Science and Children:  Engineering and Design

Engineering and design are naturals for younger students. Just watch them play, invent things, and solve problems. The articles this month focus on these topics and how models (whether physical, two-dimensional, or mental) are important to the engineering and design process.

• Scampering Into Engineering!  5E learning-cycle mini-lessons in the library extend students’ experiences in designing and testing cars.
• Gimme an “E”! Here are seven strategies to support engineering practices in the classroom.
• Designing a Sound-Reducing Wall  Extend studnets’ understanding of sound with a design challenge that fits in a shoe box. Science 101: How Do Acoustics Dictate the Design of a Concert Hall? has more information on the topic.
• The EDP-5E  Adapt your 5E learning-cycle lessons, including Engineering as a substitute for Exploration.
• Engineering Encounters: Engineering Adaptations How can traditional science investigations be adapted to incorporate engineering design? 
• Teaching Through Trade Books: Design Dilemmas Through stories and related activities, students in K-2 and 3-5 explore engineering and design processes used in solving problems and challenges.
• The Early Years: Integrating Design Students use their innate problem-solving abilities to create a system for moving materials from one place to another.
• Formative Assessment Probes: Where Do I Put the Switch? This probe examines students’ thinking about simple electric circuits.
• Methods and Strategies: Teaching in Real Time  What does formative assessment “look like” during each step of the 5E learning cycle? 
• Community-Based Engineering Students engage in “learning by doing” as they design and test solutions to a problem in a school garden.

[For more on the content that provides a context for these projects and strategies see the SciLinks websites for Inventions and Inventors, Simple Machines, Electric Current, Force and Motion, Sound Quality, Magnets, Magnetism, Mirrors]

Continue for Science Scope and The Science Teacher.

Science Scope: Three-Dimensional Instruction

As the editor notes,” It will take many lessons with various combinations and blendings of SEPs, CCs, and DCIs to get students to reach the competency goal of each performance expectation.” The NSTA journals show us many examples of how lessons and resources can incorporate the 3-Ds (Science and Engineering Practices, Cross-Cutting Concepts, and Disciplinary Core Ideas).

• The Controversy Over Pluto: Planet or Astronomic Oddball?  The recent New Horizons mission is providing us with more data about Pluto. Remember when Pluto’s status was changed from planet to dwarf planet? Learn how studying scientific controversies can support scientific argumentation and increase science literacy. 
• Botanical Heart Throbs: Heart Rate in Blackworms  In this 5E learning-cycle lesson, students explore the effects of plant abstracts on the heart rate.
• Using Professional Noticing to Address Middle Level Students’ Alternative Conceptions of Lunar Phases How can we identify student misconceptions and help their understanding.
• Exploring the Science of Less-Familiar Forms of Animal “Flight”  With these lessons, students explore other types of animal motion–falling, parachuting, and gliding.
• Everyday Engineering: Keeping It Together—Fascinating Fasteners  In this 5E learning-cycle lesson, students design, construct and test types of fasteners.

[For more on the content that provides a context for these projects and strategies see the SciLinks websites for  Planets, Space Exploration, Earth’s Moon, Moon Phases, Adaptations of Animals, Gravity, Design, Nervous System, Medicine from Plants, Earthworms]

The Science Teacher: Our Changing Earth

“Stability and Change” is one of the cross-cutting concepts in the NGSS. The editor raises the question about how much responsibility human activity has in changes that we see these days–in terms of population, urbanization, transport of invasive species, extraction industries, and pollution.

• A Rising Tide Students model the effects of global warming on the Earth’s oceans and predict sea level rise due to thermal expansion.   
• Ocean Acidification In these six lessons, students examine the causes of ocean acidification and use a systems approach to this global problem from the perspective of several stakeholders.
• The Resource Beneath Our Feet Students investigate how a diversity of soils supports a diversity of organisms and how changes in can affect biodiversity and the health of an ecosystem.

[For more on the content that provides a context for these projects and strategies see the SciLinks websites for Sea Level Change, Causes of Climate Change, Acid Precipitation, Carbon Cycle, Soil, Soil Types]

What’s ahead for No Child Left Behind (NCLB)? That’s the question education advocates are asking as Congress returns to work following a five-week summer break faced with a full slate of issues to address, including the threat of a government shutdown on October 1 if no budget agreement is reached.

So what does a full Congressional calendar mean for the reauthorized NCLB? (Read what happened this summer here and here). Congressional leaders [House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN); Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-VA); Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN); and Senate Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA)] have met and are working to reconcile the differences in the House and Senate versions of their bills to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (NCLB). Rep. Kline will lead the conference committee, and additional conference members are expected to be named in late September or early October. The goal is to reconcile a bill that will pass both chambers and the President will sign by the end of the year.

The big issues still to be resolved include the cuts in federal programs; a provision that would let students opt out of testing; and portability. Accountability issues also continue to dominate the conversation. The House bill has no accountability criteria, and the Senate bill requires states to have accountability systems, but there are no federal safeguards to intervene or report out low performing schools. Many groups continue to push conferees to include stronger provisions that would hold states accountable for identifying and addressing educational disparities.

In related news, Rep. Kline has announced that he will not be seeking re-election, and is optimistic that Congress will finish a bill this year (he will continue in his current role thru the end of 2016). If the House continues under Republican majority after the 2016 election, possible successors include Representatives Joe Wilson and Virginia Foxx.

Both the House ESEA bill (the Student Success Act, H.R. 5,) and the Senate ESEA bill (Every Student Achieves Act, S. 1177), would retain current-law requirements for states to continue to assess student performance in mathematics and science and that states be required to adopt rigorous standards in these subjects.

The Senate Bill contains a provision (Title II-E) that would provide each state with dedicated resources focused on improving teaching and learning in STEM subjects. This provision would support partnerships between schools, businesses, non-profits and institutions of higher education which would support a wide range of STEM-focused objectives, including recruitment, retention, and professional development of educators, expansion of learning opportunities both in and outside the classroom, and closing achievement gaps for at-risk and high-need student populations. We are hopeful that the conferenced bill will contain this Senate language.

Government Shutdown in Sight?

Lots of crystal ball gazing this week as political pundits from the left and the right are speculating as to whether the federal government will shut down on Oct. 1 if Congress cannot pass a budget bill for the fiscal year.

A continuing resolution, (CR) would extend FY 15 funding for another year, which would be the best scenario for Department of Education programs which would see major cuts in funding in the FY 2016 spending bills proposed to date.

To wit, the House of Representatives (once again) eliminated funding for the Mathematics and Science Partnerships (Title IIB) at the U.S. Department of Education under the 2016 Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education appropriations bill, stating “these activities can be carried out under other authorities funded in this bill and through other federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation.”

The Senate education funding bill did provide continued support for the Math and Science Partnership program at the Department of Education, at the level of $141,299,000.

The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) will be sending a joint letter asking members of Congress to support the Senate funding level for the Department of Education Math and Science Partnership program.

Another big issue for education this year is the effort to stop sequestration and take a more balanced approach to deficit reduction.

Nondefense discretionary (NDD) programs—ranging from education and job training, to housing and science, to natural resources and veterans services, to public health, safety and security—have been cut dramatically and disproportionately in recent years as lawmakers work to reduce the deficit. Many groups are urging Congress to replace sequestration with a balanced approach to deficit reduction that takes into account the deep cuts NDD has already incurred since 2010 and ensure sequestration relief is equally balanced between NDD and defense programs. Learn more here.

Stay tuned, much more to come in the weeks ahead.

Jodi Peterson is Assistant Executive Director of Legislative Affairs for the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and Chair of the STEM Education Coalition. e-mail Jodi at jpeterson@nsta.org; follow her on Twitter at @stemedadvocate.

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

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When I taught at the elementary level it was easy to communicate with the parents of 25 students. Now that I’m teaching science at the middle school, I’m overwhelmed by the thought of trying to communicate personally with more than 150 parents. I’d like to go beyond quarterly progress reports or just posting grades online. —B., Massachusetts

Contacting and communicating with parents* is important in forming a positive relationship to benefit the students. With 150 students in five to six different classes and several subjects, even a goal of weekly contacts is challenging, given the other responsibilities of teaching science.

From my experience, it seems that secondary parents are not in the schools as much. They are not as involved in parent-teacher organizations or in participating in open house events or conferences as they might have been when their children were younger. And many parents cannot take phone calls during their work hours or take time off for school events. So at the secondary level you may have to rely more on other forms of communication.

It may be helpful to develop a plan for parent involvement. What information is necessary to distribute to everyone? What information is student-specific? How can you document both kinds of communications? How much time do you have to spend on this? What kinds of communication are available in your school?

At the beginning of the year, you can send a newsletter or syllabus with information about you, your expectations, and what students will learn during the year. At this time you could also include your Safety Acknowledgment Form for a parent’s review and signature. If your school does not provide parent contact information, this could be a way of getting e-mail addresses or phone numbers. Some teachers send an updated newsletter for the spring semester, too.

Share your school e-mail address (rather than a personal one) for a record of your communications with parents. You should carefully consider whether or not you want to give out your home phone or personal cell phone number to parents or students. (I know teachers who use a separate cell phone for school business. Their greetings provide the school phone number for emergencies and request that callers provide a reason for the call and a time when they are available for a callback.) Explain in your newsletter and phone greeting you can’t always return calls or respond to email or texts immediately during the day when classes are in session, but you will reply as promptly as possible.

Throughout the year, you could send a quick e-mail or text about television programs related to your subject or interesting events at local museums, libraries, or science centers.

Instead of waiting until there is a problem, take the initiative and contact parents with good news about their child through a quick e-mail or text. Share information about an activity the student is doing in class or a project he or she is working on. Some teachers forward photos of the student engaged in a classroom activity (I’d be cautious about having other students identifiable in the photo because of privacy issues). This may sound like a lot of work, but if you do a few messages each day, it becomes part of your routine.

My high school had a “Good News” project. Teachers were encouraged to send postcards (provided by the school and created by graphic arts students) to parents to share positive student events: participation in a class activity, successful projects, or interesting discussions. The school secretary would address and mail them. E-mail works, too, but getting something in the mail is special, and it’s helpful for parents who do not have e-mail or texting capabilities. It was worth a few minutes of effort on my part and a postage stamp: I had a call from a parent who said that her son was feeling down after not making a traveling soccer squad. When they got the postcard describing his outstanding project, she said her son was elated. Another parent called in tears—it was the first time she had heard anything positive about her daughter from a school.)

You’ll eventually find that you have several templates for these communications that can be customized for each student. And you’ve set the stage for additional communications, if or when there is a problem.

—–

*I’m using word “parents” here, but I’m aware that other adults may play important roles in students’ lives: guardians, step-parents, grandparents or other relatives, foster parents, and other caregivers. These ideas apply to all. The school should have information on the relationship and contact information.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spcummings/361167519/

In this video, columnists Ben Smith and Jared Mader share information from their Science 2.0 column, “Social Media Primer,” that appeared in a recent issue of The Science Teacher. Read the article here: http://bit.ly/1OY0772

[youtube]https://youtu.be/_OUnckvPnnY[/youtube]