I have some chemistry students who ask “Why do we have to learn this?” How can I address this other saying “you’ll need it in college.” —D., Delaware

Why are we studying this? What good is this?

It’s easy to answer student questions like these with “because it will be on the test” or “because it’s in the textbook,” but this usually doesn’t satisfy the student. As you noted “you’ll need this someday” is equally frustrating because information is readily available electronically, and we can’t predict what careers and interests students will have in the future.

Some students enjoy science, and their interest is independent of class activities. Others are skeptical and may need to be convinced that a topic is worth learning. Teachers can make science interesting and relevant by sharing their enthusiasm and using thought-provoking investigations or activities, multimedia and visuals, a variety of instructional strategies, cooperative learning, and opportunities for students to use their curiosity and creativity.

As you plan a unit, consider the goal or performance expectation. What content is essential? How can I use a variety of practices to make it interesting? How does the unit connect with or build on what students already know? Does it provide background for future learning? How does it relate to real-life events or other subject areas? How can students personalize this information?

It may help to introduce each unit with essential questions focused on a big idea or theme. During each lesson, revisit the questions, connecting any new content or experiences. If the questions are posted in the classroom or in the students’ science notebooks, they are a constant reminder of why students are learning about the topic. Eventually, students may come up with their own questions and learning goals.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fontplaydotcom/504443770/

How is the experience of listening to, attending to, live music different from listening to a recording? I can be very moved by recorded music, moved to sing along or dance. A particular piece of recorded music can become a favorite, and listening to it is like wearing your favorite pair of jeans because they fit your shape so well.  Live music is never exactly that pair of jeans but it can be the experience of that pair of jeans when you try them on for the first time and, oh wow, they are just what you needed. Steve Guttenberg, who writes about audio, discusses the ways recorded music differs from live and asks, “What do you think? Is recorded music better than live music?” For me, all the ingredients in a live experience combine to make it more, more powerfully stirring—the sound,  expressions of the artists and other sights, feel of the location, smells, and maybe tastes.

The same stirring as when I blow on the spherical dandelion head, feeling my cheeks stretch out with the force of my breath and that same force pushes the tiny seed parachutes off the seed head, into the air, carrying my wish with them. Being outside is a sensory immersive experience teaching us about the elements of weather events, the sounds and smells of our environment, and how we have to exert force to make changes. 

Using technology, Neil Bromhall takes us to a detailed view of this familiar plant over time with his time lapse videos, “Time lapse Dandelion flower to seed head” and “Dandelion flower and clock blowing away time lapse .” 
Look at the way the plumed seeds or pappus open as the dew dries off, something we might never sit still enough to watch happen in real time. For really close up, but still, photographs that allow us to see the intricate details of how seeds are produced, visit Brian Johnston’s page, “A Close-up View of the Wildflower “Dandelion” (Taraxacum officinale). He also shared an Emily Dickinson poem (with vocabulary that is challenging and exactly, Dickinsonian, right).

I am happy to be alive in a world where I can access nature directly with clothing technology that makes it comfortable, and to access nature in a different way through other technologies shared by other nature enthusiasts and naturalists. 

The authors of Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature, Jon Young, Ellen Haas, and Evan McGown, advocate for us to use nature as a living teacher to allow children to “soak up the language of plants and animals as naturally as any of us learned our native language.” I like the way they require one to get to know the people we mentor and “Look for their edges: the edge of their comfort zone, the edge of their awareness, the edge of their knowledge, the edge of their experience. Then, you can stretch and pull them to a new edge, and then another, deeper and deeper into a sense of comfort and kinship with the wildness of the natural world.” Their animal senses exercises, Owl Eyes, Deer Ears, Raccoon Touch, Dog Nose, and Fox Walk, are practiced and used to expand our personal observation abilities. 

The Coyote’s Guide describes how using a “sit spot,” a special place in nature where one can be “comfortable with just being there, still and quiet. In this place, the lessons of nature will seep in.” Educators Karen Dvornich, Diane Petersen, and Ken Clarkson write about having children record their sit spot experience and observations in a science notebook and later contribute the data to a citizen science program.  

If you are lucky to have in-person or through-technology connections to a local naturalist such as Alonso Abugattas, the Capital Naturalist who posts informative videos taken during first hand experiences in nature, you can use the information to plan your program’s outdoor experiences in nature.

Whether you express excitement along with your children as they observe a group of ants building along a sidewalk crack or help them use the Coyote’s Guide animal senses exercises to make observations from a sit spot, you are connecting them to live nature, connections they may later follow up on using technology-recorded nature that extends their senses. And offering both recorded music and live singing will enrich your children too!

Although we are now more than half way through FY2017, as expected both the House and Senate passed, and President Trump signed into law, the bill for FY2017 appropriations before the May 5 deadline that would have closed the federal government.

Here are how STEM-related programs fared in the spending bill:

• ESSA Title IV, Part A, Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants: $400 million (more on this program below)
• ESSA Title II Teacher Quality State Grants: $2.055 billion (vs. $2.25 billion in FY16)
• Computer Science for All: $0 (vs. $100 million proposed)
• STEM Master Teacher Corps: $0 (vs. $10 million proposed)
• 21^st Century Community Learning Centers: $1.191 billion (vs. $1.166 billion in FY16)
• Perkins/CTE: $1.135 billion (vs. $1.125 billion in FY16)

For fiscal year 2017, Student Support and Academic Enrichments Grants (Title IV, Part A of ESSA) will be funded at $400 million, a fraction of the ESSA authorization level of $1.65 billion. With the low funding level, Congress changed the distribution for this program for this year only: money will go directly to the states and states have the option to distribute the funds via a competitive grant program to districts. (They could allocate by formula only if districts would get at least $10,000.) States have until September 30, 2018 to expend funds.

At least 20 percent of the money states receive would go to programs (which includes STEM programs) that allow students to become more well-rounded. Twenty percent of funds must be used for student health and safety, and the remaining funds could be spent on technology. 

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.

It is hoped that this competitive grant will only be for FY2017 and that Congress will provide a higher appropriations level for FY2018 so the block grant would work as a targeted program tied to Title I funding, as authorized in ESSA. More on the Title IV program here.

Science Budget for FY2017

Funding for science agencies was boosted in FY2017, a sharp contrast to Trump’s proposal for FY2018 that would provide deep cuts in federal science programs.  

Here are the funding levels for some key federal science agencies:

• DOE Office of Science: $5.392 billion, a 0.8% increase above the FY16 level
• NASA Science: $5.765 billion, 3.1% increase
• NSF: $7.472 billion, 0.1% increase
• DOD S&T: $14.011 billion, 7.5% increase
• NIST: $954 million, 1.0% decrease
• NOAA: $5.675 billion, 1.6% decrease
• NIH: $34.084 billion, 6.2% increase
• USGS: $1.085 billion, 2.2% increase

Read more here.

House Introduces Career and Technical Education Bill

On May 4 the House Committee on Education and the Workforce introduced the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. The proposal is largely identical to legislation the House of Representatives passed in September 2016 by an overwhelming vote of 405 to 5. The committee will consider the legislation in the coming weeks.

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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This week in education news, Achieve releases a series of parent guides that explain how science instruction is changing and why; California administers pilot test for new science standards; science funding spared under congressional budget deal; Florida bills would give citizens the ability to question teaching materials used in schools; teachers receive help for creating lessons with drones; and Nebraska unveils new draft science standards.

Helping Parents Understand The Next Generation Science Standards

So far, there’s been little talk about how parents have reacted to the Next Generation Science Standards. But states are preparing to give students tests aligned to the NGSS—next spring, in many places. And as testing pressure mounts, so might questions from parents about the new ways their students are being taught. Achieve, the group that led the development of the science standards, is working to head off misconceptions about the standards. The group recently released a series of parent guides that explain how science instruction is changing and why. Click here to read the article featured in Education Week.

Pilot Science Test Underway in California, Despite Dispute With Federal Officials

The pilot test for California’s new science standards is underway at schools across the state, despite a long-brewing dispute with the federal government over whether students should be tested on the old or new standards. California is one of 19 states to adopt the new standards, and among the first to administer a pilot test. In 2016, the state asked for a federal waiver to stop giving the older, pencil-and-paper science standardized test, which was based on standards adopted in 1998, in favor of the new test. Click here to read the article featured in EdSource.

Science Funding Spared Under Congressional Budget Deal, But More Battles Ahead

The lights will stay on in the federal government, and also in the countless laboratories and universities that depend on federal funding for scientific and medical research. That’s one upshot of the bipartisan budget deal congressional negotiators reached Sunday, April 30. The bill, clocking in at more than 1,600 pages, is likely to pass both houses of Congress and be signed into law by President Trump this week. It covers funding through September. Click here to read the article featured in the Washington Post.

How Would Changes To ESSA’s Block Grant Work?

The Every Student Succeeds Act may be less than two years old, but its funding provisions are already getting a makeover, at least temporarily, in a spending bill expected to be approved in Congress. The bill would make a really important change to the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants, or Title IV of the law (aka the “big giant block grant”). Click here to read the article featured in Education Week.

CSI Effects Livens Up Science Education

The forensic biotechnology pathway at James C. Enochs High School in Modesto City Schools, California, incorporates the science behind the popular CSI TV show to excite students about a career in the science behind criminal investigations. Nearly 350 students participate in the four-year program that combines fictional and real-world cases with hands-on research. Click here to read the article featured in District Administration.

Florida Bills Would Let Citizens Remove Textbooks That Mention Climate Change And Evolution

Evolution and creationism taught side-by-side. Climate change presented as a controversial hypothesis. If these proposed bills in Florida pass before the end the legislative session next month, the fate of science education in some school districts would be threatened. Two new bills—one passed in the house, and one making its way through the senate—give anyone, not just parents, the ability to question teaching materials in a school district and receive a public hearing with an “unbiased and qualified hearing officer.” Click here to read the article featured in Motherboard.

Educators Get New Help For Creating Lessons With Drones

Drones have been drifting into K-12 classroom lesson for years. Now teachers are receiving more specific guidance than ever before on how to use the aerial devices in ways that will bring a payoff for students. The guidance is coming from organizations like the International Society for Technology in Education, which recently published advice for educators on the subject, and the National Science Teachers Association, which at its conferences has offered educators guidance on how to use drones in classes. Click here to read the article featured in Education Week.

Can Bill Nye – Or Any Other Science Show – Really Save The World?

Netflix’s new talk show, “Bill Nye Saves the World,” debuted the night before people around the world joined together to demonstrate and March for Science. Many have lauded the timing and relevance of the show, featuring the famous “Science Guy” as its host, because it aims to myth-bust and debunk anti-scientific claims in an alternative-fact era. But are more facts really the kryptonite that will rein in what some suggest is a rapidly spreading “anti-science” sentiment in the U.S.? Click here to read the article featured in the Huffington Post.

To Develop Teachers, Look To Other Teachers

Researchers from Michigan State University this week presented the findings of a study that indicated half of early career teachers leave their schools by their fifth year, and one in four leave the profession altogether. Part of this can be attributed to a perceived lack of support by their principals, but another part is due to a lack of support and personal development that encourages persistence. Having teacher mentors and a supportive principal are the two most critical influences on how a teacher experiences the profession in the first five years, and an emphasis on interpersonal learning and relationships is key to any teacher retention conversation, said American Institutes for Research Center on Great Teachers and Leaders researcher Catherine Jacques at a Wednesday Capitol Hill event detailing the findings of a new report on a teacher learning study. But it is important that any professional development efforts allow opportunities for teachers to self-select or opt-in to courses that are led by other teachers and job-embedded, focusing on collaboration. Click here to read the article featured in Education DIVE.

Climate Change, Big Bang, GMOs Among Topics In Draft Science Standards For Nebraska Public Schools

New draft science standards unveiled Thursday call upon students to think and act like scientists, gathering data, analyzing it and communicating their results. The draft standards list what officials believe students should know and be able to do from kindergarten to high school. The Big Bang theory, climate change, evolution and genetically modified organisms are among the topics addressed. On these weighty topics, the standards push students to draw their own conclusions after analyzing data. Click here to read the article featured in the Omaha World-Herald.

Stay tuned for next week’s top education news stories.

The Communication, Legislative & Public Affairs (CLPA) team strives to keep NSTA members, teachers, science education leaders, and the general public informed about NSTA programs, products, and services and key science education issues and legislation. In the association’s role as the national voice for science education, its CLPA team actively promotes NSTA’s positions on science education issues and communicates key NSTA messages to essential audiences.

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

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STEM Sims: Data Visualization

Introduction

STEM Sims provides over 100 simulations of laboratory experiments and engineering design products for integration into STEM classroom instruction. One particular simulation found on this site, Data Visualization, stimulates the imagination of students by having them analyze a graphic representation of Napoleon’s 19th Century invasion of Russia. Using data provided in a 1869 graphic representation by Charles Minard, students are able to make decisions and investigate Napoleon’s military campaign. Moreover, Data Visualization is aligned with national (NGSS) standards (see below) and is compatible with state standards as well.

• MS-PS4.C – Information Technologies and Instrumentation
• MS-ESS2.D – Weather and Climate

The simulation provides students with a brochure (see link below), a pre-assessment quiz, and  introductory background information about the concepts of data visualization. The simulation offers students the opportunity to use data analyzation skills integrates mathematics/science and social studies content.  Therefore, this activity allows science teachers to simulate Napoleon’s conquest via a problem-solving approach that evaluates ” how and why” his campaign failed.  As has been the case with other STEM Sims activities, we found that  higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy are applicable (i.e., Analysis and Evaluation), which makes this activity worthwhile for teachers who like to emphasize critical thinking in their classrooms.

Brochure: https://stemsims.com/simulations/data-visualization/brochure/brochure.pdf?version=2017-01-10

STEM Sims provides four separate lesson plans for this simulation (see links below); once again providing an excellent learning opportunity for students while minimizing the planning needed by teachers.

Lesson 1: https://stemsims.com/simulations/data-visualization/lessons/lesson-1.pdf?version=2017-01-10

Lesson 2: https://stemsims.com/simulations/data-visualization/lessons/lesson-2.pdf?version=2017-01-10

Lesson 3: https://stemsims.com/simulations/data-visualization/lessons/lesson-3.pdf?version=2017-01-10

Lesson 4: https://stemsims.com/simulations/data-visualization/lessons/lesson-4.pdf?version=2017-01-10

Conclusion

Data Visualization, much like the other STEM Sims activities, gives students the opportunity to learn authentic STEM instruction. Moreover, this simulation provides science teachers with an interdisciplinary approach for instruction that is motivating and exciting for students. Sign-up for a free trial and evaluate this simulation and determine where this simulation fits into your classroom.

For a free trial, visit https://stemsims.com/account/sign-up

Recommended System Qualifications:

• Operating system: Windows XP or Mac OS X 10.7
• Browser: Chrome 40, Firefox 35, Internet Explorer 11, or Safari 7
• Java 7, Flash Player 13

Single classroom subscription: $169 for a 365-day subscription and includes access for 30 students and 100 simulations.

Product Site: https://stemsims.com/

Edwin P. Christmann is a professor and chairman of the secondary education department and graduate coordinator of the mathematics and science teaching program at Slippery Rock University in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. Anthony Balos is a graduate student and a research assistant in the secondary education program at Slippery Rock University in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania

Tenth graders in Kathryn Kennedy’s science class at Prairie Seeds Academy in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, discuss current events related to a Bioethics unit. Photo credit: Kathryn Kennedy

“To be a good science teacher, it’s important to keep on top of the latest news and innovations in science,” says Dean Goodwin, grades 9–12 biology and environmental science teacher at The Tatnall School in Wilmington, Delaware. “If any of this can be related to topics we have just covered, or are about to cover, or is just an amazing piece of science news, I share [it] with my classes…My aim is to ensure that students understand that science is not at all static, but we are continually learning and expanding our knowledge in science…It also helps to separate some of the misinformation about science that seems to abound in some areas of the media…The students question, and critically think, about what is presented.”

Goodwin says he aims to “[get] students energized to differentiate between science fact and science fiction” by comparing “what pops up on Facebook” to legitimate science news sources like the National Science Foundation. Sometimes he has students design and conduct their own experiments based on ones they’ve read about in the news—such as the 2013 experiment by ninth graders in Denmark to test the effect of cellphone radiation on a plant—and compare their data with the data they read about. “I want to get students to think and behave like scientists,” he explains. “I want them to have the courage to [test a seemingly] crazy idea. This is what scientists do.”

Goodwin has designed—and will teach next year—two trimester elective courses that incorporate current events. In Science Today, students will research science news from journals, websites, television, radio, and social media and analyze the authenticity of the news sources. They’ll discuss the science behind the news and learn how to differentiate between real science and junk science.

Students taking The Science of Climate Change will use websites to keep abreast of the latest effects of climate change on the planet and produce materials that will be disseminated through the school’s 350DE at Tatnall climate education group, which is also the Delaware chapter of 350.org, an international environmental organization that publicizes the increasing levels of carbon dioxide to encourage world leaders to address climate change. Tatnall students worked with Goodwin to found 350DE at Tatnall. “This is a very passionate group of students who want to correct bad information about science,” he observes.

When she taught high school science, Kathryn Kennedy says she “constantly saw the need to include current events in my lessons, to give students the big picture in science.” This was especially important in her Bioethics unit, which touched on issues like “should stem cell research be conducted, whether individuals should be able to refuse medical assistance due to religious conflict, [and] whether or not paralympians should be able to compete in the Olympics.” Students “practiced creating logical responses using evidence…to support their argument on an issue,” she adds. The unit helped them “determine what they valued,” that “others have different opinions, and why,” and that “they can have an opinion based on their values, but they need to look at scientific evidence to justify [it].”

Kennedy, now senior laboratory supervisor for the General Chemistry labs at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, is creating The Periodical Table (TPT; refer to https://goo.gl/6stfPa), a website for middle and high school teachers with lessons that incorporate current events, reading resources, and eventually, science-themed books. TPT’s lessons include Climate Change as a National Security Issue, in which students read the transcript of a National Public Radio interview of Retired Brigadier General Gerald Galloway about how climate change will affect the military in protecting Americans at home and abroad. Students then analyze the enacted 2016 budget and requested 2017 budget for the Department of the Defense. “It is powerful to tell students to keep up with current events so they can vote responsibly and be informed citizens,” she maintains.

To prepare her students to discuss controversial news topics, Kathleen Chesmel, ninth-grade physics teacher at New Egypt High School in New Egypt, New Jersey, has them conduct peer reviews of their projects. “We work on drafting comments that help improve the work being reviewed and avoid focusing on personal attacks or statements [unsubstantiated by] evidence…Once they have become comfortable with peer review (both giving and receiving), it is easier to allow open discussions of [these topics],” she explains.

Sensitive topics arise “as part of my science news class opener,” says Diana Allen, seventh-grade life/environmental science teacher at Sanford Junior High School in Sanford, Maine. From “a list of well-known science news websites” she has vetted, she invites students “to find a sci/tech–based article that is of interest to them…Then they [briefly summarize it] and what about it [that] interested them.” During discussions, she highlights “careers being touched upon in the article” to get students to begin exploring career options, she notes.

Science news engages students “in some of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) practices,” says Allen. “I’m doing more media literacy” since the NGSS were developed, she adds. The “three-dimensional learning [of the NGSS] brings about more independent student thinking.”

“Current events are incorporated in specific units” in grades K–6 science, says Ana Appel, associate director of Lower School Science at Ascend Public Charter Schools in Brooklyn, New York. In a fifth-grade unit, for example, “we will be framing one performance expectation (PE) around current events in global warming and climate change.” Students will do “a case study on Rachel Carson and the creation of the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] and compar[e] it to the recent hearings of [EPA Administrator Scott] Pruitt before the Senate subcommittee. Students have already learned about global warming and will be able to relate this to the idea of Earth’s resources and the environment.”

Next, students will “read about communities that are currently intervening to protect the resources and environment from recent news sources…and learn to differentiate about community impact on a local, regional, national, and international level (the clarification statement for the PE),” Appel explains.

“I find it is important to connect science to policy” using current events, Appel contends. “I recently held a professional development with my teachers on how to teach policy and science while remaining unbiased. I used a video clip and had teachers analyze how the politicians discussed science using opinion versus fact and how this plays out in the classroom. We then discussed how to best teach our scholars to develop their own opinions about difficult concepts that impact laws, especially when we have our own opinions.”

This article originally appeared in the May 2017 issue of NSTA Reports, the member newspaper of the National Science Teachers Association. Each month, NSTA members receive NSTA Reports, featuring news on science education, the association, and more. Not a member? Learn how NSTA can help you become the best science teacher you can be.

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

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