This week in education news, Bill Nye thinks Pruitt and DeVos are the least qualified people for their agencies; science advocates double down on their outreach attempts; some teachers may be misleading students about climate change; Trump signs executive order reviewing federal role in education; Alabama is changing how it teaches science; and researchers debate how educators and policymakers can better understand what influences teacher shortages from state to state.

What The Latest Assaults On Science Education Look Like

Each year, anti-science education legislation is introduced in state legislatures around the country — and, in a few cases, has been passed. So what is an anti-science education bill — and how many have been introduced in 2017? Click here to read the article featured in the Washington Post.

Bill Nye: Pruitt, DeVos ‘The Least Qualified People On The Planet’ For Their Agencies

Bill Nye the “Science Guy” is taking aim at President Trump’s Cabinet picks, singling out Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Scott Pruitt and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as “the least qualified people on the planet” to head their agencies. Click here to read the article featured in The Hill.

After The March: Science Advocates Prepare For A ‘Marathon’

The March for Science brought tens of thousands of science supporters into the streets of Washington, D.C., and to around 500 satellite marches around the world on Saturday (April 22). Now, supporters say, the challenge is to turn the energy in the streets into sustained science advocacy. After the march, science organizations and universities are doubling down on their outreach attempts. Click here to read the article featured on Live Science.

Climate Denial In Schools

Senate Bill 393 in Oklahoma permits teachers to paint established science on both evolution and climate change as “controversial.” The “controversy,” however, doesn’t really exist — more than 97 percent of actively publishing, accredited climate scientists agree that global warming trends over the past century are directly attributable to human activity. And some teachers might already be misleading students. Click here to read the article featured in VICE News.

Betsy DeVos Said, ‘There Isn’t Really Any Common Core Any More.’ Um, Yes, There Is.

Recently, DeVos told Michigan radio station host Frank Beckmann that the Every Student Succeeds Act effectively does away “with the notion of the Common Core,” Education Week reported. The ESSA, the successor law to No Child Left Behind, left it to states to decide on their standards, but, then again, the states had that right before. And many states are still using them. Then on Monday, DeVos told Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer that the ESSA “essentially does away with the whole argument about Common Core.” Click here to read the article featured in the Washington Post.

In Elementary School Science, What’s At Stake When We Call An ‘Argument’ An ‘Opinion’?

As more teachers are using both the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards, they will increasingly be confronted with a challenge: The standards in literacy and science—and the research literature in the two fields—disagree about when and how students learn to form arguments. Click here to read the article featured in Education Week.

Trump Signs Executive Order Reviewing Federal Role In Education

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday aimed at decreasing the role of the federal government in education while giving states and local school districts more power over decision-making. Trump called the called order, which directs Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to study federal overreach in education, “another critical step to restoring local control, which is so important.” Click here to read the article featured on NBCNews.com.

Alabama’s In The Mainstream With A New Way To Teach Science

Science teaching is changing across America, and Alabama is changing how it teaches science, too. But will the changes be enough or too much? Dr. Bruce Alberts, a biochemist who headed the National Academy of Sciences and edited “Science” magazine, recently discussed the new way at Huntsville’s HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. Afterward, Dr. Neil Lamb, the institute’s vice president for educational outreach, talked about Alabama’s approach. Click here to read the article featured on Al.com.

AERA: What Do We Mean When We Talk About Teacher Shortages?

Debates over perceived teacher shortages often conflate different problems and make it more difficult to find sustainable ways to get every student a good teacher. That was the consensus at one of the opening symposiums of the American Educational Research Association’s annual conference on Thursday. Linda Darling-Hammond, founder of the Learning Policy Institute, at Stanford University think tank, led researchers debating how educators and policymakers can better understand what influences teacher shortages from state to state. Click here to read the article featured in Education Week.

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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It has been said that science began “whenever and wherever [people] tried to solve the innumerable problems of life” (Sarton 1952). The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States 2013) call for the pursuit of scientific literacy for all through science instruction. This includes acknowledging the contributions to science of those whose communities have been historically marginalized.

The contributions of non-Europeans

Unfortunately, science educators often fail to acknowledge the contributions of non-Europeans. We also fail to convey the complex, messy, culturally contextualized aspects of scientific progress not found in most textbooks.

Consider, for example, the story of the smallpox vaccination. English scientist Edward Jenner has been credited with developing a cure for the deadly disease, a cure that ultimately lead to the acceptance of immunology in the 1800s (Johnson and Raven 2006). However, records indicate that long before Jenner was born, Africans practiced a form of inoculation by scratching the arm of a healthy individual with a tool infected with the offending virus, eventually protecting the person from the illness.

During a smallpox outbreak in the American colonies in the early 1700s, a slave named Onesimus explained the African practice to a puritan minister, Cotton Mather, who in turn persuaded a local doctor, Zabdiel Boylston, to use it (Herbert 1975). Their willingness to accept African knowledge saved lives during the outbreak. Unfortunately, few textbooks addressing the origins of vaccinations mention the African practice or the story of Onesimus.

Although there is little empirical evidence to support the seemingly intuitive practice of incorporating the history of science to improve students’ understanding of the nature of science (Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman 2000), many science educators acknowledge the potential of such instruction to augment student understanding of science.

Finding fresh resources

If teachers are to engage their diverse students in more meaningful discussions about the history and nature of science, we have to go beyond the sterile stories propagated by textbooks and research other resources to support our efforts. Good choices include the books Acid Tongues and Tranquil Dreamers (White 2001), A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bryson 2003), Blacks and Science, Volume Three (Walker 2013), and Hidden Figures (Shetterly 2016), the book on which the Academy Award–nominated film was based.

Students need to see connections between science learning and their experiences and cultures (Gay 2002; Ladson-Billings 1992). Becoming more inclusive in our representations of science in the classroom is important to developing an understanding of who does science, how science is done, and how science progresses. This will benefit students, teachers, and society.

Karen Rose (kr04@fsu.edu) is a clinical science education instructor in the FSU-Teach program at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida.

References
Abd-El-Khalick, F., and N.G. Lederman. 2000. The influence of history of science courses on students’ views of nature of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 37 (10): 1057–1095.
Bryson, B. 2003. A short history of nearly everything. New York: Broadway Books.
Gay, G. 2002. Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education 53 (2): 106–116.
Herbert, E. 1975. Smallpox inoculation in Africa. Journal of African History 16 (4): 539–559.
Johnson, G., and P. Raven. 2006. Biology. Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Ladson-Billings, G. 1992. Culturally relevant teaching: The key to making multicultural education work. In Research and multicultural education: From the margins to the mainstream, ed. C. Grant, 102–118. Bristol, PA: The Falmer Press.
NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For states, by states. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Sarton, G. 1952. A history of science: Ancient science through the golden age of Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press.
Shetterly, M. 2016. Hidden Figures. New York: HarperCollins.
Walker, R. 2013. Blacks and science, volume three: African-American contributions to science and technology. London: Recklaw Education.
White, M. 2001. Acid tongues and tranquil dreamers: Tales of bitter rivalries that fueled the advancement of sciences and technology. New York: HarperCollins.

Editor’s Note

This article was originally published in the April/May 2017 issue of The
Science Teacher journal from the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).

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Two articles of interest to all K-12 teachers:

• Commentary: The Importance of Cultivating Empathy in STEM from Science Scope, discusses how students can understand how STEM-related issues can affect people and society.
• Eclipses Across the Curriculum in S&C has ideas for integrated lessons pertaining to the August 2017 event.

Science & Children – Matter and Its Interactions

Feature articles in this issue focus on how to introduce young students to the characteristics and properties of matter and Small Pieces of Matter. The lessons described in the articles include connections with the NGSS.

• The activities described in Clean It Up! introduce students to “properties” of matter and how properties can be used to design procedures to separate mixtures.
• Using color and pigments as a context, Colorful Chemistry describes how students investigate how mixing materials can result in a chemical reaction. Artwork is part of the assessment!
• Are Clouds a Solid, Liquid, or Gas? addresses misconceptions students may have about the composition of clouds and the water cycle.
• If the Shoe Fits, Sort It! incorporates a tradition “sorting” activity of students’ shoes into a more robust study of organization, patterns, and characteristics. Can the shoes get back to their original owners?
• Describing Matter has a 5E lesson incorporating and app and hands-on experiences to extend student’s understanding of the properties of matter.
• Rethink the baking soda-vinegar “volcano” into a more accurate study of matter and mixtures with the lesson in The Early Years: Mixing Materials.
• Poetry of Science: What’s the Matter? includes a poem that reinforces the states of matter.
• Teaching Through Trade Books: Matter All Around Us provides developmentally appropriate 5E lessons for K-2 and 3-5 that focus on observable properties of matter.
• Methods and Strategies: Much Ado About Nothing describes the ideas and experiences young students have about the small-particle model of matter.

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Chemical Reactions, Classification, Clouds, Matter, Mixtures, pH Scale, States of Matter, Water Cycle

Continue for Science Scope and The Science Teacher.

Science Scope – Math and Science

“Why are we doing math in science class?” my students would ask. But they soon realized that math could be applied to other subject areas such as science, especially in terms of measurement, graphing, and data analysis. As the Editor notes, two of the NGSS science and engineering practices are related to math. The featured articles this month encourage this relationship.

Articles in this issue 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.

• Beat the Heat! An Investigation Into Heat Transfer, Cooling Capacities, and Dilution has suggested activities and graphing examples for comparing ice and rocks as cooling agents.
• With the investigation in Beluga Whales: Hyphothesis Generation and Evaluation students use mathematics and data to support claims in the context of studying whale vocalizations.
• The 5E lesson in Go, Turtle, Go: Measuring Motion to Build Proficiency in Science guide students to an understanding of motion, forces, and displacement. The article includes example of students’ graphs.
• A data collection is most useful when it is shared and accessible. Using Google Forms to Collect and Analyze Data describes a lesson in which students use technology to share and analyze data.
• The 5E lesson Using Math to Support Claims About Wind-Dispersed Seeds goes beyond observing and describing seeds to designing, testing, and analyzing plant adaptations for spreading seeds.
• Data collection and statistical analysis are math applications with relevance to science investigations. An Inquiry-Based Activity to Show the Importance of Sample Size and Random Sampling provides this first-hand experience.
• It All Adds Up: Wildcam Gorongosa Citizen Science describes an effort to construct a database of organisms in the park by analyzing images from wildlife cams. There are additional resources to use in the classroom.
• Students explore the concept of density and use measuring practices in Disequilibrium: Layered Liquids, a 5E lesson.
• Teachers share ideas Ways to Increase Math Confidence in Science Class in this summary from the NSTA listservs.
• The author of Analyzing Data With Mean Absolute Deviation provides an example of an investigation that emphasizes the importance of multiple trials in an investigation and how to analyze the data in a student-friendly manner.

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Animal Behavior, Biodiversity, Density, Forces and Motion, Heat Transfer, Law of Conservation of Energy, Math and Science, Seeds, Temperature and Heat, Velocity, Whales

The Science Teacher – Science for All

TST’s Editor this month quotes NSTA’s position on multicultural science education and notes “In our diverse classrooms, we must champion ideals of inclusion and allow all people to feel valued and safe.” This month’s issue has featured articles with ideas to deal with the differences in ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, physical disabilities, learning differences, and various levels of English proficiency in our classrooms.

The lessons described in the articles include connections with the NGSS.

• Students who use a combination of Spanish and English have challenges in the classroom learning vocabulary and communicating. No Puedo has background information on “Spanglish” and describes a process to support them.
• More students with Autism Spectrum Disorders are in our classrooms. The authors of Supporting Students With Autism share strategies for capitalizing on their strengths (e.g., peer support, schedules, visual supports) and include ways to adapt lesson plans with accommodations.
• Many of the resources for teaching and learning science are highly visual. Seeing Science has ideas (including assistive technologies and other accommodations) to help students with visual impairments conduct investigations.
• The Science Standards and Students of Color shows how four classroom strategies (described in the NGSS) can help students: culturally relevant pedagogy, community involvement, multimodal experiences, and mentoring.
• What better way to involve students than to have them teach others? High school Students as Environmental Educators share their interest and enthusiasm with preschool students
• Commentary: Going Beyond the Textbook includes a discussion and references to help students make connections between science learning and their own experiences and cultures. 
• Giving students choices of media to communicate what they learn is a way to accommodate students who have various interests. Science 2.0: Communicating Science Creatively describes some options. 
• Animals and plants don’t understand or recognize political borders. The Green Room: How Border Walls Affect Wildlife discusses some activities for students.

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Biodiversity, Biomolecules, Conservation of Matter, Invasive Species, Matter and Energy, Nutrition, Water Pollution, Watersheds, Worms

Knowing that content material is most engaging when students can relate to it, I always begin my year with a student survey. The questions are designed to help me design lessons to be as student-focused as possible. Knowing my students’ interests and history also helps me identify phenomena and storylines that will be the most engaging for them. The phenomenon is the hook to capture students’ interest and inspire their curiosity; storylines provide links between performance expectations. The combinations of phenomena and Performance Expectations are virtually endless.

I write my units using my own template which is a hybrid of Understanding by Design and Universal Design for Learning. Click here to view and download my template

Pre-planning: I recommend you bundle Performance Expectations into a logical storyline and include driving questions to guide students toward conceptual leaps. For example, when learning the fact that all cells come from existing cells, I expect a student to ask about the origin of the first cell. I use these questions to devise investigations that will help students find answers and develop their own questions. Asking probing questions during these activities is critical. I recommend you plan ahead and make your questioning targeted and intentional so that it causes students to think deeply and make sense for themselves.

Two tools I have found that are helpful include a Talk Activities Flowchart developed by STEM Teaching Tools and Goals for Productive Discussions and Nine Talk Moves published by TERC.

Let me share the stages I go through when I begin planning my science instruction.

Stage 1: Determine “All, Most, Few.” In this first stage, I differentiate the concepts and skills that all students need to achieve, the higher concepts and skills most will reach, and the extension activities I can provide to students who have advanced skills and interests. I then write two-to-four essential questions that make intentional reference to Crosscutting Concepts, scaffold my unit from lower- to higher-order thinking using Disciplinary Core Ideas, and determine which Science and Engineering Practices will be addressed and what skills I will target.

Stage 2: Looking for Evidence. Daily formative assessments inform instruction and guide my lesson planning. Formative assessments range from observations and discussions to tracked response assignments like Plickers, Quizzizz, Kahoot, EdPuzzle and Quizlet. Summative assessments are more time-intensive and require students to demonstrate their learning independently. These assessments differ between students and include poster presentations, informational website development, TED-style talks, and student-created lessons to teach younger students. To ensure I am encouraging 21st century and literacy skills, I also include a variety of digital and research components, time for modeling and reflection, and include elements of publishing or presentation for both formative and summative assessments.

Stage 3: The Blueprint. This final stage involves drafting a rough learning plan that includes critical input and inquiry lessons. I provide notes and other introductory presentations that help guide students and provide essential knowledge for the unit. Most of the lessons are student-centered and inquiry-based.

Taking it into the classroom:

Because I teach in a science lab with immovable lab benches, I’ve added a variety of seating options to facilitate collaboration and peer review among students and allow me to split the class into stations. The set-up includes two large round tables with chairs and a set of modular sofa sections.

I love to teach in stations! Students can be break into groups which facilitates differentiation and makes it possible for me to support the “all, most, few” idea presented in Stage 1.

My favorite resource when I first started planning 3-dimensional units includes the NSTA Press® book, Translating the NGSS for Classroom Instruction by Rodger Bybee. Click here to view a sample chapter. 

My favorite resource for three-dimensional planning support comes from the American Museum of Natural History. Click here to view and download it.

Bonnie Nieves

Bonnie Nieves is the Science Department Chair at Millbury Memorial Jr./Sr. High School in Millbury, Massachusetts. She began her career in education as a paraprofessional specializing in science instruction for special needs students. This experience gave her a deep understanding of the importance of differentiation and its impact on student success. She is currently focused on developing ways to increase student engagement with phenomena-based instruction and supporting colleagues as they learn about and implement three-dimensions teaching.

Visit NSTA’s NGSS@NSTA Hub for hundreds of vetted classroom resources, professional learning opportunities, publications, ebooks and more; connect with your teacher colleagues on the NGSS listservs (members can sign up here); and join us for discussions around NGSS at an upcoming conference.

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

Future NSTA Conferences

STEM Forum & Expo

• Kissimmee/Orlando: July 12–14, 2017

2017 Fall Conferences

• Baltimore: Oct. 5–7, 2017

• Milwaukee: Nov. 9–11, 2017

• New Orleans: Nov. 30–Dec. 2, 2017

National Conference

• Atlanta: March 15–18, 2018

Follow NSTA

This month’s Digging Deeper column for the Next Gen Navigator focuses on the practice of constructing explanations and designing solutions, and specifically the design process that addresses the engineering component of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Its inclusion is relatively new in science education, and for teachers who haven’t had the opportunity to develop understanding of the engineering design process through workshops or teacher preparation coursework, it’s often viewed with trepidation. 

The Framework for K–12 Science Education, the foundation of the NGSS, defines engineering as any “engagement in a systematic practice of design to achieve solutions to particular human problems.” The inclusion of the design process enables students to engage in the practical application of science knowledge to solve problems. It makes science relevant and meaningful to students. This relevancy makes learning engaging, and we know students learn when they are engaged and having fun! I think this is what makes the NGSS, and its inclusion of designing solutions, so powerful.

My journey into the engineering design process began almost 10 years ago when I was awarded a grant to purchase LEGO Mindstorms for my gifted and talented students. I had the wherewithal then to align the program to standards, guide my students to create their own challenge, and identify criteria for success. At the time, however, the science standards consisted only of the scientific and technological design processes. The technological design standard was simply stated as design, modify, and apply technology to effectively and efficiently solve problems.  While the students no doubt were following this iterative process, they lacked an understanding of engineering design to facilitate their learning.

In addition, no standards addressed forces and interactions, and the crosscutting concepts of cause and effect, structure and function, and systems and systems models. I can only imagine how much more effective the students would have been with the iterative process if they had these key core ideas and crosscutting concepts to inform their design choices. (This actually emphasizes how the three dimensions work together to support learning, but that is a discussion for another blog post.)

learning the physical properties of magnets

While I still work directly with students, much of my time is now spent on professional development and coaching teachers. As a part of this work and as an NGSS@NSTA Curator, I have developed and field-tested a unit titled “What’s the Attraction?” Students begin this unit by engaging in the phenomenon of a “Magic Jar” in which a clip appears to be hovering in midair. Students are given the opportunity to ask questions based on the phenomenon observed, and because they’re always smarter than we give them credit for, one will invariably ask, “Is there a magnet in the cover of the jar?” Students then conduct a series of investigations to learn the physical properties of magnets, as well as the cause- and-effect relationships of magnetic interactions between two objects not in contact with one another (3-PS2-3).

Students are then presented with a performance task to define and solve a very real problem where we live and to apply their understanding of magnetic interactions. They are asked to design a device that can retrieve a set of keys that have fallen from a pier into the ocean (3-PS2-4). Using NASA’s Best Engineering Design Process, students ask questions to define a simple design problem based on criteria and constraints, generate and compare multiple solutions, and conduct fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered (3-5-ETS1-3). Here you see students designing their prototypes, standing on the “pier” to test their design solutions and a close-up of a prototype.

designing prototypes

standing on a “pier”

You can see the application of magnetic properties and reasoning for their design choices in this prototype: Ring magnets were the strongest among the magnet types available to them, and stacking them increased their ability to attract the keys without contacting them. The ring magnets were also small enough to maneuver easily between the rocks. The students were so engaged by this challenge that they begged their teacher to reiterate their designs a third time. With classroom instructional time for science at a premium, the teacher of this class set up a center where students could continue to improve and test their devices in their spare time.

This unit was also presented at the NGSS@NSTA Share-a-Thon held during the 2016 NSTA National Conference in Nashville, and generated suggestions to include scenarios of keys lost in a farm field or dropped through a subway grate.

Designing solutions with students is a teaching joy, and student-driven investigations are now easily accomplished, but my NGSS journey is far from over. What I still have to work on is facilitating students in the actual planning of their investigations. Even as a coach and a professional developer, I am still an NGSS learner. 

I hope my journey will encourage you to continue on yours. Furthermore, I hope the unit I shared provided a concrete glimpse of what NGSS implementation looks like, and that it might spark ideas about how you could do it in your own classroom. They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, so go ahead: You can do it.

Karen Umeda

Karen Umeda is a STEM Coordinator at Momilani Elementary School in Pearl City, Hawaii, and an NGSS@NSTA Curator.  She is also a Project Coordinator for the Mauna Kea Scholars Program and works with a team of teachers to deliver professional development on the “Wonders of Science and STEM,” a state-supported initiative.

Visit NSTA’s NGSS@NSTA Hub for hundreds of vetted classroom resources, professional learning opportunities, publications, ebooks and more; connect with your teacher colleagues on the NGSS listservs (members can sign up here); and join us for discussions around NGSS at an upcoming conference.

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

Future NSTA Conferences

STEM Forum & Expo

• Kissimmee/Orlando: July 12–14, 2017

2017 Fall Conferences

• Baltimore: Oct. 5–7, 2017

• Milwaukee: Nov. 9–11, 2017

• New Orleans: Nov. 30–Dec. 2, 2017

National Conference

• Atlanta: March 15–18, 2018

Follow NSTA

When I first started teaching science, I taught the facts. I taught the nine planets (before Pluto got demoted; sorry, Pluto!), the steps of mitosis, and the workings of plate tectonics, for example. I was proud that I had students who could learn the facts and recite them to me. It was always wonderful to have my students perform well on their tests, and it made me smile to know they could identify things like the various Moon phases.

More recently, however, I noticed I was becoming more worried about my students’ ability to “do science,” not just learn about it. I became more intent on helping my students learn about the process, the nature of science. I was very encouraged when I heard new science standards were being developed that recommended exactly what I was trying to accomplish. I thought, “Hey, I do this already.” Then I began exploring the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and thought, “Oh, good grief. What is this? I don’t do this at all.” So it was back to the drawing board again.

As I prepared to teach the NGSS, I felt like a first-year teacher once again. I read the Framework for K–12 Science Education, looked through the NGSS Appendices, and asked questions, lots of questions! To be honest, I was initially most comfortable with the Disciplinary Core Ideas. The other two dimensions, Science and Engineering Practices and the Crosscutting Concepts, were not as easily understood. I was able to really comprehend the practices when I started to accept the idea that they were the process.

The Crosscutting Concepts have been the most challenging, for sure. They have not been easy to grasp and implement in my classroom. This is where I feel the most challenged. It has been a real struggle to integrate them in a meaningful way and to have my students work with them without my feeling like they were an “add-on.” I will not say I have mastered them–far from it–but I do feel better somewhat more comfortable with discussing and teaching patterns, systems, and energy flow. Maybe in a few more years I will be able to say, “I get it!”

Two actions that have helped me understand and wrap my brain around the three- dimensional aspect of the NGSS were helping to design and lead professional development opportunities for my district’s middle school science teachers and participating in the #NGSSchat on multiple occasions.

Designing professional development for our district was a test. You can’t stand before a group of teachers and fake it. Our group had to know our stuff—not perfectly—but enough to discuss it intelligently with our peers. We also had to be able to disseminate our work to give teachers examples of what works and what doesn’t. That was a learning experience.

Participating in the #NGSSchats has been exciting. So many insightful, passionate people with many fantastic ideas take part in them, sharing with one another about our craft and helping one another. For example, a significant piece of information I received from the #NGSSchat has been the recommendation to be intentional with Crosscutting Concepts. I regularly get great ideas like this from the chat that I try out in my class or contact one of my peers from the chat to discuss further. These discussions are invaluable in helping me grow as a professional. If you don’t have a Twitter account, sign up now! It will be the best decision you can make to help you increase your knowledge of and skills in teaching the standards.

Patrick Goff

Patrick Goff is an 8^th-grade science teacher in Lexington, Kentucky, and has taught for 18 years. He is a National Board Certified teacher with a master’s degree in Administration. He has presented at multiple conferences locally and internationally, and is a co-founder of @ngss_tweeps.

Visit NSTA’s NGSS@NSTA Hub for hundreds of vetted classroom resources, professional learning opportunities, publications, ebooks and more; connect with your teacher colleagues on the NGSS listservs (members can sign up here); and join us for discussions around NGSS at an upcoming conference.

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

Future NSTA Conferences

STEM Forum & Expo

• Kissimmee/Orlando: July 12–14, 2017

2017 Fall Conferences

• Baltimore: Oct. 5–7, 2017
• Milwaukee: Nov. 9–11, 2017
• New Orleans: Nov. 30–Dec. 2, 2017

National Conference

• Atlanta: March 15–18, 2018

Follow NSTA

I recently took a teaching position, after several years in a different job. I thought I could create a calm, focused atmosphere in my middle school science classes, but some of my students have really annoying and off-task behaviors. How do I deal with this. —C., Maryland

Even though they try to act like adults, most middle schoolers are still basically kids, with high levels of energy and enthusiasm. Most love to participate in activities and readily engage in discussions. They are also physically active, prone to fidget, and aware of how to annoy a teacher to get a response.

To provide focus, set out explicit learning goals and performance expectations, describe how each activity contributes to the goals, and provide feedback that will guide students toward the goals.

In terms of a “calm” atmosphere, eventually you’ll be able to tell when noise is “noise” and when it’s the sound of learning and excitement. Some noise can be controlled by establishing (and practicing) routines and procedures for the beginning and end of class, transitioning between activities, and lab/safety behaviors.

If a behavior is distracting to others or potentially dangerous, you’ll need to deal with it by talking with the student or removing him/her from the activity. Otherwise, can it be ignored? Is it worth making an issue out of? I had a student who would talk to himself as he worked (even answering his own questions!) I asked others if they were distracted; they shrugged and said, “It’s just his way of thinking.” So I asked him to keep his voice down and raise his hand if he had a question for me.

When a student appears to be off-task, ask “What are you doing or thinking about?” You might discover what appeared to be an off-task behavior was very much on-task for that student.

Photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/21959512@N04/galleries/72157627369163687/

This week in education news, the March for Science has special relevance for K-12 science teachers; survey results show that parents generally rank math and science lower than reading and writing in terms of importance and relevance; young children are more likely to be held back in school, than they are given the opportunity to skip grades; and Texas State Board of Education voted unanimously to change language in its science standards.

What Does The ‘March For Science’ Mean For STEM Education?

Scientists and educators across the country will converge on the National Mall tomorrow for the March for Science, an event meant to highlight the importance of science to society and advocate for evidence-based policymaking. The march has special relevance for K-12 science teachers, who will be well-represented in Washington and in 374 satellite marches across the country, said David Evans, the executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, which is partnering with the march. Click here to read the article featured in Education Week.

Parent Perspectives On Math And Science: 2017 Public Opinion Survey

Earlier this year, the Overdeck Family Foundation and the Simons Foundation commissioned a survey to determine how parents of school-aged children view math and science in relation to other academic subjects. The findings show that though children enjoy math and science, parents generally rank these subjects lower than reading and writing in terms of importance and relevance. Science in particular was notably less valued than the others, suggesting that rigid definitions of “science” limit interest and engagement for both parents and children. Click here to read the results of the survey.

Could The Education Department’s Days Be Numbered?

U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx wants the federal Department of Education to disappear. She wants Washington to stop passing down rules and regulations schools have to follow. As the new chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, the seven-term North Carolina congresswoman has a powerful forum to talk about all that. Trouble is, she probably doesn’t have the votes to do much of what she wants. It takes 60 to get most legislation through the Senate, where Republicans control only 52 seats, and she’s up against a powerful education lobby that resists sweeping change in federal policy. Click here to read the article by the McClatchy Washington Bureau and featured on eSchool News.

Can Grade-Skipping Close The STEM Gender Gap?

Creating more opportunities for super-bright girls to skip grades might be one of the most viable ways to open cracks in the glass ceiling that has plagued STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields for decades. But these days, young children are far more likely to be “redshirted”—held back from school to allow extra time for physical, socioemotional, or intellectual growth—than they are to charge ahead of their same-age peers. Click here to read the article featured in The Atlantic.

State Ed Board Reins In Science Standards Hinting At Creationism

The Texas State Board of Education on Wednesday took a preliminary vote to compromise on a pair of high-school science standards that critics say encouraged the teaching of creationism. The 15-member board voted unanimously to change language in its standards to take the pressure off teachers to delve deep in evaluating cell biology and DNA evolution. Click here to read the article featured in the Houston Chronicle.

Trump To Hold A White House Science Fair, Extending On Obama Tradition

The White House still doesn’t have a top science adviser, but it has a science fair in the works. A White House official said Friday that the science fair, an annual tradition started by former President Barack Obama in 2010, will continue under President Trump. Click here to read the article featured in STAT.

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

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2017 Shugrue Award winner Gary Koppelman believes that the development of community relationships and making positive decisions impacting the world begins in the classroom where students learn truths as owners of their community and the environment around them. As an elementary science teacher at Blissfield Elementary School in Blissfield, MI, he allows students to find solutions and experience imaginative possibilities, generating autonomous thinkers. Students learning creative classroom solutions can find answers to world problems.

Koppelman takes a “hands-on, minds-on” approach to teaching and experiential learning. His classroom has various creative biomes, taking students around the world daily. The BELL, connected to his classroom, is a climatically controlled greenhouse at the cutting edge of life-science investigation. It is furnished with various habitats for observation and experimentation as students research and examine plants and animals.

Allowing students to experience science in a cross-curricular manner builds self-confidence in social and academic areas, making connections and learning in unique ways. Jerry Johnson, Superintendent of Blissfield Community Schools, says, “Mr. Koppelman is a recognized leader within our district and throughout the region, lending his skills and knowledge as a Master Teacher, Curriculum Leader, and guest speaker. He has traveled abroad, spoken to world leaders, and been recognized with multiple awards and recognition such as the Shell Science Teaching Award and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.”

Steve Hillebrand, US Fish and Wildlife Service

The proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border would significantly affect wildlife (see “On the web”). Most animals cannot get past walls that are hundreds of miles long and many meters tall. Some species along parts of the border where a wall already exists, such as jaguars and ocelots, suffer from dwindling populations and difficulty finding mates.

Daily access to food and water can be disrupted by walls, and wildlife populations need to migrate freely to find viable habitat as climate conditions change. Researchers worry that an expanded wall would increase the number of threatened and endangered species requiring protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Besides walls, other human activities fragment wildlife habitat, including, for example, building houses in a forest, converting tallgrass prairie to cornfields, and laying highways along mountainsides. While such activities may not always substantially shrink the overall size of a habitat, they do break it into smaller, more isolated fragments.

Fragmentation disrupts plants and animals alike. When plans arose to expand the border wall in 2006, Arizona park and wildlife managers’ pointed out that “…building a wall, along with the roads and support facilities it necessitates, would not only plow under saguaros and other fragile desert plants but scare Sonoran pronghorn and other wildlife from important sources of food and water” (Cohn 2007).

Border walls going up in other parts of the world are having similar effects. A study in Slovenia found that the over 100 miles of fence built along the border with Croatia has fragmented habitat for large carnivores, such as wolves, bears, and lynx, which rely on intact territories. “These fences represent a major threat to wildlife because they can cause mortality, obstruct access to seasonally important resources, and reduce effective population size” (Linnell et al. 2016).

Classroom activities
To start, have students read an online article with photographs and a video about wildlife and border walls (see “On the web”). Next, in Modeling the Effects of Habitat Fragmentation, students pose as members of the Habitat Fragmentation task force. They determine specific effects of habitat fragmentation on four animal species using provided data (see “On the web”). In a lesson from Penn State, students learn about the key components of habitat and the suitability of habitats for particular wildlife species.

If you can dedicate a full week to habitat fragmentation, I recommend the Ecological Society of America’s lab activity. Students are introduced to concepts of fragmentation and species assemblages (nestedness) with a focus on birds breeding in forest fragments. The lab activity culminates with poster presentations (see “On the web”).

As the planned border wall takes shape, many wildlife species will be watching.

Amanda Beckrich (aabeckrich@gmail.com) is the Upper School assistant director, International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma program coordinator, and an environmental science teacher at Christ Church Episcopal School in Greenville, South Carolina.

On the web
Biodiversity and fragmentation lab: http://bit.ly/2ldcfb6
Border wall and wildlife articles: http://wapo.st/2lY9xum, http://wapo.st/2mz95PX, http://bit.ly/2kTsewt, http://bit.ly/2jVJsZL
Ecological Society of America’s lab activity: http://bit.ly/2lnxSq7
Modeling the effects of habitat fragmentation activity: http://bit.ly/2lnsVh8
Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences wildlife habitat activity: http://bit.ly/2lnsyTL
Wildlife article and video: http://bit.ly/2kZzQkx, http://bit.ly/2lnO1f5

References
Cohn, J.P. 2007. The environmental impacts of a border fence. BioScience 57 (1): 96. https://doi.org/10.1641/B570116
Linnell, J., A. Trouwborst , L. Boitani, P. Kaczensky, D. Huber, S. Reljic, et al. 2016. Border security fencing and wildlife: The end of the transboundary paradigm in Eurasia? PLoS Biol 14 (6): e1002483. http://bit.ly/Slovenia-habitat

Editor’s Note

This article was originally published in the April 2017 issue of The
Science Teacher journal from the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).

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