mauna Kea, you will encounter many warnings about taking children to the summit to which you can obviously drive to. Here is the text from a visitor’s guide:

Anyone in poor health should consult their physician before planning a visit to Maunakea.  We do not recommend anyone who is pregnant to go further than the VIS.  People under the age of 16 should not go any further because their bodies are still developing and they are affected more rapidly when going to a high altitude. 

Now I’ve taken kids skiing at elevations over 11,000 feet or 3400 meters in Colorado so I was curious what was special about Mauna Kea that it might be more dangerous for children. It took some doing, but I finally got some straight talk from a ranger. In a nutshell 4100 meters in elevation in Colorado is the same as 4100m in Hawaii, but the two main differences between Colorado and Hawaii, in case you didn’t know, are that 1) you cannot drive from sea level to 4100m in Colorado, and 2) you rarely stay very long at 4100m in Colorado. 

On the other hand, you can drive from a sea level beach in Hawaii to the summit of Mauna Kia in a couple hours. And worse, there is plenty to do once you reach the 4000m+ summit.  Since the effects of thin air (reduced barometric pressure and accompanying oxygen saturation) disproportionately affect children, and it was not the children who did all the driving, and spent money on a rental car, there is a strong possibility that the adults in the group will ignore the children complaints (or possibly lack of complaining as they succumb to the altitude) in order to maximize their time on top. For the record, my kids made it about 45 minutes before we had to descend due to headache and fatigue.

So what does this digression have to do with the SkeleScope? Probably something deeper, but the best I can come up with is that both Mauna Kia and the SkeleScope strip away the veneer of what they offer. Mauna Kia offers 4K meter elevation to anyone. The SkeleScope offers visibility to anyone. Ok, that’s a reach, but quality metaphors can be hard to come by these days.

The Carson SkeleScope is a modern take on a historic design. Known as a Newtonian Reflector, the optics of the Carson SkeleScope trace their roots back to 1668 when Sir Issac Newton applied the telescope design to explore an ultimately support his theories about white light being a spectrum of different colors. Using mirrors to manipulate light avoids some significant issues when using a series of lenses. Even Galileo wrote about using mirrors instead of lenses. By the way, a trivia fact is that the year Galileo Galilei died, 1642, is also the year Isaac Newton was born. I use that date as a general reference of the birth of modern science.  Add 300 years to that date and you have 1942, the birth year of Stephen Hawking.

By using mirrors instead of just lenses, the Newtonian telescope can capture more light for its size compared to a reflecting scope, weigh less, be simpler to make, and have a focal length much longer than its tube length. And that shorter focal ratio makes for a wider field of view. 

Of course Newtonian telescopes have their disadvantages, but chromatic aberration is not one of them. CA or chromatic aberration is an effect where as light is refracted through a lens, the individual wavelengths or colors do not converge on the same point.

The difference in wavelengths among the colors causes them to “bend” at different angles which is the very property we know and love when we shoot white light through a prism. Unfortunately if you are using lensed optics, the individual nature each wavelength causes them to separate creating rainbow, fringing effects, and distortion among parallel features.

Although there is a long list of issues with Newtonian telescope designs, that list is not long enough to keep the Newtonian from being one of the most popular and affordable telescope designs for amateurs and professionals alike. Which is exactly the point of the Carson SkeleScope.

By exposing the innards of the scope to the point they can be observed and explored, students can both use and manipulate the light flow in the scope. Some explorations can include restricting the reflecting surface of the primary mirror by covering a portion of it with paper. What is affected? What is not?

In the end, the Carson SkeleScope makes a useful telescope on it’s own. At 14x, the craters on the moon are filled with details including rays, upheaval domes, and crater rims. Two or three moons of Jupiter show up as specks of light in a line crossing a larger speck that is the gas giant itself.

Since school usually takes place during daylight hours, terrestrial viewing is a great use for the Carson SkeleScope. In fact known size and distance outside the classroom walls combined with the exposed nature of the Carson SkeleScope allows actual measurements using meters sticks, rulers, and a good laser range finder if you’ve got one.

In science class, optics are often reduced to a series of equations. What better way to teach and learn about optics and work hands-on with the equations than to move beyond the traditional but effective light table and turn the volume up with less …and the Carson SkeleScope.