Knowing science teachers like I do, I’m not surprised to see that they express a gamut of emotions and have some really innovative ideas about how to prepare for going back to school. A completely unscientific survey of the Twittersphere reveals a few gems that may help science teachers everywhere—or at least bring a smile to a few faces!

ICYMI: Teachers Gear up For #NGSS http://t.co/Z3ztxPrdhZ @TdiShelton #ngsschat

— Melissa Stugart (@MelissaStugart) August 14, 2015

The cats do not understand getting ready for the start of the school year. They have closed my laptop & are revolting.

— Alyson Beecher (@alybee930) August 15, 2015

Released the spider at school by my room. #spider#spiders#Bugs#insects#scienceisawesome#science… https://t.co/kNGLmfKllz

— Adam Taylor (@2footgiraffe) August 14, 2015

 

Lights, Camera, Learn: What are Engineers? #pictureperfectscience #nsta #studio214 http://t.co/Mf0vAxfJBu

— Andrea Parson (@ParsonAndrea) August 16, 2015

A. Simpson (Keheley) & C. Garvin (Vaughan) at Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy! #stemcobb #MEMTA2015 pic.twitter.com/RGhuphkQl7

— STEM Cobb (@STEMcobb) July 31, 2015

I need to admit something….. I am an NSTA nerd. 🙂 @NSTA #summer #teacherlife pic.twitter.com/ymGzwdEzao

— Holly Neill (@homelifescience) August 14, 2015

“So it appears that now I’m a chemistry teacher…” Have any advice or tips for this teacher? http://t.co/TehutOhdsB #chemchat #NGSS

— IT’S ABOUT TIME® (@ItsAboutTimeEDU) August 14, 2015

A teensy supermassive black hole on @nytimes Summer of Science series: http://t.co/1YWd6l0THY by @overbye#scichatpic.twitter.com/ulb9BCw27s

— Kim Kowal Arcand (@kimberlykowal) August 15, 2015

Tips for the First Days of School: The August issue of Book Beat is full of them! http://t.co/DlUP27WQU6#NSTApic.twitter.com/AXdGtGuhhd

— NatSciTeachAssoc (@NSTA) August 15, 2015

A #science discussion students will love: What “Inside Out” Got Wrong http://t.co/LUGDMoYm7W#scichat

— Curriculet (@curriculet) August 14, 2015

Set classroom culture with a classroom pledge #TchTogether http://t.co/VTuWLujrGq pic.twitter.com/ZEZqzxE5iS

— Teaching Channel (@TeachingChannel) August 15, 2015

Education-focused media: Come to @NASA_Johnson Sept. 15-16 to learn about #YearInSpace. http://t.co/ZUe7oWusl9 pic.twitter.com/6DgQpHCDfF

— Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) August 15, 2015

 

Already registered #NSTA15 Reno! Can’t wait https://t.co/qcuBEwEnE8

— Jen Gutierrez (@jengutierrez18) July 26, 2015

< p dir="ltr" lang="en">NEW: Teach Climate Change Through Positive Action. #scichat #NSTA #ActOnClimate @naesp #mschat http://t.co/i0YibL0duA pic.twitter.com/aTp1jbheJP

— MiddleWeb (@middleweb) August 16, 2015

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

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We’re a 1:1 school, and all of my students have access to iPads in class. I’m thinking of transitioning from hard-copy notebooks to electronic notebooks. My students are not thrilled with this.  —R., New York

In a previous blog/column, Mary Morgan, a science teacher at Belton High School in Belton, Texas, shared her thoughts on interactive science notebooks. She also has experience with electronic formats, and here she shares her thoughts on electronic notebooking:

I have used INBs (Interactive Notebooks) for the last eight of the nine years I’ve been teaching, for all levels of biology. I’ve toyed with the idea of an electronic interactive notebook, (my school is a 1:1 iPad school), but I just can’t see myself completely transitioning to full iPad interactive notebooks anytime soon.

First, I’ve searched for a program or app that would help students organize the notebook, but I can’t find anything I like. (If I could find something I would certainly give it a pilot run with one of my classes—My pre-AP students are pretty resilient to any pilot programs that might not be successful or have some bumps along the way.)

Mary Morgan

For example, Google docs and LiveBinders are great, but don’t give the organized notebook “feel.” By notebook “feel” I mean that I like the students to be able to see their notes while they are doing the processing piece on the right side. When they are studying they can have multiple documents “open” in the notebook at the same time (using the flip-ups and right/left side model) which cannot yet be achieved on the iPad. (If we had laptops, I might be more inclined, but I haven’t found anything yet for the iPad. I’m open to suggestions!)

Also, I’ve done some straw-polls with my students (no official, scientific research other than papers I’ve read from others on the topic) and the vast majority of them (usually about 98-99% each year) do not like putting their notes on their iPads. When I go further with the questioning, those who have tried taking notes on the iPad say they never go back and study them because they are hard to find, and they’re distracted by the games and apps that are readily available.

I did allow students to do their notes on their iPads last year if they wanted (they could choose the app -— Goodnotes, Evernote, Notepad, uPad, etc.), but still had to do Cornell style. They come from fully restricted iPads at middle school to unrestricted at high school, so they get really excited about them when they first have them in September. Many started off doing them on the iPad, but by the end of the year had transitioned back to the paper notebook. I think they liked the novelty of the notes on iPad, but they soon realized they were more apt to study the notes and they were easier to access and use for activities/labs/processing when they did them on paper.

Also, I ran into students who weren’t actually copying or writing notes, but instead they were taking photos of presentation slides. This is absolutely not helpful! They never looked back at them and couldn’t find what they needed among the 1000’s of photos. This was a huge issue for both studying and copyright.

My experience is, while copying notes is certainly not the best way to learn (I always have a processing piece to go with the notes so they are forced to wrestle with the information), there is something to the writing part that helps the information start to stick in the brain, at least in the short term memory. However, taking a photo of the notes doesn’t even start the memory firing at all, so this is just rubbish. I allow students to take photos of instructions for lab directions but not their notes. Plus, I post all of our notes on Homeroom, so they have access to the videos/animations/pictures/links/info outside of class.

This year, I did not allow notes on the iPads, unless they first took them in the INB and then copied them to the iPad, which became a good study tool for some. (It was the same as copying paper notes to paper, but with the tech aspect making it more exciting, I guess.)

This is not to say that I do not incorporate the iPad into the INB experience. We use iPads quite often in my classroom. We use online videos (I’ve even created a few of my own!), do web quests, play science learning apps, play study games, take quizzes on Socrative, complete and submit assignments on Homeroom, and create products like videos and infographics on the iPad for various projects. In addition, students look up answers to questions they have and access their textbooks through their iPads. I took a number of classes this summer on App Smashing and Augmented Reality, so I am very excited to begin incorporating these techniques into my classroom this year as well! For my students and I, technology opens up the learning field and creates a wider world in which to study science. For example, instead of simply describing what Darwin found in the Galapagos Islands, we can use Google Earth and actually visit the islands! Or, we can visit virtual museum exhibits to determine how the body systems interact or see the macromolecules in action inside of an organism! In my classroom, the iPads and notebooks are used side-by-side and it seems to work out quite well for the students.

Note:

• Adding to the discussion of notebooks in 1:1 classrooms is a recent article “The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking,” summarized here.
• A university professor and a professional scientist share their thoughts in the blog Notebooks as “Dinosaurs”

Photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fhke/4509556824/sizes/l

A family trip took me to a new and breathtaking location—Glacier National Park. We went before the Reynolds Creek Wildland fire started but evidence of past burns and avalanches was dramatic. The trip also provided the moments I needed away from daily chores to thoroughly read the July issue of Science and Children. Where have you been reading Science and Children this summer? 

Send me a picture of your copy of Science and Children (and you, if you’d like) in your favorite summer location—a beach, your backyard, the neighbor’s pool, a fab museum or on lunch break at your summer job, and I’ll add them to this post. Send your picture of Science and Children to theearlyyearsnsta at gmail dot com.

Send me a picture of your copy of Science and Children (with you, if you’d like to be part of the picture) in your favorite summer location—a beach, your backyard, the neighbor’s pool, a fab museum or on lunch break at your summer job, and I’ll add them to this post.

Here’s a bit about just a few of the many interesting articles in the summer issue:

In “Dig Into Fossils!”, an article free to all, Lisa Borgerding writes about the “big ideas” she introduces to preschool and kindergarten students in a science-focused camp:

• Fossils are the remains of organisms that used to be alive a long time ago.
• We make inferences about fossil organisms’ form, function, and habitats based on observations.
• Fossils can be similar to organisms alive today.

Jyoti Gopal writes about her kindergarten class’s investigation into the taste, color and origin of foods as they tasted their way through the alphabet, in “Eating the Alphabet: Using a daily morning routine to link science, math, literacy, and social studies in a kindergarten classroom” (pgs 50-58). Have you ever tasted a tamarind, tzatziki or turnip?

Editor Linda Froschauer gives tips on how to accomplish an instructional sequence that supports a valid learning progression and can be followed by our learning community in her Editor’s Note: Identifying a Progression of Learning.

If you’d rather read it on your digital device, see the choices here.

Happy reading!

Voting opens today for SXSWedu session proposals for the conference’s 2016 program, and NSTA needs your vote! To be selected for inclusion at SXSWedu, proposals must pass an extremely competitive crowd-sourced PanelPicker process.

The 2016 event marks the sixth anniversary of this highly interactive conference, which converges education’s most energetic and innovative leaders from all backgrounds of the teaching and learning landscape—including teachers, administrators, professors, and business and policy stakeholders—to discuss a number of key topics in education. We want to represent science teachers at the event and, to talk about the role that the next generation of science teachers will play in this fast-changing world.

What can you do to help? Please vote for our session proposal. Why does it work this way? SXSWedu crowd sources sessions to be sure the public has a chance to weigh in on the topics they’d most like to see covered. Public voting, in addition to the comments from the SXSWedu Advisory Board and staff, help to form the 2016 event.

Please help give science educators a voice in the discussion at SXSWedu by casting a vote for NSTA’s session, The Next Generation of Science Teachers. Public voting opens today, August 10, and closes September 4, so check out our session proposal now and cast your vote!

Carolyn Hayes is the NSTA President, 2015-2016; follow her on Twitter at caahayes.

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

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What happens when you bring together 150 third- through fifth-grade teachers from around the country for a week of the highest quality professional development around STEM? I found out last week at the 2015 Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy (MEMTA) in Jersey City, where a major shift in mindset rippled out across all 50 states, expanding like the “Cubes that Grow.” A force was set in motion with the power to transform lives; as teachers, we were asked to teach our students not “what to think” but “how to think.”

The Right Kind of Struggle

At MEMTA, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) prepared five full days of lessons to help teachers build knowledge in specific content areas while experiencing and analyzing the best practices in teaching the multi-dimensional Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Sprinkled throughout the week were inspirational talks by leading thinkers on the subject of how children learn. We began the week with Cathy Seeley, author of Faster Isn’t Smarter and Smarter Than We Think, who spoke about “The Right Kind of Struggle”–creating opportunities for students to work through challenging problems that can increase intelligence. As the week continued, we heard from Sam Shaw and NASA astronaut Leland Melvin; and on Thursday, we spent the afternoon with numerous ExxonMobil engineers.

Each MEMTA class/session is focused around a guiding question. This year the theme was Force and Motion, and as the week progressed we actively explored Newton’s laws while simultaneously considering best practices for engaging students. Strategies were devised for setting up guided explorations and creating a classroom culture in which explanations based on claims and evidence can arise. Practices help students see themselves as scientific thinkers and develop habits of mind and the confidence to pursue a STEM career.

Nurturing Scientific Thinking

As teachers gained confidence and experience throughout the week I heard repeatedly, “it is too bad I have only twenty minutes a day to teach science, art, and social studies.” It is true, the time constraints placed on most public school teachers can seem very restrictive, but there is a way to optimize the impact of teacher-structured classrooms, even on a tight schedule. The scientific approach to problem solving can be applied to other disciplines in the classroom. Teachers can embrace Rodger Bybee’s BSCS 5E Instructional Model and infuse the entire school day with meaningful engagement, rich exploration, and opportunities to learn from each other, with time allowed for purposeful idea sharing. They can encourage students to elaborate and foster an expectation that we will be reflective as we evaluate across the curriculum and throughout the day, so all of our students will grow and develop the thinking skills required to solve today’s problems and future challenges. The scientific mind is not something that turns off at the end of science class.

During the week at MEMTA we worked with the 5E model during both science and math activities. As we return to our schools we can also create language arts, social studies, and art classes that engage students in the same way. So, as we switch from teacher-centered classrooms to teacher-structured classrooms we can move forward with six hours of science-based thinking and claims based reasoning. We can take our experience in Jersey City and pay it forward. We no longer need to feel constrained by a limit of twenty minutes a day to teach science. We can infuse every minute of every school day with opportunities for students to engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate. Developing the habits of mind to think like a scientist can and should move across the curriculum. Teachers can learn to talk less and to listen more.

Learn more about MEMTA and how 3rd- through 5th-grade teachers can apply for next year’s academy at sendmyteacher.com.

Author Eileen Hynes is a 2015 MEMTA participant from the Lake and Park School in Seattle, WA; she can be reached at eileen@lakeandparkschool.org.

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

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Teachers often have questions about interactive science notebooks, especially at the secondary level. Mary Morgan, a high school science teacher from Belton High School in Belton, Texas, shares her experiences (These ideas refer to traditional formats. Ms Morgan will share her thoughts on electronic notebooks in a future blog.)

Ms. Mentor: How are interactive science notebooks different from the traditional idea of notebooks as a collection of handouts, lab reports, and notes copied from the board and organized in a way determined by the teacher?

Mary Morgan

Ms. Morgan: The “interactivity” of interactive notebooks comes from the fact that students are working with the information in various ways as they fill in the notebook. Usually this starts with taking Cornell notes on a topic on the right side, whether during a direct teach session, from a video or the textbook, or during a web-quest. Then the students use the left side of the notebook to process the information from the notes. Working with, and often times, struggling with, the new information is a crucial piece for learning. The processing leads students to take ownership of the information. The processing methods vary, but processing always require the students to interact with the new information in some form leading to understanding and owning the information.

Ms. Mentor: Are interactive notebooks appropriate for high school? How do students respond to them?

Ms. Morgan: I have used INBs (Interactive Notebooks) for the last eight of the nine years I’ve been teaching. I have used them for inclusion (low level learners), on-level, and pre-AP Biology; on-level and Honors Anatomy; and physiology; zoology; and AP Biology. My students complain at first every year, but by the time the end-of-course (EOC) exams roll around in May, they thank me for doing the notebooks because they are organized and easy to study!

Ms. Mentor: Do you get any feedback from parents?

Ms. Morgan: The feedback from parents is usually similar to students at first. They usually have some trepidation as this is new for many parents as well. Some will ask why we are doing a middle school notebook or how we are covering all the information in a small space. Some parents also have concerns about how we grade the notebook. However, once I sit with the parents in a one-on-one conference, show them completed notebooks from prior years, explain how the notebook organizes the information and helps students study for unit tests, and creates an EOC review guide throughout the year, most parents are on-board with the INBs. By the end of the year, the parents I speak with comment about how great the INBs are and they wish other teachers would do them as well. I am planning a parent/guardian/trusted adult check-off sheet to encourage parents and guardians to be more hands on with their students’ work and study habits.

Ms. Mentor: Teachers have different ideas about the format of the notebook: composition books, spiral books, binders, pocket folders. Is there a “best” format to use?

Ms. Morgan: I use composition notebooks. They are a little pricier than spirals, but they hold together all year long and the pages being harder to remove. I make it quite clear to the students that no pages are to be ripped out ever! (I offer notebook paper to those who need it if someone at home is tempted to tear a page out. This has been an issue with some students in the past.) For students who can’t afford a notebook, I will quietly give them one I purchased.

Ms. Mentor: It seems that student ownership in the document would be essential. What opportunities do you provide for student input?

Ms. Morgan: I use a combination of personalization and consistent formatting. I have my students decorate the front of their notebooks using old magazine photos. (I tell them anything I deem inappropriate will be ripped off, so that usually solves that problem.) I encourage them to use a mix of science pictures and personal likes. We cover the fronts with clear contact paper. I then apply colored duct tape to the spine which helps the notebooks hold together better all year long and allows me to color code notebooks by class period.

I have students create a title page and a table of contents, and they number ALL of the pages. They also put an envelope in the inside back cover of each notebook to keep loose items (e.g., vocabulary cards, model pieces, cut-outs that haven’t been used yet). We also use colored masking tape to make tabs for each unit so students can quickly flip back and forth between old and new work. We also include flip-outs on the front and back covers which contain reference materials. These pages can be flipped out from the cover and viewed from any page in the notebook.

At the beginning of the school year, I show students tips and tricks for organizing the notebooks, but eventually most students develop their own organizing style for their notebook which is one type of ownership.

Ms. Mentor: The color coding is something I can appreciate, especially when I taught six sections! And the personalized cover would help students identify their notebook quickly. How do you handle having students add papers to the notebooks?

Ms. Morgan: I keep a supply bucket on each table with markers, tape, scissors, short rulers, and a separate bin for trash. I use dotted lines on everything to reduce cutting time, and we use mostly cellophane tape to put things in the notebook (Rarely we will glue with liquid glue, and we never use staples, glue sticks, or chewing gum!) All trash goes in the bin at the end of class; one of my table jobs is that “Number Ones” take out the trash.

Ms. Mentor: Getting to the “interactive part,” how do students organize their work during the class period?

Ms. Morgan: I have done the notebooks multiple ways, but I now have settled into the AVID set-up for the right and left pages. Based on the AVID structure, right pages are teacher input/direct teaching pages: Cornell notes, teacher demos, Fold
ables (used as notes), the driving question, hypothesis, and lab data . Right pages have odd numbers on them for page numbers, so I tell the students they are my pages because I’m odd. Student output goes on the left, evenly numbered pages. This is a place for the student to process the right page information with pictures, colors, writing, etc. Some students will create a Foldable with the right-page information so that would go on the left side. Analysis (graphs, tables, statistics) and conclusions/reasoning go on this page for labs. If students do one-pagers for review, that would go on the left side.

Ms. Mentor: Do you evaluate the student notebooks? That could be an overwhelming task.

Ms. Morgan: It took me a while to come up with a system. Whatever you do, don’t try to grade them all at once! You’ll be at school for hours and hours. I like to grade one or two pages on test days and can usually get through a class’s notebooks during the period. I also do short checks during class (warm-up time, independent work time) and have students provide feedback to each other on their notebooks.

Having students do peer feedback requires them to understand and critically think about the information being presented and teaches them how to assess work and documents without bias. I’ve also seen students self-assess after going through the peer review process a few times and so they begin to create better work from the start. I have to teach my students how this process works and monitor them, especially the first few times, to ensure that constructive criticism does not become simply criticism. I have found that oftentimes they are harder on each other and themselves than I am.

Ms. Mentor: Do you have any other suggestions for someone just starting with interactive notebooks?

Ms. Morgan: Do what works for you. Try something and if it doesn’t work after a couple of times, change it. Develop you own notebook vocabulary and your students will catch on. If you need every student on the same page, do it. If you are okay with students being on their own page, do it. For example, all of my students have to be on the page I tell them and I keep a class-wide table of contents on a big poster sheet of notebook paper. But don’t be bound by what works for someone else. Make the notebook work for your teaching style.

Anything you have done using other formats can [be adapted] to the notebook. For example, Foldables fit great in the notebook. Sometimes it requires a little different fold or a bit of extra trimming, but you can make it work. Old worksheets/notes can work by reducing the size on your copy machine and adding a dotted border for trimming. I also copy lots of things on half-pages because those fit great in the notebooks. I make notebook pages into pockets for brochures and other handouts. The sky is the limit with the notebooks!

Ms Mentor: I’ve put together a Resource Collection in the NSTA Learning Center on the topic of “Science Notebooks” with articles and websites that may be helpful.

Our oldest son will be a senior in high school next year. (Deep breath.) All Delaware public high school students must perform 60 hours of documented volunteer work for a non-profit group as a requirement for graduation. With a little nudging from me, our son chose Habitat for Humanity. New Castle County’s Habitat chapter runs a ReStore, where homeowners and contractors donate new or gently used home parts, like windows, flooring, sinks, tile, and furniture. The donated items are sold at very reasonable prices to other members of the community for use in their homes. The boy has found his niche, and wants to keep volunteering there as long as he can. They’re happy to have him, since he’s built like a lumberjack and can carry like one too. Having a way to keep cabinets, doors, and windows out of landfills is a great help to the environment and got me thinking about the many STEM elements in recycling programs of all kinds. This month we’ll take a tour around the world, and dip into geology, hydrology, technology, environmental science, chemistry, economics, global politics, and ethics.

Bottled water

Yes, bottled water has borne the brunt of criticism from environmentalists for years. If you don’t have a refillable aluminum, glass, or plastic jug on your desk by now, you’re doing it wrong. We all know how much energy it takes to make those ubiquitous thin plastic, half-liter bottles. (Approximately 3 to 5 million joules each, to be specific.) Beyond the cost of plastic production are the added factors of transportation, distribution and refrigeration at the point of sale. Bottled spring water comes from sources all over the world, including Fiji and the Alps. Getting that water to your refrigerator adds significantly to its costs.

In addition to the environmental impact of bottled water consumption, another issue is economic. Did you know that almost 55% of bottled water is glorified tap water, not spring water? It’s almost the same thing you can get from your own faucet at any time. What’s worse, is that a number of large bottled water companies are located in California, which is experiencing record drought conditions. Water privatization is an issue that should concern everyone. Approximately 10% of the world’s water is currently under private control and this percentage is expected to grow as municipalities look for ways to reduce the cost of maintaining aging infrastructure. Privatization removes this cost from the government’s balance sheet, but puts the water supply under the control of a corporation, which has the sole aim of making money for its shareholders. When more than 1 billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water, this seems short sighted at best.

Tap water in the United States has an average cost of US$2 per 1000 gallons. When you consider that the average wholesale cost of bottled water in the United States is US$1.21 per gallon, you can see that choosing a bottle over a glass in your own kitchen makes very little sense. If the taste of your home’s water bothers you, consider buying a filter for the tap or a pitcher with a built-in filter. You’ll come out ahead on cost, and the environment will benefit too. The current recycling rate for water bottles is about 39%. The rest of the bottles end up in landfills or as trash in the environment. The water bottle industry has worked to reduce the amount of plastic in its bottles as a nod to environmental responsibility, but these measures have also reduced their costs.

Rare earth elements

A number of modern technologies depend on the 17 rare earth elements. The vast majority of rare earth element production is currently in China. China possesses approximately 50% of global rare earth element reserves. Because China has relatively large quantities of these elements while also having the advantages of lax environmental controls and cheap labor, it dominates the market. Rare earth elements became an issue of national security in 2010 when China allegedly placed an embargo on exports of these materials to Japan in response to an offshore border dispute. Japan is the largest market for rare earth elements, as much of the consumer products that use them are made there.

Many of the products that depend on rare earth elements are recent inventions. Some of the most well-known products are cell phones, solar cells, electric cars, and wind turbines. Rare earth elements became necessary in the mid-1960s when color televisions needed brighter red pixels. A particular valency state of europium produces red light by phosphorescence. This also makes europium useful in compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Perhaps the most important use of rare earth elements is in permanent magnets. Permanent magnets do not become nonmagnetic once the magnetic field is removed. These permanent rare earth magnets are very powerful and some can retain their magnetic properties at high temperatures, making them invaluable to industries like aerospace and defense, health care, clean energy and electronics. If you’ve ever undergone magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), you’ve had the warning about wearing clothes without metal fasteners. The magnets are so powerful that they can pull on any iron-containing object in the body. On occasion, this attraction can cause the iron-oxide pigment in tattoos to heat up and cause first-degree burns. (To be honest, I thought this was a myth and I’m quite surprised. The things you learn!) Please note that this effect is rare and no good reason to skip an MRI.

One of the biggest problems with rare earth element mining and refining is the waste products. A principal byproduct of rare earth element production is radioactive thorium. A number of the other waste products from rare earth mining are similarly toxic. Baotou, in Inner Mongolia, China, is widely contaminated with these toxic waste products. Two-thirds of the 97% of rare earth elements that come out of China are produced in Baotou. China’s market dominance allows the government of China to dictate the price of rare earth materials, but this economic power has come at a price. The ground in Baotou is saturated with toxic waste, and a huge tailings pond dominates the landscape. The farmers have moved away. The factory workers that remain experience various health issues.

These environmental concerns and supply issues have led to important research on rare earth element recycling. Current recycling methods are expensive and have their own undesirable byproducts. But innovative research in Japan uses salmon sperm to recover rare earth elements in an aqueous process that is more environmentally friendly. Because of the particular market constraints on these vital elements, it’s important to develop a viable recycling method.

Recycling in the future

The United States has made significant improvements in recycling rates in the last 20 years. But the overall recycling rate in the United States is still less than 40%. There is no federal recycling legislation in the United States, but 47 of the 50 states have disposal bans to keep at least some items out of landfills. Recycling has also increased in importance globally. It may surprise you to know that about 70% of the world’s electronics wastes are exported to China. Recycled materials supply 40% of the world’s raw material needs, but the energy and CO₂ savings vary by material. Austria has the best overall recycling rate, recovering 60% of total recyclable materials. Brazil has the next best rate, at 50% of all waste. Greece has the lowest overall recycling rate, at 10%.

Aluminum (or aluminium, depending on where you learned to spell) is one of the most common recycled materials. More than a third of global aluminum production today comes from recycled materials. This is important because recycled aluminum uses as little as 5% of the energy and emits only 5% of the greenhouse gases of primary aluminum production.

Glass is another common recycling target. Glass can be recycled forever. Recycling a glass jar saves energy because recycled glass melts at a lower temperature than the original components. Switzerland recycles 91% of all manufactured glass. This is currently the best recycling rate for a single commodity.

Recycling is becoming a high-tech industry. RFID tags on household recycling bins and the collection trucks can provide information about neighborhood participation rates, allowing cities to tailor incentive programs to low participation areas. RFID tags on the regular waste bins paired with scales on the collection trucks would also let municipalities accurately charge households for the cost of waste disposal. Most bottled water is consumed on the go, so strategic placement of recycling bins in dense urban areas could increase participation rates. Another area of technology with important future implications is solid waste gasification for energy recovery. Currently only 2% of the energy in solid waste is recovered.

Produced by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), science writer Becky Stewart contributes monthly to the Science and STEM Classroom e-newsletter, a forum for ideas and resources that middle and high school teachers need to support science, technology, engineering, and math curricula. If you enjoy these blog posts, follow Becky Stewart on Twitter (@ramenbecky). Fans of the old version of The STEM Classroom e-newsletter can find the archives here.

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In the new conceptual economy, what skills will students need to acquire to walk into professional settings and tackle complex problems? A recent podcast Innovation Skills for the 21st Century Workplace (BFM 89.9) details the mindset that contributes to success–the ability to continually learn and improve. And it’s striking how well the skills and qualities needed align with the types of skills and qualities that can be honed in a science classroom–communication, collaboration, and adaptability, among others.

Creatively Teach Creativity

What can science teachers do? Science evangelist Ainissa Ramirez writes frequently about these types of skills. In a recent blog, Ramirez talks about Encouraging the Einstein and Edison in Everyone. And she gives simple, inexpensive ideas that any teacher can use. She explains how to nurture divergent thinking within  students with an ordinary object like a key or a toothbrush. And, she recommends helping students learn to make connections among formerly unconnected topics. The takeaway? “Let’s be creative in the way that we teach children to be creative.”

Cultivate Collaboration

In Building Team Science, education professor Christine Royce gives ideas for team-building activities that have found their way into her classroom activities throughout the years:

• Colored Broken Squares
• Write It Do It
• Tower of Cups
• Yes/No Conundrums

Innovation in Action

So what does a classroom look like when innovative thinking is nurtured? Check out NSTA’s video series In the NGSS Classroom with Teacher Kristin Mayer. These 8 videos introduce science teachers to important strategies based on the Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The videos highlight the major shifts in science instruction, explore the new role of the teacher, and demonstrate new instructional strategies in the high school classroom. 

At NSTA we’re lucky to work with and learn from innovative teachers every day. If you’ve got ideas to share with us, please let us know!

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

Upcoming NSTA Conferences

2015 Area Conferences

• Reno, October 22–24
• Philadelphia, November 12–14
• Kansas City, December 3–5

2016 National Conference

• Nashville, March 31–April 3

2016 STEM Forum & Expo

• Denver, July 27–30

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Work has officially begun on the conference bill to resolve the differences in the House (H.R. 5, the Student Success Act) and Senate (S. 1177, the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015) bills to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and replace No Child Left Behind.

In a press statement issued on Thursday, July 30, the four education leaders in the House and Senate [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);] issued statements which expressed confidence and expressed hope that they can work together to produce a bicameral education bill.

As noted in an earlier NSTA Legislative blog post, on July 16 the U.S. Senate passed legislation to rewrite the No Child Left Behind Act. The bipartisan Senate bill, the Every Child Achieves Act (S.1177) passed 81-17 and contains a strong focus on STEM education. The partisan House bill, the Student Success Act (H.R. 5), passed on July 8, with 27 Republicans joining all House Democrats voting against the bill. The House bill goes much further than the Senate bill in reducing the federal role in education and does not include a dedicated program for STEM education.

Below are the key STEM provision in the Senate bill and other highlights from the House and Senate education bills. Congress adjourns at the end of July until after the Labor Day break (but education staff will continue to move the conference process along) so STEM education advocates will be strongly encouraged to reach out to targeted members of Congress in a few weeks and this Fall to ensure the conference committee adopts the Senate language in ECAA (Title II, Part E, Section 2005) listed below that would allow states to develop STEM programs.

Every Child Achieves Act (S. 1177) STEM Funding Provision (Title II, Part E, Section 2005)

Section 2005, which was added in a bipartisan Franken-Kirk Amendment during Committee consideration, establishes a program to provide each state with formula-based funding that would be used to support partnerships among local schools, businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations to improve student learning in the critical science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. Each state would choose how to spend and prioritize these funds, which can support a wide range of STEM activities from in-depth teacher training, to engineering design competitions, to improving the diversity of the STEM workforce. Activities supported through these funds include:

• Professional development for STEM educators
• Improving access and quality for STEM programs targeting high-need and underrepresented student populations
• Integrating in-school and out-of-school STEM education activities
• Supporting STEM-related competitions
• Facilitating the involvement of mid-career STEM professionals in educational activities
• Recruiting, retaining, and rewarding outstanding STEM educators through state-level STEM Master Teacher Corps programs

A funding level has not yet been established for this provision and is currently “such sums as required.” The funding authorization level for the current Math and Science Partnerships program at the Department of Education, which this provision would replace, is $450 million per year; however the appropriations for this program in FY2015 is $155 million.

Here are some other key highlights from the House and Senate passed education bills:

Testing and Standards: Both bills maintain current-law requirements for annual, statewide assessment of all students in grades 3­–8 and at least once in high school, in both reading and math, as well as the requirement of a science assessment of all students in science at least once during elementary, middle, and high school. The bills also maintain the requirement that states adopt college- and career-ready standards in these subjects.  

Accountability: Both bills eliminate NCLB’s adequate yearly progress requirements and require states to create their own accountability systems that annually measure student performance. The Senate bill goes further to require that state accountability systems include more than just test scores and also requires that states report how they assess school climate, discipline, homeless children, and early education. The House bill moves in the other direction and provides states with the option of not counting students that “opt-out” of federal testing against measures of test participation.

STEM Education: The Senate bill contains a program (Section 2005; see above) that would provide each state with dedicated funding to support improvements in the STEM subjects, with a strong focus on improving access and quality for high-need student populations. The House bill does not place any priority on STEM-related activities or provide any form of dedicated funding for STEM activities.  

Support for Teachers and Teacher Quality: Both the House and Senate bills provide states with significant new flexibility in using Title II funds for teachers and school leaders. Both bills allow states to use federal funding to develop teacher evaluation systems, but it’s not a requirement. And the bills eliminate the definition of “highly qualified teacher” and instead let states decide what constitutes teacher quality.

Low-Performing Schools: Both bills eliminate the School Improvement Grant program, but include other federal funding directed at low-performing schools. Under the House bill, states would set aside 7% of their own Title I money for school improvement. States would have to intervene in Title I schools that aren’t performing well, but the bill doesn’t tell them how to do so, or how many schools to try to fix at a time.   Under the Senate bill, states would have to monitor district turnarounds, and step in if low-performing schools weren’t getting any better. However, the federal government would be prohibited from telling states or districts how to fix struggling schools.

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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