Here’s a tip for simplifying the clean up of dry, fine materials. Put a smooth cloth down under the item, such as a Tenebrio beetle container or a tabletop sensory box. Use a cotton cloth that is larger than the container, perhaps a tablecloth—large enough so it covers the table or children can sit on it around the box on the floor. Any bran or sand or rice that spills can be contained by the cloth and transported to a trash can (or back into the container if still clean).
A cotton cloth will not become as charged with static electricity as a synthetic or silk cloth, so particles such as bran or feathers will more easily fall off when gently shaken over the trash can.
One year I used a white cloth with a realistic black insect print and some children were reluctant to sit on it! When a beetle was dropped on it, it became a lesson in camouflage.
Peggy

Have you had any experience with partnerships between K-12 teachers and higher education faculty? We’re thinking of writing a grant proposal for this type of project and we’re open to suggestions.
— David, Springfield, Massachusetts
I’ve been involved with several K-16 professional development projects with various “partnership” arrangements. In one case, it was very traditional: the teachers attended workshops or courses conducted by the university. The university staff structured the content and the course schedule specifically to meet the needs of the teachers. The courses were on-site and on-line. The advantage was teachers updated their content knowledge while becoming more familiar with technology and lab equipment. In such a project, it is important to describe and measure what the teachers are learning and determine how this new knowledge will affect their classroom instruction.
In another project, university professors worked with teachers over the summer on special topics aligned with the state science standards, and then the professors visited the schools to interact with the K-6 students. Spending one day each month in an elementary school was a new experience for the university faculty. They learned what challenges the teachers face, including the variety of students (and size of the classes), the obligation to address state science standards, the type of equipment available in the schools, and the emphasis on testing in reading and mathematics. But they enjoyed the students’ energy and enthusiasm and were impressed by their questions and interest. The students in the rural communities served by the project had the opportunity to meet real scientists. (The physics professor was very flattered when some 4th graders asked him to autograph their science textbooks.) The disadvantage of this type of project is that a “special event” atmosphere can occur. For lasting impact, this should be an ongoing collaboration between the teacher and the professor, not just a few gee-whiz demonstrations while the teacher watches from the sidelines. In this project, however, it was interesting to see the elementary teachers and the professors exchange roles as the year progressed.
At the 2009 NSTA conference, I attended a session in which two secondary science teachers described a mentoring project. They spent a summer working as research assistants at a nearby university. They had to learn the content, the lab procedures, and the research model being used. The teachers actually assisted with collecting and analyzing data. In the fall, they returned to their classrooms with new content knowledge, a new sense of accomplishment, and insights into scientific research. They have stayed in communication with their mentors, and because of their relationship with the university, they can borrow specialized equipment for their students to use. This required a long commitment over the summer on the part of both the teachers and the professors, and the professors had to provide background information and training for the teacher “newbies.”
In both of the projects described, the K-12 teachers and the university faculty were compensated for the time they spent beyond their normal teaching duties. Although the compensation was certainly appreciated, the real value was in the new opportunities for collaborative teaching and learning.
There are partnerships providing teachers access to higher education facilities: nature centers, museums, laboratory tours, library resources, special lectures or presentations, and field trip opportunities for students. Some higher education institutions have traveling science specialists who visit schools for demonstrations or assemblies.
Regardless of what your partnership project looks like, it will be important to ask “What happens at the end of the project? What knowledge, skills, and self-confidence will the teachers have to continue to improve student learning?”

This is a timely theme, considering that 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy. And this month’s Science Scope is full of relevant teaching ideas and lots of background information, such as simulating the vast spaces in the solar system, working with models of the Earth, incorporating movement into lessons, and finding video resources on Teacher Tube
I must admit that I never had the chance to formally study astronomy in high school or college. But it’s been the focus of a lot of my informal learning – in museums, planetariums, observatories, and with my own telescope. It is certainly one of the oldest of human scientific endeavors in many cultures, as described in the article Solar Paths: An International and Integrated Look at the Sun and the Seasons.
Many of us have done lessons on the phases of the moon, but the authors of Inquiry, Argumentation, and the Phases of the Moon show how to embed this content into a lesson on scientific literacy, argumentation, and critical thinking.
For more information on astronomy, check out a special set of websites in SciLinks. One of my favorites here is NASA Quest, which has many learning activities in astronomy and the atmospheric sciences for grades K-12. One of my morning rituals is listening to StarDate program on my local public radio station. At the website, you can listed to the daily program, download a podcasts of the programs, read current astronomy news, and get lesson plans, classroom activities, and lots of visuals. Of course, if you have particular topics in mind related to astronomy, you can log into SciLinks and search for particular keywords.
I’d also suggest two other sources. One of my favorite sites is Windows to the Universe. This site (many sections of which are in the SciLinks database) takes a comprehensive look at the universe and Earth’s place in it. There are many graphics, lesson plan ideas, and the site is available in Spanish, too. Another good source is Teachers’ Domain. Use the index to get multimedia resources and lesson plan ideas on the topic of “Earth in the Universe.”
You don’t have to wait for a Science Scope themed issue for update in astronomy. The monthly column “Scope on the Skies” has information and suggestions for classroom activities. The author has his own website Current Skies with monthly star maps and other resources.
But getting back down to Earth…. Who would think playing with a pen (something that I do at meetings that once made my supervisor go crazy!) would inspire a science activity described in Everyday Engineering: What Makes a Bic Click? If you’re thinking of including this activity in a study of writing technology, check out the SciLinks topics for pencils and paper. Right now, SciLinks doesn’t have much on how to actually make paper. We’ll work on adding some (if you have any suggestions, put the URL in a comment, and we’ll take a look at it) but here are some directions for making handmade paper from the Exploratorium.

Our principal has started doing 5-minute “walk-throughs” in our school. What can she learn from such a brief classroom visit? How should I prepare?
— Rose, Burbank, CA
While principals have always been out and about in their schools, “walk-throughs” or “learning walks” are becoming an accepted strategy to learn more about what is happening inside the classrooms. According to the Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, a walk-through is a “brief, structured, nonevaluative classroom observation by the principal that is followed by a conversation between the principal and the teacher about what was observed.” A recent (2009) issue of Principal describes walk-throughs as contributing to a “schoolwide picture made up of many small snapshots.” The literature usually describes principals as the observers, but walk-throughs can also be conducted by central office staff, instructional coaches, department chairs, project directors, teachers, or teams.
These brief visits could be seen as checking the vital signs of a school. The principal gets an overview of what is happening in the classrooms across grade levels or subject areas, not just by walking in the hallways but also by stepping into classrooms on a frequent, regular basis. These walk-throughs differ in format and purpose from the formal yearly or biannual observations in which the principal focuses on a single teacher for a longer period of time. Some schools refer to walk-throughs as “visits” to differentiate them from the more summative or contractual “observations.”
You can compare walk-throughs and formal evaluations to your own behavior when students are working in small groups on projects or reports. As the teacher you circulate around the classroom, briefly visiting each group, observing how they work together, checking their progress, answering questions, and providing encouragement and feedback. You probably do not “grade” these informal observations and interactions, but you do learn a lot about your students and what they are doing. When the students have finished their projects, you then formally evaluate the project with a rubric and give a score or grade.
Does your principal communicate whether she is looking for anything specific in her visits? For example, if your school emphasizes strategies such as cooperative learning, writing in the content areas, classroom management, higher-order questioning, or technology integration, she may visit classrooms with these strategies in mind. Most of the principals with whom I’ve worked were not science teachers, so it might be helpful if you and your colleagues helped the principal to understand what to look for in science classes: inquiry, safe lab practices, student engagement in teams, science notebooks, the use of technology, and authentic assessments.
You do not have to do anything special to prepare for these visits; continue your lesson while the principal is in the room. If she does not provide feedback in a timely manner, I would ask her about what she saw and whether she had any questions or feedback.
I know a principal who puts time for walk-throughs in his weekly planner. He views this time as an essential part of his day and visits each teacher several times every month. The key element of walk-throughs is not just doing them, but in the reflective dialogue between the teacher and principal soon after the visit. These conversations can become opportunities to improve teaching and learning.

I like to visit other classes and learn what other teachers are doing—but not much time is allotted in a preschool budget for such networking.
Internet forums can serve the same purpose. Viewing teacher’s pages and communicating through online forums broadens my community and improves my teaching. What are your favorite online forums for early childhood teachers—especially those with science content, methods, and concerns—and what do you like about them? What are the characteristics of the forums you like best and those you visit most frequently? Let me know if you think they should be added to the list of links on this site.
Peggy

“Kazoo” is a cool word and playing one is an easy way to ‘feel’ sound. Kids think so too, judging from the comments I hear from parents the day after their children bring home the kazoos they made in school.
Here’s one:
“My daughter took out the special “thing” she made when we got home from school. She put it to her mouth and hummed and showed me how to feel the ‘titation’ with her finger. Then she played with making different sounds—high, low, loud, soft—feeling the different ‘titations’. She was so excited to feel sound. Of course I had to feel it too, about 50 times!”
It’s so gratifying when children share what they’ve learned with their families. Read how to make vibrations with kazoos in April 2009 Science and Children The Early Years column.
Peggy

Classifying Classification describes how a team of first-grade teachers examined their own instruction in classification and how it related to their state standards. Check out the rubric they created and how it could be adapted for older students. They also have a continuum for classification activities: matching, sorting, categorizing, and interpreting. I wonder how many teachers of older students repeat these activities without knowing what the students have done in the younger grades? Are we challenging students along a continuum or doing the same level of activities again and again?
The SciLinks database has some good resources and lesson ideas on the topic at the K-4 level. Websites for the middle grades and high school can be accessed by entering classification as a keyword for lists of websites related to classification systems, classification of rocks, and the basis for classification.
The students’ activities described in Shark Teeth helped them to learn that scientists classify for a purpose. And the authors describe how the students also learned how to use the graphing feature of Excel (with which many adults struggle!). The SciLinks keyword sharks has websites listed for grades 9-12, but you can preview and select any that would be appropriate for your students or as background information for yourself.
We often think of classification in terms of living things, but Does Light Go Through It? shows that even very young children can describe patterns and characteristics. I think that even older students would understand vocabulary such as opaque, transparent, and translucent if they have some hands-on experiences to explore the concepts.
The February issue of Science Scope has a “Classification” theme also. Many of the activities in that issue could be adapted for younger (or older) students. I’ve found that with any of these classification activities, the point is not for students to get a “correct” answer. The real value is in the discussions students have about the similarities and differences of the objects and in the teacher’s guidance through the processes. You can learn a lot by listening and guiding when necessary as students develop their skills in observation, description, measuring, graphing, summarizing via their journals, and making connections.
My experiences at an Orioles game will never be the same after reading What Makes a Curveball Curve. Check out SciLinks for websites describing and investigating the science behind many sports.