Tips for the First Days of School

From engaging first-day activities to tips for setting a positive and supportive tone in science class, teacher-to-teacher advice is like Olympic gold at this time of year. NSTA Press authors offer lots of strategies and ideas to help you start the school year off right. Download these chapters and add them to your classroom tool kit this fall. Best wishes for the new school year from all of us at NSTA Press!

Start the Year Off Right

Authors Linda Froschauer and Mary L. Bigelow offer excellent guidance for novice and experienced science teachers in their book Rise and Shine: A Practical Guide for the Beginning Science Teacher. From classroom management ideas to suggestions on best ways to support all learners, the chapter “Creating an Environment for Learning” offers practical advice to help you set the stage for learning and exploration right from the start.

In The New Science Teacher’s Handbook: What You Didn’t Learn From Student Teaching, Sarah Reeves Young and Mike Roberts pack in a wealth of teaching tips and strategies on topics ranging from lab safety to classroom setup and supplies. Download the chapter “Starting Class the Right Way: Starter Activities” for four great ways to begin class. Your students will be energized and engaged from the first moments of class.

Also check out “The First Day,” a chapter from C. Jill Swango and Sally Boles Steward’s book Help! I’m Teaching Middle School Science that provides 10 opening-day icebreaker activities sure to capture the attention and imagination of your newest student scientists.

We Are All Scientists Here

For elementary students, valuable activities for the first days of school include exploring what scientists do and observing and recording observations, skills that come into play throughout the year in science class. “Scientists Like Me” from Inquiring Scientists, Inquiring Readers: Using Nonfiction to Promote Science Literacy, Grades 3–5, by Jessica Fries-Gaither and Terry Shiverdecker, will open your elementary students’ eyes to who can become a scientist (they can!) and several key science practices.

For secondary students, check out “The Owls and the Snakes (1)” in Daniel Levin and coauthors’ Becoming a Responsive Science Teacher: Focusing on Student Thinking in Secondary Science. This chapter introduces a real-life mystery about blind snakes and screech owls that will launch your students on a quest for answers while boosting their scientific argumentation skills.

Participants in the NSTA Learning Center’s discussion boards this month are having a lively exchange of ideas for icebreaker activities in the classroom, including a group assignment to design a vehicle with limited materials and a first-day activity to draw a scientist and explore what scientists do. Why not add your own ideas for your favorite activities to help keep the teacher-to-teacher conversation going?

And the Medals Go to …

NSTA Press authors and staff have been honored with numerous awards for teacher and student books on topics ranging from environmental science to solar science and lab activities in life science. Visit the NSTA teachers awards page to learn more about the books receiving all the buzz. You might find your next “gold medal” classroom resource for a successful new school year.

NSTA’s Book Beat is also emailed as a monthly e-newsletter designed to keep NSTA Press® readers, and the wider audience of science teachers, informed about books and teacher resources available through the National Science Teachers Association. Each month’s issue highlights selected topics in science education and new content in NSTA Press books with links to free sample chapters and lessons. NSTA’s Book Beat also informs readers of special offers and discounts available through the NSTA Science Store. Click here to view past issues or to sign up to receive future issues.

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Upon reflection on last year’s practice of taking children on “nature walks” outside, I see how much they enjoyed nature, made gains in vocabulary and became familiar with diversity in plants. In June, at the end of the school year, I had the occasion to write to the school families about their children’s nature learning from experiences in the tended garden around the building.

Dear families,

Children who had never heard of a Paw paw tree now know where one is located in the Garden and may even recognize the shape of its leaves. This is significant because it represents the many times we’ve run to it, stopped to feel the leaves and notice how they have gotten bigger since last time, and the times we’ve picked leaves up some from the ground and felt the bare twigs and flower buds. The children have become familiar with several other trees (at least with what they can touch at ground level) and other plants by touch and smell. They understand that birds, deer, squirrels, and smaller animals, such as insects, live in the garden. They have learned to touch plants gently so the parts of the plants that are still being used do not get damaged.

The sometimes-on and sometimes-off flow of water from the upper pool source to the “pond” (garden fountain) has challenged them to think about where the water might come from, why it stopped flowing, and what they can do about it. Some children speculated that the rocks in the upper pool are blocking the flow, or maybe too many leaves fell into the water and were excited to share their plans for reestablishing the flow. I wish I could let them try out their ideas for restoring the flow!

There are many ideas we can let them try out. These are questions children asked aloud or through their actions: “Are the peas ready to pick?” “Should I bury the beetle back in the sand where I found it?” What made the holes in the Paw paw leaf?” “How do birds get food from the bird feeder?” “Is that smell coming from the bush?” “What can I hear when I put the shell up to my ear?” “What does clay stick to besides my hands?” “How far will this leaf go when I throw it?” “Which is bigger, this leaf or my shoe?” “What lives under a log?” “How can I pour water into this tube?”

Through their investigations they are building a beginning understanding about plant life cycles, seasonal changes in plant life, the needs of small animals, diversity in plants, the properties of earth materials, and the physics of sound and water flow.

Sharing children’s work with their families strengthens their learning because they have additional opportunities to talk about their ideas and use new vocabulary words. Family members learn how deeply children think about science topics and may more often provide ways for children to try out ideas.

During a nature walk children may learn many new words: cloud cover, leaf, underside, stem, bark, insect, community. Repeating the walk each week gives them opportunities to use that vocabulary again and again, and to see changes in the area of the walk as weather and seasons change. Every early childhood program has some aspect of nature available to observe, talk about, and record. Can you see the sky from your front stoop? Whether you have a patch of grass or a huge field of prairie, your children can use their senses to experience it, describe it and notice weekly changes.

Turning the calendar to the month of August signifies the excitement of another school year. Early on in my teaching career, a colleague jokingly stated when the date stamped on the breakfast orange juice container read August 15 it was a reminder that a new class of students was on the horizon.

Over this summer, many of us have turned to NSTA to elevate our teaching practice. Some have participated in Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) chats reflecting on the reasoning and thinking children need to exhibit in our classroom, whittled down our “books to read” list by finishing an insightful NSTA Press publication, or attended the STEM Forum & Expo seeking to develop a coherent STEM education strategy for our school or district.

As you embark on a new school year, continue to make the most of your NSTA membership experience by accessing the many quality resources our association offers.  Please also consider enhancing the membership experience for your colleagues by contributing to a favorite resource and sharing your ideas. Your ideas are valued and welcomed.   

I recall many August’s ago sitting in a backyard chair reading NSTA Reports for the first time.  I especially remember the pull-out section and the plethora of opportunities provided in the Freebies for Science Teachers, and In Your Pocket areas.  The grants, awards, fellowships, and competition page also provided me with timely resources to consider.  I encourage you to access and take advantage of these same resources.

Since that particular summer, NSTA has been a trusted source and the first place I turn for opportunities to improve my teaching practice.  My membership experience has enabled me to contribute to our association and brought many new friends for which I am most grateful.  My learning through NSTA via conferences, webinars, books, journals, blogs, and personal conversations with colleagues has been most rewarding.  During the writing of the NGSS, these NSTA learning experiences were invaluable. 

Earlier this summer, I overheard a lively conversation between two beginning teachers having lunch together during the STEM Forum & Expo. Despite them sitting the next table over, their excitement was evident as they shared resources and new learnings with great animation. Each teacher spoke about ideas they planned to implement in their classroom and described new strategies of how they would be engaging students in three dimensional science learning.  Their passion was contagious.

As your professional association, NSTA is uniquely poised to support innovations of the new vision for science education brought forth by the Framework and the NGSS. Continue to engage in the science reform movement as you use and contribute to the resources available through our association. Please consider your commitment to NSTA, and best wishes for professionally rewarding new school year.

Kenneth L. Huff is the NSTA Division Director, Middle Level Science Teaching

Get more involved with NSTA!

Join NSTA today and receive Science Scope, the peer-reviewed journal just for middle school teachers; connect on the middle level science teaching list (members can sign up on the list server); or consider joining your peers for Meet Me in the Middle Day (MMITM) at the National Conference on Science Education in Los Angeles in the spring of 2017.

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

Future NSTA Conferences

NGSS Workshops

• Discover the NGSS, Fall 2016 & Spring 2017

2016 Area Conferences

• Minneapolis, October 27–29
• Portland, November 10–12
• Columbus, December 1–3

2017 National Conference

• Los Angeles, March 30–April 2

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Based on Interviews With Professionals Using Science in the Workplace

Paleoseismologists study geologic records to learn about earthquakes that happened thousands of years ago and then use that data to create models to forecast the probability of future earthquakes. 

Paleoseismologist Chris Goldfinger.

“It is a wide-open field,” says Chris Goldfinger, a paleoseismologist at Oregon State

University in Corvallis, “because a lot of cities around the world are sitting on time bombs [active fault lines].”

Work overview.

My job is to assess hazards in fault areas in cities. Cascadia [the Pacific Northwest] is a prime example—no one had any idea there was a gigantic fault below Portland and Seattle, and now no one is sure what to do, because the cost of doing anything is in the billions or trillions of dollars. I look at geologic evidence such as offsets in the ground, landslides, or submarine landslide deposits. I take core samples from such active fault areas as Cascadia or San Andreas in the United States or others in Japan or Sumatra. This “ring of fire” around the Pacific Ocean has the easiest-to-find earthquake signals, which help us understand other fault areas.

I spend a month in the field at a time and collect about 100 core samples. For those deposits triggered by earthquakes, I try to figure out the timing, magnitude, and origin of the quakes. I use that data to build a time-and-space framework showing how a big fault behaved over long periods. The resulting map looks like a flipbook of a region with each frame showing a different earthquake.

To understand the nature of an earthquake threat, we provide a long history so people can know the probabilities and we can better determine our course of action. I use modeling software to estimate dates and to create earthquake-type movement in a representation of the seafloor. Other software simulates the effects of a tsunami moving to land. I model turbidity currents to see where sand will get deposited.

Goldfinger pulls a seafloor core sample from a storage rack in his lab. Photos by Oregon State University.

Training and helping graduate students is a big part of my job. My favorite part of the work is discovering something new and cool. It still amazes me how much you can learn about the big-picture things that happened to the Earth by poking around in dirt. The part I like least is politics. If I discover that a hazard affects people, it instantly becomes political, because developers are now saddled with an earthquake problem.

Career path.

In high school, I saw geology students packing shovels in a station wagon, heading to Death Valley. It looked like fun, and it was stunning to me that you could gain an understanding of what you’re standing on and where mountains came from, just by looking around and observing things. In college, I got a dual degree in geology and oceanography in the mid-1970s. Plate tectonics had just been discovered 10 years earlier, and all the big-picture concepts about the Earth had just come into focus.

After I graduated, I started building a sailboat with the aim of sailing around the world. Then I talked to a neighbor who was doing interesting work in geology, and I decided to go back to geology and combine that with my interests in boats and the sea. When I graduated with my PhD in geology from Oregon State University, the university hired me to work in the school of oceanography, which recently merged with the geology department.

I got interested in studying the past. But I realized that it’s also important to understand what is going on today. That’s why I began studying subduction zone earthquakes and tsunamis.

Knowledge, skills, and training needed.

Paleoseismology is multi-disciplinary and requires a good background in geology and marine geology. The latter is not a subset of regular geology; the principles are very different. For the marine work, it’s good to know about remote sensing, weather, and seamanship, and it’s handy to know how to build instruments and repair things. Because you go out on a big expensive ship with 50 to 70 people at a time, it requires a lot of teamwork and logistics.

Advice for students.

Get a broad grounding in all the necessary subjects. Gain some computer skills also.

Bonus Points
Goldfinger’s education:
BS in geology and oceanography from Humboldt State University; PhD in geology from Oregon State University

On the web:
http://activetectonics.coas.oregonstate.edu/
Related occupations:
Seismologist, structural geologist, paleoclimatologist

Editor’s Note

This article was originally published in the Summer 2016 issue of The Science Teacher journal from the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).

Get Involved With NSTA!

Join NSTA today and receive The Science Teacher, the peer-reviewed journal just for high school teachers; to write for the journal, see our Author Guidelines and Call for Papers; connect on the high school level science teaching list (members can sign up on the list server); or consider joining your peers at future NSTA conferences.

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

Future NSTA Conferences

2016 Area Conferences

• Minneapolis, October 27–29
• Portland, November 10–12
• Columbus, December 1–3

2017 National Conference

• Los Angeles, March 30–April 2

Follow NSTA