By NSTA Web Director
Posted on 2010-10-22
The big event takes place on the National Mall and around the country this weekend. Here’s your personal invitation:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDxTw1sUKvk[/youtube]
See you there! Be sure and stop by NSTA’s area (NM-1 booths 116-124, located near the Capitol reflecting pool and near 3rd Street and Madison Drive). The folks from National Lab Day will be there as well (PA-13 booths 1251 and 1253, near Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th Street).
The big event takes place on the National Mall and around the country this weekend. Here’s your personal invitation:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDxTw1sUKvk[/youtube]
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2010-10-22
I have my eighth-grade honors physical science classes do traditional science fair projects (trifold board display with research essay and lab report). This year there has been some discussion within our department about giving students alternatives. The students would be able to choose what type of project they want to do (so those who are interested could still pick a traditional project), but we’d like to explore other options.
—Carolyn, Chesterfield, Virginia
When students hear the term “science fair,” their reactions may range from cheers of excitement to groans of despair. Science fairs take a lot of time, effort, and resources. So regardless of format, it’s important to determine which science standards or learning goals will be met by having students participate. In my experience, middle school students are naturally enthusiastic, especially if they have choices of activities. But their enthusiasm can get sidetracked if they have too many options.
For some students, traditional projects that involve independent research can be a motivating experience leading to career decisions and scholarship opportunities. They can also be frustrating—especially for younger students—if they do not have much experience with designing and conducting authentic investigations (other than following directions for a “cookbook” activity). I’ve seen science fairs in upper elementary and middle schools in which all participants were required to use the same template that supposedly followed “the” scientific method. The rubrics often had little room for independent thinking, and I wonder how much students learned about inquiry processes from these projects.
For alternatives, check out the resources of the National History Day (NHD) competition This competition has several categories reflecting the authentic work of historians: documentary, exhibit, paper, performance, or website. Each category is described in detail in the rulebook, with directions and rubrics, and could be modified for science projects (e.g., substituting experimental research or descriptive study for the documentary category). If you ever attend a NHD showcase, you won’t find any pretzel-stick log cabins!
Another alternative might be to take advantage of the many “competitions” involving students (or teams of students) in real-world projects related to research, design, and problem solving. Some examples include Toshiba/NSTA Exploravision, Invention Convention, Odyssey of the Mind, Science Olympiad, Kids’ Inquiry Conference, Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge, eCyberMission, and special event projects such as It’s Elemental.
Many colleagues have shared excellent ideas for traditional and alternative science projects in NSTA journals, such as the December 2007 issue of Science and Children and the March 2004 issue of Science Scope. These articles are also good resources for secondary teachers, especially if your students are science fair novices or if you want some fresh ideas. The articles have timelines, rubrics describing high quality projects, and suggestions for helping students who may have few resources at home. They also describe online science fairs, science expos, multimedia presentations, themed projects, mini-conferences, and other nontraditional “fairs.” To save time, I’ve assembled a shared collection of NSTA resources on Science Fairs and Alternatives in the NSTA Learning Center.
SciLinks also has a list of websites with many ideas for both traditional and nontraditional projects. For example, Science Buddies has a “topic selection wizard” that guides students through the process of selecting and fine tuning a topic. This site has sections and resources for both students and teachers.
Keep in mind nontraditional projects or competitions can require as much work on your part as a traditional fair (and perhaps more, if you need several types of guidelines and rubrics). As with traditional projects, you’ll need to consider how much work will be completed outside of class. Do your students have resources at home? How much parental “support” will be acceptable? Will all students be required to do a project (and at the same time)? Will you allow students to work together? Will you have a public event to display the projects? Will students compete with each other?
It’s exciting and rewarding to see students’ creativity, especially when they can relate science to personal interests. One of my seventh graders was very interested in writing, and for her project she created a collection of poems related to forest ecology. She entered one in a local writing project and won a medal for it. The English teacher and I were very proud of her accomplishment.
Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/rbowen/3266847462/in/photostream/
By Francis Eberle
Posted on 2010-10-19
NSTA Executive Director Francis Eberle
—Francis
NSTA Executive Director Francis Eberle
By Peggy Ashbrook
Posted on 2010-10-19
Dear early childhood educators and researchers,
We’re writing to invite you to join us in applying to NAEYC to form an Early Childhood Science Interest Forum. The purpose of the forum is to:
You can learn more about NAEYC interest forums at http://www.naeyc.org/community/interest_forums
Join us as we apply to the NAEYC Board to become the NAEYC Early Childhood Science Interest Forum by filling in your information in the insert. (Your information will only be seen by the forum moderators and blog editors, and will only be shared with NAEYC, when we submit the forum application.)
Peggy Ashbrook
Ingrid Chalufour
Betty Zan
Early Childhood Science Interest Forum facilitators
[contact-form 1 “NAEYC”]
By NSTA Web Director
Posted on 2010-10-18
Photo by Francis Eberle
Photo by Francis Eberle
Teams from the other NSTA competitions included Team “No1Idling”—Novi (Michigan) Middle School students Raj Raina and Yash Sathe, who were being honored at the White House for their first-place entry in the Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge, which addressed the issue of reducing community pollution by raising awareness about the environmental impact of vehicle idling among area drivers.
Two students represented the DuPont Challenge Science Essay Competition. Alex Sincere (at left), a junior at Evanston (Illinois) High School, wrote an essay about stem cell research on mice that could lead to a treatment for human blindness. Alexander Xu (at right), a seventh-grader at Tower Hill School in Wilmington, Delaware, wrote an essay that explores the use of algae as a sustainable biofuel.
The Science Fair was part of the Administration’s Educate to Innovate initiative, which today the President announced has reached over $700 million in public/private partnerships aimed at improving K–12 STEM education.
Photo by Francis Eberle
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2010-10-13
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2010-10-11
I’ve been approached by a university science department to “pilot” some instructional materials being developed. I’ve never done this before. Do you have any questions I should ask to help me decide?
—Carol, Buffalo, New York
As part of outreach efforts, science-related agencies and institutions often develop programs of materials and activities for K–12 classrooms. This is an opportunity to share their resources and expertise with teachers and students. If the organization needs input from the K–12 learning environment, teachers are often asked to pilot or field-test the materials and strategies with their students, so the developers can determine how the program operates in a real classroom setting. Some grants recommend (or even require) this field testing.
From the developer’s perspective, feedback from teachers and students is essential in making the final product relevant and appropriate. From the teacher’s perspective, it’s a chance to access new materials and updated content. It’s also a way to establish professional relationships that may lead to future opportunities.
But this requires work by the teacher. You may have to alter your course outline to accommodate the developer’s timeline. You may have to participate in training or preliminary webinars and submit feedback documents. So I would ask a few questions:
You should expect some type of compensation for your efforts. Developers may offer a monetary stipend for teachers, especially if afterschool planning and reporting is required. If special training is involved, professional development hours or graduate credits might be awarded. Some developers “reward” the piloting schools with lab equipment or other technologies. Although you’ll appreciate these compensations, the real value will be in new opportunities for collaboration in teaching and learning. The connections you make can lead to other opportunities for you and your students, such as internships, borrowing specialized equipment, field trips, mentoring, and future projects.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/photolibraries/4496317336/
I’ve been approached by a university science department to “pilot” some instructional materials being developed. I’ve never done this before. Do you have any questions I should ask to help me decide?
—Carol, Buffalo, New York
By Peggy Ashbrook
Posted on 2010-10-10
Bubble blowing is a favorite activity of young children. Two-year-olds, who often have difficulty blowing a stream of air, may have more success by waving a bubble wand. The process is moderately difficult for 3 and 4 year olds and can be made more challenging for older children by providing a variety of bubble “wands” and tasks such as blow a bubble within a bubble, or blow the largest bubble. Yet children with experience blowing bubbles may not be able to recall the shape of, or say the name of, all free-floating bubbles—a sphere.
Bubble blowing is a good time to talk about the difference between two dimensional “round” objects and three dimensional “round” objects and to have children practice careful observation. Use familiar classrooom objects such as, balls and marbles, cube blocks and boxes to compare to paper cut-outs of the 2-D shapes, a circle and a square. Read the October 2010 Early Years column about how repeated bubble observations can develop this understanding. The word “sphere” is difficult to pronounce. Maybe that is why it isn’t used very often in everyday speech. One class I work with surprised me by incorporating the word into their classroom conversations about marbles and balls. All it took was for one member of the class to begin to use the new vocabulary word frequently, and then it caught on with the rest of the children—and teachers! It isn’t just a new word for a familiar object; it is a way of recognizing the distinction between flat objects and 3-D objects and a beginning to think spatially.
Here are some resources about bubbles and shapes.
Books for children
Is It Rough? Is It Smooth? Is It Shiny? by Tana Hoban. 1984. New York: Greenwillow Books.
Cubes, Cones, Cylinders and Spheres by Tana Hoban. 2000. New York: Greenwillow Books.
Pop!: A Book About Bubbles by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley with photographs by Margaret Miller. 2001. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
Books for teachers
Soap Bubble Magic by Seymour Simon, illustrated by Stella Ormai. 1985. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard.
The Nature and Science of Bubbles by Jane Burton and Kim Taylor. 1998. Milwaukee, Wis.: Gareth Stevens Pub.
Bubble Festival (grades K-6) Great Explorations in Math and Science (GEMS) guide on bubbles (and companion free online training video) available online http://www.lhsgems.org/GEM132.html
Bubble-ology (grades 5-8, or for early childhood teachers) GEMS available online http://www.lhsgems.org/GEM240.html
Non-messy bubble Discovery Bottles* can intrigue children and encourage them to expand on their ideas about bubbles. Make the bottles using clear plastic bottles with tight-fitting lids, vegetable oil, water, food coloring, corn syrup and a hot glue gun (for adult use) to seal the lids. I use mayo jars, bottles for corn syrup, and other relatively strong plastic bottles. * Also see Sandy Watson’s article, Discovery Bottles, in the July 2008 Science and Children.
What bubble experiences happen in your classrooms? How do your students record their observations? What kind of questions have they raised in discussions? Tell us all, Peggy
By Claire Reinburg
Posted on 2010-10-08
Students today encounter a flood of images and content from print and online sources. Increasingly, the ability to read, process, and derive meaning from those images and pictures will be central to student success. Authors Jo Anne Vasquez, Michael Comer, and Frankie Troutman have assembled for teachers a thorough overview of this timely topic in their new NSTA Press book Developing Visual Literacy in Science, K–8. From coaching students in how to interpret scientific illustrations and graphs to helping them create their own visual representations of scientific information in posters or foldables, this book offers teachers numerous tips and strategies for helping students build their visual literacy skills. Visit the Science Store page about Developing Visual Literacy in Science, K–8 to download your free chapter, “Visual Literacy in Life Science: Insect Metamorphosis” (just click next to “Read Inside”).
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2010-10-06
Teachers are faced with two related learning curves: new research in content areas such as genetics and new developments in technologies. The Case for Cyberlearning describes how multimedia technologies (in this case, the cyberlearning platform GENIQUEST) can be used to help students learn the concepts of genomics, using a fictitious “dragon” population. The unit previews have three levels of activities. I liked the authors’ suggestions for helping students to get the most out of cyberlearning opportunities: prompt student discussions periodically, promote pair and small-group work, and encourage the use of data-based evidence. (SciLinks has more background on genomes, too.
Another online tool is described in Science Pipes: A World of Data at Your Fingertips. Science Pipes (from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology) is an interface that lets users explore world wide data sets to find patterns and trends of interest, in both guided and open-ended investigations. (I discovered that my login from Cornell’s Feederwatch program worked with Science Pipes!) The program accesses and processes real data—the keys are identifying a question and thinking of what data would be used to come up with summaries that can be used to answer the question (or lead to more questions).
One of my favorite sites is highlighted in Sims for Science. The authors describe the PhET site has dozens of interactive simulations on various topics in science (and for various grade levels). The authors describe how (and why) these simulations could be incorporated in science classes. These simulations are meant to supplement the curriculum, to reinforce, extend, and visualize concepts. The article includes a summary of how a teacher used one in her inquiry-oriented class.
Another specific project is described in Teaching with Technology. Through a combination of videos, websites (such as those in the SciLinks topic Bacteria), and hands-on activities students learn about bacterial transformations. Students and teachers communicate through Google Docs. The article also has a rubric for the student video project.
Even though we can access simulations, data sets, and videos, sometimes the most appropriate “technology” is a roll-up-your-sleeves, put-on-your-goggles, hands-on investigation. Juan’s Dilemma is an updated version of the lemon battery, with photographs and examples of student data. SciLinks has more ideas on batteries.
Whatever grade you teach, be sure to check in with TST for a new feature The Green Room. Each month the author will share suggestions for making your classroom more environmentally friendly. This month, she shares her ideas of “low-hanging fruit”—those practices that many of us already use, such as turning off lights, recycling paper, using both sides of papers, and turning in used printer cartridges for recycling and rebates.
Check out the Connections for this issue. Even if the related articles don’t quite fit with your lesson agenda, this resource has ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, etc.