Get ready for the total eclipse visible in parts of the US:

• Scope on the Skies: Vocabulary of the Skies
• Why, How, and Where to View Totality

Science & Children – The Science and Math Connection

Editor’s Note: The “Fundamental Tools” of Science: As they [students] investigate, we can move them beyond play by emphasizing the use of mathematics to develop scientific understanding, make predictions, record observations, create models, communicate information, and defend arguments through data.

• Many of the lessons this month incorporate data collection, graphing, and simple statistical analysis. The lessons described in the articles include connections with the NGSS.
• Toad-ally Cool Math and Science Integration describes a summer program in which students do field studies of frogs and toads. The photos show these girls in action.
• With the 5E lesson described in Bubble Babies, students investigate (using experimental design and data collection) the connection between parental care and survival rate in animals.
• Gaining Traction integrates a variety of strategies (including basic statistics) in a study of beetle behavior.
• Integrating Math in a Sea of Science is a variation of the lesson on birds’ beaks. Students study the relationship between the structure of a fish’s mouth and the type of food it eats using data they collect.
• Blending In uses colorful candies to simulate how living things that blend in with their surroundings have a higher survival rate.
• In The Early Years: Taking Math Outside, students collect objects to connect nature with skills such as classifying, sorting, counting, and comparing.
• Teaching Through Trade Books: Becoming a Citizen Scientist has two 5E lessons (K-2, 3-5) that illustrate the data collecting aspect of citizen science projects.
• Perhaps some students would enjoy describing their data as a poem — The Poetry of Science: The Math of Science.

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

• Science 101: Q: How Do Self-Driving Cars Work?
• Methods and Strategies: Ask the Right Question
• Engineering Encounters: The Internet of Things for Kids

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Adaptations, Amphibians, Animal Camouflage, Animal Reproduction, Bats, Classification, Ecosystems, Forces and Motion, Fishes, Friction, Insects, Math and Science, Plant Growth

 Continue for Science Scope and The Science Teacher

Science Scope – Inventive Teaching

From the Editor’s Desk: Innovative Teaching = Learning: Innovative teachers are risk takers who are willing to accept failure. They model for others how to turn the traditional teaching model into one in which they facilitate learning by tapping into their students’ curiosity and capturing their imagination. They teach in every possible venue, often reaching out to partners with resources both within and outside their geographical area.

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.

• Moving Beyond STEAM describes how integrating the arts with traditional STEM topics adds another level of student engagement to a study of ecosystems.
• For many teachers, Unit Planning Using the Crosscutting Concepts is a new challenge. This article provides an example of the process.
• Exploring Terrestrial Isopods: How Terrestrial Isopods’ Behavior Can Influence Survival and Reproduction uses arthropods that are easily available to help students connect these concepts.
• NGSS on the farm? Incorporating a Farm Into Our Science Curriculum: An Innovative Twist shows middle school students connecting science with raising chickens and bees.
• Take your classroom word wall to the next level with Teacher’s Toolkit: Interactive word walls: Visual Scaffolds That Transform Vocabulary Instruction. The terms in Scope on the Skies: Vocabulary of the Skies could be a start.
• Integrating Technology: Innovative Youth: An Engineering and Literacy Integrated Approach includes innovative strategies to incorporate reading and science/engineering.
• Citizen Science: Summer Night Sky Citizen Science With Globe at Night describes a nighttime project collecting data to raise awareness of light pollution.
• Get students moving to improve their learning. Science for All: Kinesthetic Learning in Science has examples of tapping into students’ energy.
• Teacher to Teacher: Transitioning to Three-Dimensional Learning With Evidence Statements includes an authentic context for incorporating NGSS evidence statements.

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

• Disequilibrium: How Heat Affects the Density of Water
• Listserv Roundup: Four Effective Ways to Improve Laboratory Management

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Arthropods, Astronomy, Coastal Changes, Constellations, Density, Electric Circuits, Honeybees, Laboratory Safety, Populations/Communities/Ecosystems, Safety in the Science Classroom, Water Cycle, Water Erosion

Continue for The Science Teacher

The Science Teacher – Engineering: The “E” in STEM

Editor’s Corner: Engineering for the Future: Engineering is the “E” that can integrate the other STEM subjects (science, technology, and mathematics). It encourages creative problem-solving and critical thinking while developing technological literacy.

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

• Is It Engineering or Not? has several questions and examples to change traditional activities into engineering tasks.
• Modeling a Membrane describes how students designed and created a model of a plasma membrane using readily available materials.
• Consider these Myths About the Nature of Technology and Engineering and how to deal with these misconceptions in the classroom.
• The Stories of Inventions, a four-phase PBL unit, integrates inventions into a social context.
• Troubleshooting Portfolios are documentation of student design work and an example of formative evaluation.
• Focus on Physics: Sailing Into the Wind: A Vector Explanation uses vectors to show how boats are designed and engineered to sail with and against the wind.

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

• Career of the Month: Civil Engineer
• Health Wise: Getting Their Names Right
• Science 2.0: Align Your Curriculum With the ISTE Standards
• Right to the Source: View From the Top

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Active Transport, Biomedical Engineer, Inventors, Cell Membrane, Diffusion, Engineer, Vectors, Winds

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) marked up their FY2018 education budget on Thursday; despite a lower funding level overall from last year, lawmakers seek to cut the Department of Education by $2.4 billion, or 3.5 percent. President Trump proposed cutting the Department’s budget by 13 percent (about $9.2 billion). Highlights:

• Provides $500 million funding to the Title IV block created by the Every Student Succeeds Act. The current funding level is $400m, and the authorized level for this program is $1.6 billion. President Trump eliminated funding for this program in his budget.
• The bill does not fund the Title II program under ESSA as Title II, Part A. Trump’s budget also calls for eliminating this program.
• Funds the 21st Century Learning Centers Program at $1 billion — down from $1.2 billion in funding this year. The President eliminated this program in his budget proposal.
• The bill funds Title I at $15.9 billion, similar to its funding for the current year. The House did not allocate $1 billion in Title I money to a new grant program that would allow students to attend the public school of their choice, and they did not include $250 million that the Trump administration wanted to expand and study vouchers.
• Provides $12.2 billion in funding for special education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a $200 million increase from the current level of funding.
• Increases funding for charter schools by $28 million, bringing it to a total of $370 million
• The legislation also calls for a $1.1 billion increase for the National Institutes of Health (the President had proposed reducing funding for NIH by $5.8 billion)

The full Appropriations Committee is expected to take action on this bill later this week.

Science Teachers Speak Out on Science Testing in Every Student Succeeds Act 

In late June, NSTA and the STEM Education Coalition sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education, stating our concerns that their feedback to Delaware and other states about their state plans to implement ESSA was widely viewed in education policy circles as discouraging states from including science in their state accountability systems under the new federal education law. These concerns were covered in numerous press stories over the past two weeks and got national attention, including coverage in the Washington Post and New York Times.

The Department of Education responded to our letter, reaffirming that they support state usage of science testing in compliance with the ESSA requirements and further clarified the Department’s intent was not to discourage the use of science scores.  Read the letter from NSTA and the STEM Ed Coalition here and the Department of Education letter here.

STEM in ESSA Detailed in New Achieve Brief

On Wednesday, Achieve released a new brief examining ways in which the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) supports STEM education.  The brief outlines states’ current goals and approaches to science inclusion in their accountability plans under ESSA, as well as how they can leverage funding opportunities in ESSA to support science. (The brief limits its scope to only those 16 states and the District of Columbia who submitted plans to the U.S. Department of Education (USED) in the first round of ESSA state submissions this past May.) From the report, “Of the 16 states and the District of Columbia that have submitted ESSA plans to date, ten states (see table, below) are including science in their accountability system. All ten of these states are including science assessment as part of an academic achievement or proficiency indicator.

States Proposing to Include Science in Their Accountability Systems Under ESSA

The report also looks at how often, and in which grades, states administered science assessments for school year 2016–17, how federal funding can be used for STEM education, and how states intend to leverage ESSA to support STEM.

Stay tuned, and watch for more updates in future issues of NSTA Express.

Jodi Peterson is the Assistant Executive Director of Communication, Legislative & Public Affairs for the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and Chair of the STEM Education Coalition. Reach her via e-mail at jpeterson@nsta.org or via Twitter at @stemedadvocate.

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

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For the past seven years, my district has held an enrichment opportunity for students in grades fifth through ninth grade called STEM Summer Institute. This unique program has been funded by a Department of Defense Education Activity Grant.  Manhattan, Kansas is next to Fort Riley Army Base and the district strives to support the distinctive needs of our military children. With that in mind, this STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) summer program allows students to practice hands-on STEM activities in a relaxed environment.  Local students select one class for each week in June (our school year ends by Memorial Day).

 Offerings vary each year, but grades 5 and 6 have different options than grades 7 through 9. This year our 317 learners are enrolled in twenty-three different classes; thirteen choices for the younger students and ten choices for the middle school students. Each course is held in the mornings, Mondays through Thursdays. For example, if a child is enrolled in all four weeks, they would have the opportunity to experience a wide range of hands-on STEM activities in four different classes.  Since the sessions are held on campus at Kansas State University, students ride a bus from several pick up sites around town.

Our June classes are limited to fifteen students if instructed by one local teacher, whereas eighteen students are allowed in classes co-taught by two adults.  The second adult is either a college professor, STARBASE or area technical college instructor.

This is a collaborative project with my district and Kansas State University’s College of Education. During the summer, traditional field placement of pre-service teachers is difficult to locate. With STEM Summer Institute, these college students gain quality contact time within a real classroom with real students. They observe the experienced teacher each week, and by the fourth week are able to conduct the instruction. Since classes only meet Mondays through Thursdays, the KSU teaching teams meet with the local cooperating teacher each Friday to plan and reflect on the week.

Having the opportunity to hold classes in a number of Kansas State University buildings allows students to visit college laboratories. Teachers also invite professors to share their knowledge through demonstrations or activities. Some examples include: the state climatologist talking to the weather classes about the formation of tornadoes and producing a tornado in her special box; a physics professor providing hands-on experiences for the K’Nex roller coaster groups; the assistant college soccer coach sharing how to maneuver a ball for the science of sports crowd. Some of our offerings have co-instructors that are college professors and thus classes meet in their departments (City of Mine craft is in Construction Science, Vet Med is held in the Veterinary College of Medicine, both Mighty Micro Controllers and Simulating The Martian in Department of Computer Science, Passive Solar Architecture  and Grain Science). Advantages are extensive, but most notably our students are able to access the same equipment as college students.

STEM Summer Institute is not only a collaborative project with the local university, but with the community as well. Our local D.o.D. STARBASE instructors share their knowledge with fifth graders during the schoolyear and offer a robotics class to summer students. Manhattan Area Technical College opens their doors to our seventh and eighth graders to explore career paths offered at the site. Riley County Police Department stages a crime scene for the C.S.I. groups every week.  Soldiers from Fort Riley Army Base share STEM options within the Army at the end of June.

As technology changes, so does our offerings.  We have added an indoor drone technology and electronics textile classes. This June, we added programs focused on arts to allow the pre-service teachers more chances to practice in their field. Students will explore science fiction writing, build in a maker space, and learn how music and science are connected.

I have assumed an administrative position in my high school. Although I’m sad to leave the classroom, I’m looking forward to this challenge. I have the credentials but not much experience, so I need insights on making the transition. —C., New York

Congratulations on your new professional adventure! If you have not formally been assigned a mentor, find an informal one in your school district or through social media. Networking is an important part of being a leader, and social media provides many ways to work with and learn from others.

The best leaders I’ve worked with spent a lot of time communicating with both students and teachers: listening attentitively (even if you’ve heard the same comment or complaint before), explaining the rationale for decisions, celebrating the achievements of students and teachers, and being approachable in the hallways and classrooms. They also had a sense of humor and the ability to differentiate between the trivial and the important.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed with events and commitments before, during, and after school. One of my administrative mentors would come to school early to check the calendar and plan out his day of classroom visits, meetings, and other duties (in pencil, since unanticipated events would occur). Keep a log or journal of what you do and reflect often on what you’re learning.

You can be a resource for the science faculty. You have experienced a teacher’s responsibility for safety in the labs and security in the storage areas. You know how much behind-the-scenes work science teachers do and are aware of the hazards (and possible liabilities) of scheduling non-science classes or study halls in lab classrooms.

It’s eye-opening to go beyond your own classroom to viewing the school as a larger system. Ask questions and be willing to observe, listen, and learn.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spcummings/361167519/

By definition, one’s own name is the most personal of all words. When a teacher mispronounces a student’s name, the experience can be painful and even harmful to the student’s emotional and educational well-being.

Mispronounced names can add to the difficulties that English-language learners experience in classrooms, according to an Education Week article (Mitchell 2016). The article quoted Rita Kohli of the University of California, Riverside:

“If [ELLs] are encountering teachers who are not taking the time to learn their name or don’t validate who they are, it starts to create this wall.” The article went on: “[Name mispronunciation] can also hinder academic progress. Despite a national increase in the overall graduation rate, the dropout rate for foreign-born and immigrant students remains above 30 percent, three times that of U.S.-born white students.”

In addition, white teachers mispronouncing the names of students of color can represent “subtle daily insults that … support a racial and cultural hierarchy of minority inferiority,” according to a study published in Race, Ethnicity and Education (Kohli and Solórzano 2012). Regardless of why a teacher mispronounces a student’s name, such experiences can affect the child’s worldview and self-worth, the study found.

“It can result in children believing that their culture or aspects of their identity are an inconvenience or are inferior. Many participants shared that the issues they experienced with their names in school caused them a great deal of anxiety [and] shame,” Kohli and Solórzano wrote (2012). “The consequences of these subtle racial experiences are real and can have a lasting impact.”

Aggravating a lack of diversity
Part of the issue may be a lack of diversity among teachers. As a group, U.S. teachers are 82% white, according to the Department of Education (2016), but at least 350 languages are spoken in U.S. homes, according to the Census Bureau (2015). Breaking that down, more than 190 languages are spoken in New York City homes alone, the bureau reports, and 54% of Los Angeles residents ages 5 and older speak a language other than English at home.

“More than 4.8 million English learners are enrolled in America’s public schools, where currently they make up approximately 10% of the nation’s total student population,” wrote Yee Wan, an education administrator and former president of the National Association for Bilingual Education (Wan 2017).

To make your classroom welcoming, Wan wrote, “create a community where everyone is learning and saying each other’s names correctly. Simply asking the question, ‘Did I say your name correctly?’ sends the message that names and people matter.”

By mispronouncing a name, “whether you intend to or not, what you’re communicating is this: ‘Your name is different. Foreign. Weird. It’s not worth my time to get it right,’” wrote education blogger and former college instructor Jennifer Gonzalez (2014). “The best way to get students’ names right is to just ask them.”

Michael E. Bratsis is a former senior editor for KidsHealth in the Classroom (kidshealth.org/classroom).

On the web
For students: Social and emotional well-being: www.teenshealth.org/en/teens/your-mind

Pronunciation guides:
Naming conventions in Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese: http://bit.ly/2nT4qJK
Pronunciation dictionary: www.forvo.com
Voice of America Pro-Nounce: http://pronounce.voanews.com
Related video: http://bit.ly/PBS-names

References
Gonzalez, J. 2014. How we pronounce student names, and why it matters. Cult of Pedagogy. www.cultofpedagogy.com/gift-of-pronunciation
Kohli, D., and G. Solórzano. 2012. Teachers, please learn our names! Racial microagressions and the K–12 classroom. Race, Ethnicity and Education 15 (4): 441–462. http://bit.ly/2nmj549
Mitchell, C. 2016. Education Week. Mispronouncing Students’ Names: A Slight That Can Cut Deep. May 10. http://bit.ly/24NZIQy
U.S. Census Bureau. 2015. Census Bureau reports at least 350 languages spoken in U.S. homes. http://bit.ly/2nLN6pl
U.S. Department of Education. 2016. The state of racial diversity in the educator workforce. http://bit.ly/1Oh5gWQ
Wan, Y. 2017. Did I say your name correctly? Strategies for creating a culture of respect. Perspectives 40 (1): 6–7. http://bit.ly/2oRmZz8

Editor’s Note

This article was originally published in the Summer 2017 issue of The 
Science Teacher journal from the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).

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