Elementary and middle school teachers have a real gold mine this month – both journals have the theme of Energy.

Food for thought at any grade level–Commentary: Proactive Leadership in The Science Teacher describes what leadership should look like for teachers, departments, and administrators.

The Science Teacher — Bringing Research Into the Classroom

This issue goes beyond talking about research results to describe students actually doing authentic research—planning and carrying out investigations, generating and evaluating data, and developing explanations or designing solutions. The lessons described in the articles include connections with the NGSS.

• Core Values includes several lessons in which students analyze and summarize data from an expedition in Siberia. The purpose is to see how scientists can reconstruct past climate records historically without having direct measurements.
• Measuring CO2 illustrates an investigation in which students study greenhouse gas production from thawing permafrost.
• In the interdisciplinary investigation, Turning Into Ice, students explore the concepts and processes of biological ice nucleation.
• Modeling Chromosomes focuses on a 5E lesson in which students create models using strips of paper to demonstrate their understanding of genetic concepts.
• Science 2.0: Developing the Knowledge Constructor describes four indicators showing that students can synthesize information from a variety of sources and resources into a representation of their knowledge.
• Focus on Physics: How E = mc2 Helps Us Understand Nuclear Fission and Fusion describes how Einstein’s familiar equation relates to the reductions in mass and enormous releases of energy that occur in the processes of nuclear fission and fusion.
• Students may be surprised at the added sugars in foods as noted in Health Wise: Keeping Track of Sugar.

For more on the content that provides a context for these projects and strategies see the SciLinks topics Carbon Cycle, Chromosomes,  Climates of the World, Fission, Fusion, Genes, Genome , Greenhouse Gases, Ice Ages, Nutrients, Respiration, Water Cycle

Keep reading for Science Scope and Science & Children

Science Scope — Energy

“Energy is all around us, making this cross-cutting concept relatively easy to incorporate into your teaching,” according to the editor, and middle schoolers are full of energy (in another sense). 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.

• Rube Goldberg machines that incorporate several types of energy are popular with students. Designing and Building a Rube Goldberg Machine to Contextualize a Unit on Energy aligns this project-based science activity with the NGSS.
• I Get It! Moving Students From Misconceptions to Conceptual Change includes a four-phase process to guide students in developing their science knowledge.
• Another design opportunity is described in Design an Energy-Efficient House: Applying Multidisciplinary Knowledge to Solve a Design Challenge which incorporates engineering and science concepts into an authentic project.
• Food and Energy for All: Turning a Demonstration Into an Inquiry Activity expands a traditional lesson into an investigation into factors that affect the rate of photosynthesis.
• Students explore the Law of Conservation of Energy, kinetic and potential energy, Newton’s Laws, and elastic potential in this Classic Lessons 2.0: The Come Back Can using readily available materials.
• Citizen Science: Power Up Science Learning With NOVA’s Energy Lab describes a free computer simulation that challenges students to uses real-world data to construct a renewable energy system for a city.
• Disequilibrium: A Human Circuit illustrates with a 5E lesson how students can create circuits without batteries.
• Teachers share their ideas and experiences in energy-related lessons in this month’s Listserv Roundup: Getting Smart With Energy.
• Teacher to Teacher: Predicting, Explaining, and Observing Thermal Energy Transfer incorporates a formative assessment probe to determine their prior knowledge.

For more on the content that provides a context for these projects and strategies see the SciLinks topics Conductors/Insulators, Elastic Forces, Electric Circuits, Heat Transfer, Insulation, Kinetic and Potential Energy, Law of Conservation of Energy, Newton’s Laws of Motion, Photosynthesis, Renewable Sources of Energy.

Science & Children – Energy

“Understanding energy…is embedded in all of the science and technology disciplines and therefore revisited many times throughout students’ STEM education” and is “compelling.“

The featured articles describe compelling activities and investigations on the topic.

• Scratching Records has a 5E lesson that investigates static electricity, with probing questions and examples of student work.
• PreK students explore the characteristics of sound The Physics of Sound through a learning center and focus questions.
• The 5E lesson highlighted in Making Sense of Sound investigates the conceptions and misconceptions elementary students have about sound and construct explanations.
• Getting Crafty With the NGSS describes three projects in which students construct models of circuits using different media. The article includes photos of the student products. Read Science 101: What’s Really Going on in Electric Circuits? if you need refresher on the topic.
• The authors of Understanding Energy share their 5E lesson in which students investigate the flow of energy in everyday life,
• The Early Years: Preparing for Spring Gardening has suggestions for helping our youngest scientists explore heat and temperature as they determine the best time to plant outdoors.
• The two 5E lessons in Teaching Through Trade Books: The Sounds of Science have ideas for helping students observe the characteristics of sound and how it travels.
• The Poetry of Science: Light and Sound includes a poem and teaching suggestions on sound waves.
• Engineering Encounters: Robots, Bookmarks, and Guitars, Oh My! adds an A to STEM to incorporate the arts into a unit on electricity.

For more on the content that provides a context for these projects and strategies see the SciLinks topics Law of Conservation of Energy, Electricity, How Can Heat Be Measured?, How Is Heat Produced and Used, Interactions of Sound Waves, Photosynthesis, Properties of Sound, Sound, Static Electricity, Sun, Weather

Guest bloggers Stacey Francois MS, and Hannah Goble presented a poster session at the national conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. I was delighted to be able to talk with them about their work and am pleased to share it here. Welcome Stacey and Hannah!

Stacey Francois MS, and Hannah Goble are Professional Development Specialists for the Early Learning Coalition of Hillsborough County in Tampa, Florida. Through the Early Learning Coalition’s curriculum coaching project, Stacey and Hannah work with early childhood programs and professionals, providing coaching, training, and extensive support on curriculum implementation. A special thanks to Alphabet Learning Center, and Ms. Abelkis (Abby) Soriano who partnered with us to facilitate this mini-study on self-portraits and loose parts found in nature.

Self-portraits provide children with a sense of identity, awareness of who they are in the world, and how they change over time. The activity of creating an image of oneself prompts the realization of self-concept, “self-concept refers to cognitive activity: children’s awareness of their own characteristics and of likenesses and differences between themselves and others.” (Marsh, Craven, & Debus, 1998) For children to define and appreciate the traits that make others unique, they must first have the ability to define their own. We chose to connect self-portraits with nature exploration to give children an opportunity to investigate nature in a personal way and diversify their outdoor play experiences.

Outdoor play in childcare settings may focus on gross motor and physical play, but lack exploration and discovery that take place in the natural world. Early experiences with the natural world have been positively linked with the development of imagination and the sense of wonder. (Cobb, 1977; Louv, 1991) Hands-on creative nature experiences help children develop strong connections to the environment and can foster a love for nature in later years. When children play in natural environments, their play is more diverse with imagination and creativity that fosters language and collaborative skills. (Moore & Wong 1997)

As curriculum coaches for the Early Learning Coalition we get to spend time seeing ‘play in action’, but lately we’ve noticed outdoor play with preschool age children, a little lack luster and unimaginative. We wanted to facilitate a mini-study that would give children an opportunity to investigate nature in a personal way, and diversify their outdoor play experiences. Igniting a child’s natural sense of wonder became our goal for a classroom self-portrait project. We were inspired to introduce one of our coaching classrooms at Alphabet Learning Center to self-portraits and loose parts. Ms. Abby, the lead veteran, Voluntary Preschool (VPK) teacher accepted our challenge. Ms. Abby has done self-portraits with four and five year old children many times throughout the years but had never incorporated the use of natural materials. Our goal was to do a mini-project that would focus on exploration with self-portraits using loose parts found within the children’s geographical environment.

To encourage children to view themselves and connect to their natural local environment, various provocations were presented to the children throughout a multi-day project. The provocations–questions and thoughts to stimulate child’s thinking—were intended to help children identify the features that are unique to themselves and promote their sense of identity.  Our discussions prompted children to think about differences in skin tones, textures, shapes and contours of their face, and to think about natural items that they could use to connect their features to those found in their environment. Once the children defined their own features, we took them outside on the playground and on a nature walk through the neighborhood where they gathered materials from nature such as grasses, leaves, acorns, and other local materials to use as a representation of their faces in a self-portrait. We involved families in this project by asking them to gather natural materials from their own backyards. We wanted children to feel, manipulate, and discover materials familiar to them and native to Tampa. The majority of items that families brought in were pinecones, shells, leaves and acorns. However, there were items we chose not to use, like Spanish moss, as it often contains microscopic mites. We assisted children who wanted to use Sweet gum tree seed pod balls because they have spiky edges, and didn’t allow the use of seeds we didn’t recognize. Although seashells are not found on the playground, we had an abundance of them as we live in the Tampa Bay area; most children have experiences with them from going to the beach, seeing them used in landscaping and even décor in the home.

Self Portrait Guiding Question: What are the features that make me unique?

Day 1: What are the different features of people?

During large group, Ms. Abby facilitated discussion about the various features on people’s faces, after reading the book “The Best Part of Me: Children Talk About their Bodies in Pictures and Words” by Wendy Ewald. Children developed and graphed responses in a word web such as; dimples, chin, birthmarks and eyelashes. In small group, children created their own “Me Map” in which they listed features unique to them. Most of the children drew pictures of their features; a few used invented spelling and wrote themselves, and some sounded out letter sounds with assistance and wrote the words on their own.

Day 2: What do I look like?

Children used mirrors, pastels, fine tip markers and crayons to sketch a portrait of them selves. While using the mirrors, children were asked questions pertaining to their facial features including, “How does your hair feel?” “What shape are your eyes?” “How can you draw that shape?” These questions prompted children to closely examine their features and develop an awareness of their facial features.

Day 3: What can I find in nature that looks like me?

Before heading outside to collect items, the children were reminded to gather items that resembled their features; like grass, leaves or stems for their hair. We gave all the children plastic bags and asked them to collect the materials they wanted to use for their portraits. While exploring outdoors children collected items found in nature that could be used in a collage to create their self-portraits. Children investigated native plants, tree bark, sand and seeds and collected items they felt were depictive of their features. Coaches and teachers provided science tools, such as magnifying glasses to compare the texture and color of the items with their own faces, and encouraged children to use them. Children used mirrors to make immediate comparisons between nature items and their own features. 

Day 4: Can we show our features?

Using the nature items they collected, children created self-portraits as a representation of their uniqueness as individuals. Children used mirrors for a visual of their features. Teachers prompted children to consider the shape and contour of their faces while constructing their portraits. The children sketched their faces using pencils and sketching paper, and then used multicultural pastel chalks to color their skin tones. Finally, the children sorted through their bag of nature items, decide on what they wanted to use and glued them to the sketching paper. Ms. Abby and coaches took photos to document all of the steps.

This mini-study on self-portraits and natural loose parts prompted children to think of their outdoor time as an opportunity for exploration and investigation. We found that the children became more intentional when headed outdoors for play, as their focus became of one of investigating materials, searching for acorns, feeling tree bark and smelling grasses, which differs greatly from their typical outdoor play routines. Our children connected to nature in a personal, reflective way by using items found in their very own backyards to make unique self-portraits. Our mini-study on self-portraits on natural loose parts took place over four days but had a longer lasting impact as our children were able to explore scientific tools, express their artistic creativity in the making of their self-portraits, and extend their understanding of the world around them.

References

Cobb, E. (1977). The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood, New York, Columbia University Press.

Ewald, W. (2002). The best part of me: Children talk about their bodies in pictures and words. Boston: Little, Brown.

Louv, Richard (1991). Childhood’s Future, New York, Doubleday.

Marsh, H. W., Craven, R., & Debus, R. (1998). Structure, stability, and development of young children’s self-concepts: A multicohort-multioccasion study. Child Development, 69 (4), 1030-1053

Moore, R. & Wong, H. (1997). Natural Learning: Rediscovering Nature’s Way of Teaching. Berkeley, CA MIG Communications.

Congress left town last week after the Senate averted a government shutdown and approved a continuing resolution (CR) that will fund the government at FY17 funding levels through April 28.

The Trump Administration will propose funding for the remainder of FY2017, which ends on Sept 30 2017, while also working to develop a FY2018 budget.

In addition to budget issues, it is anticipated that next January when the new Congress is sworn into office, House and Senate Republicans will work to overturn specific regulations issued by the Obama Administration.

According to this document by the Senate Republican Policy Committee (RPC), “Republicans have the opportunity to enact the most significant regulatory reform since President Reagan.” The House and Senate will have until early May to use the Congressional Review Act on regulations issued in the last half year of the Obama administration. Two education-related regulations likely to be overturned deal with teacher preparation and the ESSA state and education accountability. Language below is from the Senate RPC:

Teacher Preparation: On October 12, the Education Department released its final rule for teacher preparation programs. The rule requires federal standards for evaluating these programs, based significantly on student test scores. This conflicts with the flexibility Congress provided in the recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It also runs afoul of prohibitions in the law on federally mandated teacher evaluations.

State and Local Education Accountability: On November 29, the Department of Education issued its final regulations modifying the accountability measures for K-12 schools. Under last year’s Every Student Succeeds Act, states must have an accountability system, which they choose for themselves. The intent was to provide maximum flexibility to states. The department’s final rules are too prescriptive, conflict with congressional intent, and violate explicit prohibitions on the secretary’s authority to regulate.

Read more about the Teacher Preparation regulation here and the ESSA Rule on Accountability here.

Webinars on ESSA Title IV Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants Planned for Early 2017

Teachers and teacher leaders are encouraged to register for the series of webinars hosted by the U.S. Department of Education on the Title IVA, Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants (SSAE), authorized under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

Title IV Part A Student Support and Academic Enrichments Grants—the third largest authorized program in ESSA—combines (and eliminates) several targeted programs under No Child Left Behind, including the Math and Science Partnership Grants.

Title IV, Part A authorizes activities in three broad areas:

1) Providing students with programs that ensure a well-rounded education (programs in STEM, college and career counseling, arts, civics, and access to IB/AP);

2) Supporting safe and healthy students (e.g. comprehensive school mental health, drug and violence prevention, health and physical education); and

3) Supporting the effective use of technology (professional development, blended learning, and devices).

Districts can use Title IV Part A grants to provide students with a well-rounded education and improve instruction and student engagement in STEM by:

• Expanding high-quality STEM courses;
• Increasing access to STEM for underserved and at risk student populations;
• Supporting the participation of students in STEM nonprofit competitions (such as robotics, science research, invention, mathematics, computer science, and technology competitions);
• Providing hands-on learning opportunities in STEM;
• Integrating other academic subjects, including the arts, into STEM subject programs;
• Creating or enhancing STEM specialty schools;
• Integrating classroom based and afterschool and informal STEM instruction; and
• Expanding environmental education.

Guidance on Title IV grants was released last month.

Since Title IVA grants will be a key source of funding for STEM activities, science and STEM educators, teacher leaders, administrators, and state and district leaders are urged to register and learn more.

More information on the three webinars is below.

Thursday, January 12, 2017 at 2 pm Eastern
Overview of the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Program
Registration: https://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/node/8656/0/register

Thursday, January 26, 2017 at 2 pm Eastern
Role of State Educational Agencies; Local Application Requirements; and Implementing Effective SSAE Program Activities
Registration: https://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/node/8739/0/register

Thursday, February 9, 2017 at 2 pm Eastern:
Allowable Activities to Support Well-Rounded Educational Opportunities; Safe and Healthy Students; and the Effective Use of Technology
Registration: https://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/node/8740/0/register

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

Jodi Peterson is Assistant Executive Director of 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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