In an NSTA discussion forum, a question was raised about studying ecosystems and food chains at the elementary level. I pointed the readers to articles in this month’s edition of Science & Children, which has a variety of classroom resources and background information for teachers.
Many science lessons for young students focus on warm, fuzzy animals. Our World Without Decomposers: How Scary!* describes a series of class activities in which students examine and learn about “bugs, slugs, bacteria, and fungi.” (My middle schoolers would love this, too!) Descriptions of creating a classroom decomposing tank, exploring decomposers a local park, and reflecting on the role these organisms play in an ecosystem are the highlights of this article. [SciLinks: Decomposer, Characteristics of Fungi, Bacteria, Composting, How Does Nature Recycle Materials]
Videos, readings, and classroom activities are good, but nothing beats real outdoor experiences. Ecosystems, Up Close and Personal (The Early Years)* shows how just about any schoolyard can be an ecosystem. When students plant seeds in a school garden or even in a pot, they can begin to understand the relationship between a living thing and the abiotic factors in an ecosystem. A lesson is provided. [SciLinks: How do ecosystems change naturally?, Plant Growth]
Regardless of whether you call them pillbugs or roly-polies, The Amazing Ecology of Terrestrial Isopods* show how these arthropods can be the basis for an engaging study of interactions between organisms and their environment. The authors include a fact sheet on these critters and a description of an outdoor activity in which students observed the organisms and the characteristics of their environment. The students then created an indoor habitat (directions provided) in which they could investigate the behaviors of these low-maintenance classroom animals in more detail. [SciLinks: Arthropods]
Do your students understand that a food chain is more than a diagram of who eats what? If Energy is Neither Created Nor Destroyed, What Happens to It? (Science 101) discusses the energy transfer in an ecosystem. [SciLinks: Food Chains, Food Webs]
Not all evidence and data are numeric. With the prevalence of digital cameras and cell phone cameras, students have an evidence-collecting tool at their fingertips. Exploring Nature Through a New Lens* has suggestions for a student study of the schoolyard habitat. And if you’re thinking about turning part of the school campus into an outdoor learning center, you’ll want to read Ensuring a Safer Outdoor Experience (Safety First)*.[SciLinks: Habitats]
The authors of How Healthy Is Our Pond?* provided students with a real-life scenario for studying the characteristics of a local pond. Students observed the physical and biological surroundings and performed water quality tests for temperature, pH, nitrates, dissolved oxygen, and clarity. The authors describe these tests in detail and include photographs and samples of student data. [SciLinks: Water Quality]
Growing Gardens, Growing Minds* shows how K-4 students went beyond growing seeds in paper cups to designing a community garden at their school. They also learned about nutrition and how plants are part of a healthy diet. The article includes photographs and a grade-by-grade description of class activities related to the project. Seeding Science in Elementary Schools (Methods and Strategies) describes a school-university partnership to establish classroom gardens. [SciLinks: Plants as Food, Plants with Seeds, Seed Germination]
“Adaptation” is a word that can have several meanings, from its everyday one to a more scientific one. Habitat Change: Formative Assessment of a Cautionary Word (Formative Assessment Probes) includes a probe to study students’ perceptions of the process. [SciLinks: Adaptations of Plants, Adaptations of Animals]
Is This Alive? (Science Shorts)* is a question that intrigues students. How do we know? The 5E lesson here focuses on kindergarten students’ explorations of living things and some of their misconceptions. [SciLinks: Living Things]
Let’s Talk Trash (Teaching Through Trade Books)* suggests two trade books on the topic and includes two lessons that help students look at their own choices and how these choices can affect their communities. The 5E lesson Garbage Gurus (K-2) guides students through an analysis of “trash” to determine what might be recyclable. For students in grades 3-5, the 5E lesson Where Does Our Trash Go? examines the trash stream in their community. [SciLinks: Recycling K-4, Recycling 5-8]
*And check out more Connections for this issue (March 2014). Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, there are ideas and links for handouts, background information pages, data sheets, rubrics, and other resources.

Since it is now March and in my area we just had our 10^th snow day, I am dreaming of planting seeds rather than actually planting them. What should the children plant in the raised bed school garden, a tiny sliver of ground that could not be incorporated into the play area because there is a telephone pole in the way? The children offer very general ideas: “flowers,” “carrots,” and “peas” (from the older children who remember them from last spring). These are great ideas and we can do them all—first peas, and later carrots and flowers, all in small amounts. There are wonderful children’s fiction and non-fiction books and songs about gardening with children. Post your favorites in the comments below.
Like many schools, we don’t have a windowsill with full sun where we can grow healthy seedlings inside. We do sprout seeds in plastic bags, clear containers and on sponges, to see the delicate roots and sprouts grow. But growing a plant to maturity must wait until we can plant in the ground, currently under a blanket of snow.

I’m also interested in having plants that will attract butterflies because they are so pretty and the children are attracted by their colors and motion. Children do like to find ants, roly-polies, slugs and earthworm, and spot bees, too. These observations add up over time to a beginning understanding of the ecosystem, and how the small animals fit into it. The ants are often found in groups, worms are always found in or on the ground, the roly-polies and slugs are most abundant in damp places, and the bees are focused on flowers. This concept, of each animal meeting its needs within an ecosystem, is more apparent in butterflies because their needs change with change in life stage after they come from the egg as larva, change to pupa, and then to adult.

In the March 2014 Early Years column in Science and Children, I wrote about observing the growth of a fennel plant (Foeniculum vulgare) and the animals that use it, over time. In the school yard, we have a fennel plant whose leaves are food for the larvae (caterpillars) of Black Swallowtail butterflies. The adult butterfly does drink nectar from the flowers but seems to prefer the nectar of annual flowering plants. By planting another favorite Black Swallowtail larval food, parsley, nearby, we can almost guarantee that we will be able to find these caterpillars. These caterpillars are safe to touch—gently, for the caterpillar’s sake. Research the species of butterflies that live in your area to learn which are safe for children to touch and which have stinging hairs. Some species should not be disturbed because they are an endangered species. The common and not-endangered butterfly species in your region may not be the same species as the ones I have my children observe as the spring season progresses.
Resources that might be of use include online catalogues maintained by volunteers, online and in print information sheets from government agricultural services, and identification books such as the Peterson First Guide to Caterpillars of North America by Amy Wright. I like this book because it describes 120 common species and shows the caterpillars, their adult forms and many of their host plants.
Did you know that digital versions of NSTA journals are available for members to read on your computer as well as your Kindle Fire, Android tablet/phone, or iPad/iPhone?
 

As Director of Distance Learning for University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum of Natural history, each year Chris Tower created and provided professional development for more than 300 teachers throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin via two distance–learning, cross-curricular science programs: the JASON Project and BellLive.

In his current position, he has established a service-learning water quality study for fourth grade; designed and collaborated with students, teachers, parents, the administration, the city, and businesses to create a rain garden and a community produce garden; presented garden programs to other districts’ teachers, parents, and community members; worked on district-level science review teams and wrote science curriculum for upper-elementary levels; and wrote STEM curriculum for Minnesota’s Department of Education. A school technology leader, he produces a live school wide newscast with students.

“His creativity and willingness to experiment and explore new opportunities energizes our community,” says his principal. His district’s elementary curriculum coordinator describes him as “a real champion of both science and service learning” who “enhances the traditional science curriculum by making meaningful connections for students, while asking them for ways to give back to the community.”

Tower’s winning lesson, The Community Garden Environment Lesson Plan, is aimed at 4th and 5th grade students. The interdisciplinary lesson includes connections to science, literacy, and math, and includes essential elements of Service-Learning. This lesson addresses the Minnesota Science Standards related to environments, living systems, and inquiry.

At the end of a unit, there are always students who haven’t completed some assignments. Coming in before or after school is not an option for most of my students. Rather than moving on to the next unit, knowing they’ll fall even further behind, I’d like to provide some class time for this make-up work. But I need some ideas for the other students who are caught up with their work.
—Tori, Pompano Beach, Florida
In an ideal world, all students would complete every assignment on time and no one would ever miss a class. Classes would never be delayed or cancelled because of weather or special events. The strategy of planning “transition time” between units of instruction, usually one or two class periods, worked for my classes. These periods allow time for students to

• Take the unit assessment if they missed it or re-take the test (if that is your policy).
• Revise or complete lab reports or other projects and assignments.
• Organize their notebooks or digital portfolios.

As you noted, you’ll need something for the rest of the students to do. Free time or a study hall is not a good use of a class period and can lead to misbehaviors and distractions. But there are options for activities summarizing or extending what students have learned or providing an opportunity for exploration and creativity:

• Do additional lab investigations or elaborate on ones they did. (This would require you to prepare the materials and monitor the students, however.)
• Engage in online simulations or explore websites related to the unit topic.
• Explore a new technology tool, simulation, or app. Even if you aren’t familiar with it yourself, students working in pairs or teams could figure it out and create a simple how-to resource or presentation to share with others.
• Play games reinforcing the unit vocabulary or reviewing terms from previous units. Or have students create their own vocabulary games.
• Create a multimedia guide or poster summarizing the key content and science practices in the unit. This can be used at the start of the unit the next time you teach it.
• Preview the content of the next unit and create a list of questions.

During the unit, you could ask students what topics they would like more time to explore and provide this time to do so. Even if all of the students are caught up with their assignments, they could enjoy having these activity choices .
While students are working, you could also use this time to conference with individual students, discussing their progress or reviewing their work.
Transition time also gives you an opportunity to organize materials and evaluate students’ work before going on to the next topic.
 
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomsaint/2987926396/

If you still have snow in your region, you may be looking for new ideas on how to use it to develop children’s understanding of concepts such as the properties of water including freezing and melting, and measuring. Observing weather patterns over time, classifying different kinds of materials by their observable properties (including water as solid ice and in liquid form), and making observations to determine the effect of sunlight on Earth’s surface are all part of the Performance Expectations and Disciplinary Core Ideas in the Next Generation Science Standards.
I hope some of these ideas will inspire you or become part of your class’s on-going investigation into weather or the properties of water:

• Build a person out of snow, and on every subsequent day, add another item to the sculpture. A hat, arms, eyes, and more. On the tenth day you add something (if the snow person hasn’t melted yet), read Denise Fleming’s The First Day of Winter.  As a group or individually, have children recall and draw the snowman in the story or the one they built, and all the accessories.
• As children watch snow falling, they can measure the size of the snowflakes. This measuring has to happen in very cold weather, or quickly before the flakes melt. Make a tool for estimating the size of a flake by drawing a 1 centimeter by 1 centimeter square grid on a dark sheet of paper with a white colored pencil. Put the paper outside for a few minutes before using it so it can become cold. When the snowflakes land, children can say if the snowflake covers a small part of a square, half of it, or all of it. Children can notice the variety of snowflake crystal shapes on the dark paper. As the flakes melt, children can observe the change to a liquid.
• Have children can fill a cup with loose scoops of snow and bring it inside to watch it melt. Have them measure the level of the snow in the cup using interlocking cubes or a standard measuring ruler. When the snow melts, children will be interested to see that the melted snow does not fill the cup. Measure the height of the water in the cup.
• Paint snow drifts and snowballs using liquid watercolor (dilute to save money) water and have children use a spray bottle or small dropper to create patterns and mix colors. Bring snow inside in a clear tub and have children use droppers for painting the snow, observing it as it melts.
• Children can look for marks made in snow and try to guess how they were made—footprints, bird wings, blowing leaves or dripping water? If they are footprints, what size animal made them?
• Children can make their own imprints in snow with feet, hands, elbows and heads, noticing how the snow compresses and the shapes they make.
• Read about how animals keep warm in winter in A Warm Winter Tail  by Carrie A. Pearson,illustrated by Christina Wald (Sylvan Dell 2012). Then use the activity, “What is Your Cold Count?,” from Thinking BIG Learning BIG (Gryphon House 2009) by Marie Faust Evitt, to model how a layer of fat can keep us warm.
• Take a walking fieldtrip and look for signs of frozen water, such as frost on a leaf or a frozen puddle.

The experiences of other educators can help us plan ahead for “anything” whether it is a dead animal or a beautiful ice crystal structure. How will you and the children approach your discoveries physically and intellectually? Get ideas from educators who blog about their experiences:

• Early Childhood Activities for a Greener Earth author Patty Born Selly blogged at Small Wonders about the time her children came upon a dead squirrel in winter.
• Read Nature for Kids blog about Shawna’s experience chaperoning her child’s  ice fishing fieldtrip or how shoveling snow turned into a building session for young architects on the Nature for Kids Network blog.
• Have your children set up and play “Ice Cube Hockey,” after viewing photos on Marie Faust Evitt’s post on the Gryphon House blog.
• Read Tamra Willis’ ideas on “10 Reasons to Take Your Students Outside” on the Children & Nature Network’s blog.

Whether snow is an everyday experience for your region in March, or an unusual one, you can share your teaching about snow or in snowy environments with others by commenting below.

As part of a science methods class, we’ve been assigned to create an observation tool to assess students. I’ve seen many articles and suggestions online for helping students become good observers and tools for administrators to use when observing teachers. But I haven’t seen much on teachers observing students. What can I assess by watching students?
—Kendra, Columbia, South Carolina
I would check with your instructor about the assignment. Did he or she provide any examples, guidelines, or a rubric? Could you model a type of data collection used in your methods class?
Teachers continuously observe students informally, scanning the classroom or watching students as they work. They often look for students who seem confused or engaged in off-task, unsafe, or disruptive behaviors, which is certainly important in a science class. It sounds like your task is to add to this observational “research” in a systematic and purposeful way.
Your question did bring back memories of my methods course when we were given a similar assignment. We were asked to design an assessment that did not require students to use pencil and paper. (This was long before the Internet and digital technology!)  I was puzzled at first, but then I created a protocol for observing students during a lab and assessing their ability to use a microscope. I made a table with a list of students’ names for each section, and across the top I listed several behaviors to look for that would let me know that students could use this tool appropriately (e.g., focus a prepared slide, create a wet mount slide, carry it back to the shelf safely, clean the lenses). I shared the expectations with the students, and as I circulated through room during a lab, I would check off the behaviors as I noted them. It did take a few lessons before all the students had check marks, and I had to specifically ask some students to show me what they could do. My instructor loved it!
As with any assessment, the value is not in just collecting the data but using the data to guide instruction or improve class activities. This data provided more information than a written test on parts of a microscope, and unsafe behaviors could be addressed immediately.

In the following years, I used this protocol for many other student observations. For example, during group work, I noted which students were the leaders/facilitators, the take-over types, the quiet observers who did contribute to the activity, or the ones left out of the process. I used this data to intervene where necessary or create lab teams for the next unit.
You could also study what kind of questions students ask during an activity: procedural (What are we supposed to do now?), confirmational (Are we doing this right?), off-task (May I use the restroom?), clarifying (I’m not sure about…), or extending (We’re wondering about… What would happen if…?) From this I learned to wait a few seconds before responding to students who asked a lot of procedural questions. Often they or their partners answered their own questions.
You can use an observation checklist to identify content skills or lab techniques (such as measuring or graphing) in which students are successful and those in which they may need additional guidance or instruction. Record your observations as you walk around while students are working independently or in groups. Spend a little time with each group to observe their work, ask a few questions, or provide any clarification. Rather than waiting for a written test, you can identify misconceptions or incomplete understandings right away.
I could see this protocol being adapted for a tablet or smart phone in place of my sheet of paper–you could also add photos of the students at work.
 
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xevivarela/4610711363/sizes/o/in/photostream/
 

From lessons on writing in science class to exploring and debating socioscientific issues to translating NGSS for classroom instruction, take a look at what science teachers are reading in February on NSTA’s website.
Most Popular NSTA Press Books
1. Teaching Science Through Trade Books
2. It’s Debatable! Using Socioscientific Issues to Develop Scientific Literacy K-12
3. Science the “Write” Way
4. The Basics of Data Literacy: Helping Your Students (and You!) Make Sense of Data
5. Uncovering Student Ideas in Science, Volume 4: 25 New Formative Assessment Probes
 
Most Popular NSTA Press e-Books
1. Scientific Argumentation in Biology: 30 Classroom Activities
2. Designing Effective Science Instruction: What Works in Science Classroom
3. Predict, Observe, Explain: Activities Enhancing Scientific Understanding
4. Schoolyard Science: 101 Easy and Inexpensive Activities
5. Translating the NGSS for Classroom Instruction
 
Most Popular NSTA Journal Articles
1. Learning by Sorting (The Science Teacher)
2. Can You Picture That? (The Science Teacher)
3. Teaching Through Trade Books: The Science and Technology of Sound (Science and Children)
4. Career Simulations: Technology Tools That Support STEM Content and Motivation (Science Scope)
5. Do You Hear What I Hear? (Science and Children)
 
Most Popular Science Trade Books for Kids
1. What Makes Different Sounds?: I Wonder Why
2. Bubble Bubble
3. Next Time You See a Sunset
4. Spenser and the Rocks: I Wonder Why
5. Next Time You See a Pill Bug