In my elementary schedule, I barely have time for science, and now I’m concerned about teaching engineering, too. I’ve never studied engineering. Can you suggest some resources? —T., New Jersey

You might feel a little more confident after reading “The Next Generation Science Standards and Engineering for Young Learners: Beyond Bridges and Egg Drops”  from the October 2013 issue of NSTA’s elementary journal, Science and Children (S&C). The article has a chart comparing science and engineering practices, and you can see the overlaps and similarities. It seems that the thinking involved in inquiry and problem solving are similar, whether students are investigating natural phenomenon (science) or applying their knowledge to design products or processes to solve a problem or need (engineering).

In her blog, Early education in engineering and design, Peggy Ashbrook examines the engineering skills that even our youngest students already have. She provides insights, resources, and suggestions for building on these.

The Engineering Encounters column in S&C includes strategies that integrate engineering with science, support teaching children how to design solutions, and explore the ways engineers conduct their work.

Other S&C articles describe lessons with engineering components, too, and most lessons include a chart showing the connections to science and engineering practices in the Next Generation Science Standards.

You’re not alone in your concern. Most science teachers don’t have a background in engineering per se, so have fun with your young engineers and learn along with them!

Photo: http://tinyurl.com/jy83oqq

This year, as a science supervisor, I will be observing teachers. I’m not sure whether I should interact with them during classroom visits if I see something that could be improved. How involved should I be? —J., Pennsylvania

You have a wonderful opportunity to observe (and learn from) a variety of teachers and share your expertise.

Discuss with your administrator what your role(s) should be: evaluator, mentor, observer, or coach. How often are you expected to visit each classroom? How long are your observations (a whole class period vs. a brief walk-through)? Are there protocols or procedures you are expected to follow? These parameters can determine how involved you become, and your rapport with the teachers will depend on whether they see you as an intrusive administrator or a trusted colleague.

When you’re in a classroom, intervene immediately if you notice a safety issue. Otherwise, be discreet. You don’t want to undermine the teacher or react to an event without knowing the context. You can call a teacher’s attention to something without interrupting the class. Perhaps while students are working, you could have a quiet chat with the teacher or give the teacher a note.

Afterwards, reflect on your observations before meeting with the teacher. How will they help the teacher improve instruction or relationships with students? As an observer/evaluator, I would debrief with teachers with discussion-starting questions: How did you know that students were engaged? What would happen if…? Did you notice that…? What happened right before I came in? What happened after I left?

The supervisory process is time-consuming, but reflection and face-to-face discussions can make it worthwhile for everyone.

[The article, “Should Supervisors Intervene During Classroom Visits?” (Kappan, October 2015) has a good discussion on in-class coaching.]

The Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products (EQuIP) Rubric for science provides criteria by which to measure the degree to which lessons and units are designed for the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The rubric is a joint project of Achieve, Inc., and NSTA and was originally released shortly after the NGSS were finalized.

The purpose of the rubric and review process is to: (1) review existing lessons and units to determine what revisions are needed; (2) provide constructive criterion-based feedback and suggestions for improvement to developers; (3) identify exemplars/models for teachers’ use within and across states; and (4) to inform the development of new lessons, units, and other instructional materials. 

Revisions were recently made to the rubric. Matt Krehbiel, assistant director of science for Achieve, Inc., highlights some of the changes in the following Q&A. 

Q: What are the major changes that were made to the rubric?

A: The two biggest changes in the rubric are the addition of a scoring guide to the response form and the reorganization of criteria in the first two categories of the rubric. The details of these and other changes are outlined in Rubric Changes for Version 3.0 online.

Q: Why were the changes made?

A: The scoring guide was added to support the evaluation of lessons and units in a more concrete way. This version of the rubric will be used to vet lessons and units by the Peer Review Panel with the goal of identifying and sharing high quality lessons designed for the NGSS. The scoring guide supports the process of selecting high quality examples.

The criteria were reorganized to provide greater clarity about what designing lessons and units for the NGSS really looks like. While training thousands of educators to use the EQuIP Rubric for Science, we have observed where people struggle to understand the intent of the criteria and revised these sections for greater clarity.

Q: How were the changes made?

A: It was a team effort. Feedback from the thousands of educators using the EQuIP Rubric for Science across the United States was combined with feedback from those leading professional learning using the rubric and the revisions were guided by the same group of experts that authored previous versions of the EQuIP Rubric for Science. It was a year-long, iterative process that included piloting several drafts with groups of teachers for specific feedback on the clarity and utility of the changes.

Q: What does the new rubric allow me to do?

A: The new rubric allows for a more specific conversation about what is “quality” in terms of designing lessons and units for the NGSS. Together with professional learning support, the new rubric helps users become better able to identify lessons and units that are designed for the NGSS, better able to revise lessons and units of their own, and helps deepen their understanding of the standards themselves and what they expect of students and teachers. It is important to note that the rubric is best used within a community and, when used this way, it can also establish or reinforce a common language and understanding for what high quality lessons and units designed for the NGSS look like.

Matt Krehbiel is Assistant Director of Science for Achieve, Inc. Reach him at mkrehbiel@achieve.org and follow him on twitter at @ksscienceguy.

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

2016 Area Conferences

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

2016 National Conference

• Nashville, March 31–April 3

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Start off the school year with ideas and resources from your NSTA colleagues.

Science and Children – Sharing Products: Science Exhibitions and Beyond

The featured articles this month describe how teachers and students can go beyond traditional replicas and science fairs to create products and processes that showcase their learning and problem-solving skills (and their creativity)

• Need to know more about the “maker movement?” Bringing the Maker Movement to School describes student “tinkering” and problem solving, culminating in a showcase of ideas and projects.
• Remaking Science Fairs has alternatives to the traditional, competitive science fairs, including a timeline for a class science “convention.”  
• Celebrating Science With the Community describes how to modify a formulaic science fair into a celebration of learning with an authentic, public audience. Examples include a career fair, a science convention, and a pop-up restaurant in which students showcased their knowledge of plants.
• The lesson described in Firefly, Firefly includes trade books and the arts to capitalize on students’ interest in these insects
• The Early Years: Classroom Memories illustrates students creating a “documentation panel” to communicate, share, and reflecy on what they are learning. The article includes a lesson on water flow as an example.
• Teaching Through Trade Books: What We Do With Ideas has two 5E lessons that focus on helping students expand their thinking through fostering creativity and divergent thinking. Methods and Strategies: Science Storybooks also describes using trade books in science.
• The Poetry of Science: Sinking and Floating has a poetic way to introduce the concepts.
• Seeing Science in Haiku exemplifies how students can communicate their observations creatively. The article includes examples and teaching suggestions.
• Science 101: What Constitutes a Good Science Project goes beyond a lock-step scientific “method” to describe the reality of science investigations.
• Engineering Encounters: Designing Healthy Ice Pops combines two things students like: science and food (but don’t eat in the lab!).

For more on the content that provides a context for these projects and strategies see the SciLinks topics Arachnida, Bioluminescence, Buoyancy, Current Electricity, Electric Current, How does nature reuse materials?, Insects, Nutrition, Parts of a Plant, Plants as Food, Watersheds.

Science Scope – Asking Questions, Planning Investigations

Articles that describe lessons include a helpful sidebar documenting the big idea, essential pre-knowledge, time, and cost.

• Investigating Axial Seamount: Using Student-Generated Models to Understand Plate Tectonics has suggestions for helping students develop and use models to explain how and why volcanoes appear where they do.
• A Middle School Lake Study: Connecting Disciplines Through a Hands-On Experience incorporates math, science, the arts, and humanities into a cress-disciplinary experience.
• A Closer Look at Flowers: Exploring Structure and Function in Science and Art uses an artistic approach to studying plant reproduction
• Instead of teaching isolated skills, check out Teacher to Teacher: Start the School Year With an Authentic Activity for a 5E lesson using “double stuff” cookies (but no eating in the lab!)
• Disequilibrium: Teaching Discrepant Events With the 5E Instructional Model is the first installment of a new series that deals with misconceptions students have.
• Rather than reading a list of rules on the first day of school, try the activities described in Science for All: Creating Student Buy-In on Day One.
• Classic Lessons 2.0: The Power of Nanoscale combines current research with student explorations in measurement.
• Teacher’s Toolkit: A Bird in the Cage Is Worth Two in a Bush illustrates how to modify a lesson to incorporate the three components of NGSS.
• Citizen Science: Testing the Water: World Watering Challenge is another new feature of Science Scope, focusing on authentic nationwide projects.

For more on the content that provides a context for these projects and strategies see the SciLinks topics Chemical Reactions, Color, Deposition, Earthquakes, Eclipses, Lakes and Ponds, Plant Reproduction, Pollination, Plate Tectonics, Ring of Fire, Volcanoes, Volcanic Zones, Weathering/Erosion.

The Science Teacher – Systems and Models, Part 2

The featured articles in this issue continue a focus on systems and models, starting in the Summer issue.

• Achieving Liftoff describes how students can integrate questions and activities to develop a story that is an explanatory model of a phenomenon.
• Find Your Center includes a 5E lesson in which students explore the concept of the center of mass and apply this to biomechanics and human movements in sports.
• Scaling Up has a different spin on a traditional plant unit. Students progress through a study of the carbon cycle and plant growth.
• Separating a Mixture shows how students make and use models to explain interactions between ionic substances.
• Enzyme reactions are studied in A Twist on Measuring Catalase.
• Science 2.0: Transforming Science Education With New Tech Standards reflects on the many opportunities technology provides for students to collect and analyze data and to communicate their results.
• Focus on Physics: When Our Round Earth Was First Measured shows the connection between geometry and science.
• The Green Room: When Climate Change Causes Extinction has resources for current events.
• Health Wise: Should Your School Offer Grab-and-Go Breakfasts? (but not in the science classroom) has an interesting research question.

For more on the content that provides a context for these projects and strategies see the SciLinks topics Carbon Cycle, Center of Mass, Enzymes, Ethnobotany, Ionic Bonds, Measurement, Mixtures and Pure Substances, Nutrition, Plant Growth, Rocket Technology, Space Shuttle, Yeast Life Cycle.

As preschool and child care continue and a new school year begins, it’s a good time to refresh our memories about safety practices.

Goggles are not common in early childhood programs but they should be. Children love to dress up and goggles add to the “realness” of their science exploration. We use goggles when we make “slime” (The Early Years: Nurturing Young Chemists, 2006). One never knows when a planned activity will be taken in a new direction by a child’s actions. As part of a sensory investigation, I planned for children to try to identify a food item by its scent. Four foods, lemon (fruit), cinnamon sticks (bark), onion (bulb), and coffee beans (seeds), were in small opaque containers covered with squares of cloth so the children could smell but not see them. We used the “wafting” technique of waving the air towards our noses so we didn’t press them up against the cloth and share germs. So far, all was good. When we removed the cloth, children could see and identify the items or confirm their guess. One child looked into the container of cinnamon sticks and then blew into it. Small bits of cinnamon lofted into the air and into his eyes. Like sand grains, the bits were sharp and could have scratched his cornea (but didn’t). From then on we wore goggles during this activity and many others, such as when making playdough, because of the possibility of salt grains scratching children’s corneas.

The Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research’s “Eye injury: Tips to protect vision” has many suggestions. A cause for eye injury that I wasn’t aware of is flying rubber bands. Children use rubber bands in all sorts of ways once they are old enough not to chew on them.

Take a look at Ken Roy’s column, “Safety First: Safer Science Explorations for Young Children” in the March 2015 issue of Science and Children, to learn how to prepare for safer science explorations. Then read his blog posts to see how safety practices begun in early childhood are the beginning of what teachers (and children) will need to be aware of in upper grades.  

In “Risky Play and Children’s Safety: Balancing Priorities for Optimal Child Development” published in the International Journal Of Environmental Research And Public Health [9(9): 3134–3148], the authors discuss whether imposing too many restrictions on children’s outdoor risky play may be hampering their development. They state that “it is timely and important to reflect on our approach towards safety with respect to children’s outdoor risky play opportunities and to consider the impact on healthy child development.” They encourage an approach that “focuses on eliminating hazards, which Wallach (1992) defines as a source of harm that is not obvious to the child, such that the potential for injury is hidden, such as a broken railing; but does not eliminate all risks, which involve a situation that allows the child to recognize and evaluate the challenge and decide on a course of action that is not dangerous, but may still involve an element of risk.”

The Alliance for Childhood organization “promotes policies and practices that support children’s healthy development, love of learning, and joy in living.” Their publication, Adventure: The value of risk in children’s play, by Joan Almon, is an introduction to the topic of adventurous play and risk. It could be a good read for a staff and parent book discussion.

As I watch young neighborhood children running with sticks and crossing the residential street by themselves, I think, “As a teacher I would never allow that to happen, but as a parent I did.” As a parent I was okay with a certain amount of risk because I was the one who would have to take my child to the doctor for any injury. The Center for Disease Control says, “most child injuries can be prevented” and offers suggestions on how injuries can be prevented. One of my neighboring children has an arm cast for a break that happened during tumbling with a slightly older sibling. Another child got these scrapes on his face while playing the Hokey Pokey! We can be aware of hazards but children will still face risks, and learn from these encounters.

In addition to protecting children’s safety, do you protect yourself? How do you protect your eyes when pouring bleach to make the solution for sanitizing tables? Do you wash hands as frequently as we ask children to? What are your safety measures and stories? I’m feeling virtuous because I just got a flu shot! 

Wallach F. 1992. Playground safety: What did we do wrong? Park. Recreat. 1992;27:52–57.