The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has adopted a new position statement, the Early Childhood Science Position Statement. This thoughtful document was inspired by the clamor of early childhood educators looking for guidance informed by research on how to approach science teaching in the preschool years (ages 3–5) before kindergarten.

Drawing on research from the National Research Council, the National Association for the Education of Young Children and others, the NSTA Position Statement on Early Childhood Science Education “… affirms that learning science and engineering practices in the early years can foster children’s curiosity and enjoyment in exploring the world around them and lay the foundation for a progression of science learning in K–12 settings and throughout their entire lives.”
The position statement supports early childhood educators who seek to honor young children’s “capacity for constructing conceptual learning and the ability to use the practices of reasoning and inquiry” at a developmentally appropriate level. Early childhood educators are urged to “take advantage of what children do as part of their everyday life prior to entering formal school settings [because] these skills and abilities can provide helpful starting points for developing scientific reasoning.” The Early Childhood Science position statement complements the position statement on elementary science education adopted by the NSTA Board of Directors in July 2002.


NSTA identifies six key principals to guide the learning of science by young children. In addition, declarations and recommendations further identify the following, among others, as critical for high quality science learning environments: the nurturing of young children’s curiosity; the understanding that everyday play is part of science learning; and supportive educators who are prepared to carefully plan open-ended, inquiry-based explorations.
I am grateful to Cindy Workosky, NSTA Communications Specialist, who spearheaded the effort and the NSTA panel members who wrote the Early Childhood Science position statement, Susan Catapano (Chair), Peggy Carlisle, Christine Chaille, Ingrid Chalufour, Linda Froschauer, Rochel Gelman, Julie McGough, William C. Ritz, Jennifer S. Thompson, and Karen Worth. (See the full list of panel members below.) I thank the NSTA Board of Directors for their forward-thinking action in adopting the work of the panel, and all those educators who commented on the first draft.
The position statement is a document that will inform my teaching practice and writing. It reminds me to intentionally prepare the environment and experiences to allow children to fully engage with the materials and provide time to talk about those experiences. I can share it with the program directors and school principals I work with to help them understand that science and engineering learning begins in the early years before kindergarten, when children are given multiple opportunities to engage in science exploration and experiences through inquiry. It will guide programs, school districts and states as they write new early childhood science standards and curriculum.
Take a look at the newly issued Early Childhood Science Education Position Statement online or in the February 2013 issue of Science and Children, print out a copy to share with your colleagues and the families of your students, and talk about how it will support and possibly change your teaching.

Panel, NSTA Early Childhood Science Position StatementSusan Catapano, ChairChair and Professor, International CoordinatorWatson College of Education, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Wilmington, NC Peggy Carlisle (NSTA Board) NSTA Director, Preschool/Elementary Div. Gifted Education Teacher, Pecan Park Elementary, Jackson, MS  Christine Chaille Professor and Chair, Curriculum and Instruction Portland State University, Portland, OR Ingrid Chalufour Education Consultant Brunswick, ME Linda Froschauer Field Editor, Science and Children NSTA Past President Westport, CT Rochel Gelman Distinguished Professor Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science and the Psychology Department Rutgers University, Busch Campus, Piscataway, NJ Julie McGough K-3 Primary Teacher, Valley Oak Elementary Adjunct Faculty, Science Education California State University, Fresno, Fresno, CA William C. Ritz Professor Emeritus, Science Education Director, “A Head Start on Science” California State University at Long Beach, Long Beach, CA    Jennifer S. Thompson (NSTA Council) NSTA Director, District XVII K-1 Primary Teacher, Harborview Elementary Adjunct Faculty, Education University of Alaska Southeast, Juneau, AK Karen Worth Instructor, Elementary Education Department & Department Chair Wheelock College, Boston, MA

 
 

My colleague and I are early–career science teachers at a middle school. Rather than our reinventing the wheel, do you have any suggestions how to make lab days run more smoothly, especially at the beginning and end of the class?
–Sean, Oakland, California
To ensure lab periods run smoothly (and safely), planning and preparation are essential. Every activity should relate to your learning goals and be appropriate for your students’ experience level.
Review the activities or investigations thoroughly to determine if you have the proper facilities, time, and materials to conduct them safely. Put yourself in the role of a student. What could possibly go wrong? How much guidance and support will students need? Never have the students perform a procedure that you have not tried or are familiar with yourself.
Plan activities for the amount of time you have. If you have a single period, choose investigations that can be completed (including the introduction and cleanup) within that time or that can be paused and continued at another time.
Assemble materials and equipment in advance. Have extra supplies on hand, so you don’t have to leave the room to get something. Assemble trays or boxes with materials for each group (I numbered the boxes to match each team). An “inventory” card in the box or note on board helps students know what should be in the box. Assign a student on each team the role of equipment manager to get the materials and alert the teacher if anything is missing.
Prepare students for the activity by reviewing the purpose, procedures, and safety issues. If students designed the procedure, check their ideas by having them show you their proposal before they start.

Monitor your students as they work. In addition to looking for safety issues or off-task behaviors, this is an opportunity for formative assessment. You can ask or answer questions, guide their thinking, and eavesdrop on their conversations as they work. You can have a list of lab skills and check off students as they demonstrate them. Also note anything you want to change for the next class or the next time you do this activity.
Even your best class can run into difficulties. Never leave the room or be distracted with emails or phone calls while students are doing an activity. Accidents can and do happen, but you don’t want students to hide broken glass or clean up a spill with a sleeve. Deal with the situation right away in a matter-of-fact style.
If a student is engaging in potentially dangerous behavior and does not respond to your guidelines, remove him/her from the situation immediately, stopping the entire class if necessary.
Time flies during an activity, and if the bell rings while students are still working, they’ll want to rush on to their next class. Students must assume responsibility for cleaning up at the end of the period so everything is in place for the next class. Set an alarm or timer so there’s enough time to clean the workstations and debrief on the activity.
Have a sign at each lab station with a list of cleanup tasks. The equipment manager on each team should make sure group members complete tasks such as returning the materials to the boxes, wiping the tabletop, cleaning the glassware, turning off or resetting probes and other instruments, discarding any trash in the proper receptacle, and following other directions you may have (such as sterilizing and storing eyewear).
Boxes should be returned to a designated place where you can see the contents. Pay attention to forceps, calculators, scissors, and other items that may “disappear.” Note if anything is broken. Establish a routine in which students wait until you are satisfied things are in order for the next class before leaving. (This should be the routine on non-lab days, too!)
At the end of the day, return materials and equipment to their proper places if the activity is completed. If you’re continuing the activity, put the boxes in a secure place.  Annotate your lesson plan with any concerns or ideas for next time. Update the inventory with how much of a material was used or if anything was broken or discarded.
This was an area in which I struggled at first. But with organizational strategies and routines, I found lab days were enjoyable and challenging for both the students and the teacher!
 
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/40964293@N07/4018106328/

Each month, columns on safety in the science lab are featured in NSTA’s Science Scope (Scope on Safety) and The Science Teacher (Safer Science). These columns are written by Ken Roy, Director of Environmental Health and Safety for Glastonbury Public Schools in Glastonbury, CT, and NSTA’s Science Safety Compliance Consultant.
These are must-reads for science teachers and school administrators, regardless of what grade level or science course you teach. And NSTA members have access to them, regardless of which print journal you receive.
Here is a list of topics that have appeared so far this year:

• Eating in the Lab: A Recipe for Disaster – To summarize–Don’t.
• Pregnant and Safe in the Lab – Suggestions for teachers and students
• Anger Management – What to do with unacceptable student behavior in the lab.
• Safety in Videos – What to do with a video clip in which participants are usually potentially dangerous practices (such as not wearing appropriate eyewear)?
• Acknowledging Safety in Physics — Safety acknowledgment forms alert students and their parents or guardians that the lab is a dangerous place in which they must follow safety protocols (and not just physics!)
• Safety to the Wind – Are your science labs properly ventilated?
• Choosing Biological Stains Carefully – Some traditional stains should be reevaluated for safety and health issues.
• Shining a Light on Laser Safety – Check your local and state regulations, too.
• Earth Science Safety: It’s All in Your Form – Safety issues apply to all classes.
• Wave Warnings – Suggestions for classes studying light, sound, and wave energy.

If you’re looking for a science department discussion topic, take your pick! For more on safety topics, go to NSTA’s SciLinks and use “safety” as the keyword.
Graphic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/epicfireworks/3646350410

Patterns…cause and effect: mechanism and explanation…scale, proportion, and quantity…systems and system models…energy and matter: flows, cycles, and conservation…structure and function…stability and change…
How does your science and engineering teaching involve concepts that cut across many science disciplines and are central to the K-12 Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)?
These seven crosscutting concepts are presented in the document that framed the NGSS, A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas (NRC 2012) and were previously identified in some form in Science for All Americans (AAAS 1989), Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS 1993), National Science Education Standards (NRC 1996), and NSTA’s Science Anchors Project (NSTA Press 2010).
The seven crosscutting concepts presented in Chapter 4 of the Framework are as follows:
1. Patterns. Observed patterns of forms and events guide organization and classification, and they prompt questions about relationships and the factors that influence them.
2. Cause and effect: Mechanism and explanation. Events have causes, sometimes simple, sometimes multifaceted. A major activity of science is investigating and explaining causal relationships and the mechanisms by which they are mediated. Such mechanisms can then be tested across given contexts and used to predict and explain events in new contexts.
3. Scale, proportion, and quantity. In considering phenomena, it is critical to recognize what is relevant at different measures of size, time, and energy and to recognize how changes in scale, proportion, or quantity affect a system’s structure or performance.
4. Systems and system models. Defining the system under study—specifying its boundaries and making explicit a model of that system—provides tools for understanding and testing ideas that are applicable throughout science and engineering.
5. Energy and matter: Flows, cycles, and conservation. Tracking fluxes of energy and matter into, out of, and within systems helps one understand the systems’ possibilities and limitations.
6. Structure and function. The way in which an object or living thing is shaped and its substructure determine many of its properties and functions.
7. Stability and change. For natural and built systems alike, conditions of stability and determinants of rates of change or evolution of a system are critical elements of study.
These science and engineering concepts are part of early childhood learning. Early childhood educators teach their students to make patterns—ABAB, AABAAB, ABCABC—and to observe patterns—the sky is cloudy when it is raining, day follows night follows day, most leaves are green. We help our students investigate causes of events—pouring for a long time may overflow a container, the isopod/pillbug rolls up when touched, the playdough dries up when the lid is left open.


 
 
 
 
Children are beginning to learn about measurement of time and objects through experiences in early childhood, and learn about systems as varied as magnetic train and track sets and pollinators’ relationship with flowering plants. Caring for living organisms such as bean plants and fish teaches children that they need food (energy) of some kind to survive. Another early experience with energy is feeling the warmth of sunlight on their skin and feeling cooler in the shade. Building blocks, a staple of kindergartens since they were first organized, provide children with many experiences with stability. Pairing blocks with a ramp opens the door to exploring how changes in ramp position affect the motion of objects moving down the ramp. Making a change in matter through cooking is another way children explore change in the early years.


 
 
 
 
 
Our conversations and discussion with children can help them make connections as we ask them to tell us what they are thinking and how they came to that understanding.
The editors of the National Science Teachers Association’s elementary journal, Science and Children, put out a call for papers on the topic of crosscutting concepts for journal issues in the 2014-2015 school year.
How are children in your program expanding their understanding of these concepts that cut across the different areas of science? The deadlines to submit your manuscript are March 1-November 1, 2014. I’m looking forward to learning from you!

This April, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) will feature a special strand “Leading From the Classroom” at our 2014 National Conference on Science Education, in Boston, April 3–6.
Can you be a classroom teacher and a leader? Yes! You grow professionally throughout your career, and as you do, you see opportunities to improve science education. If you’re like other great science teachers, you may think your only career path leads out of the classroom. But as seasoned NSTA members know, there are many ways you can take on a leadership role while doing what you love–teaching science in the classroom. This strand addresses the skills and opportunities for developing your leadership capacity while continuing to serve as an effective classroom teacher.
Sessions organized around this strand include a featured presentation on Friday, April 4, 8:00–9:00 AM (“The NRC Framework and the NGSS: An Opportunity for Teacher Growth and Leadership”) by Arthur Eisenkraft (Distinguished Professor of Science Education, Professor of Physics, and Director of the Center of Science and Math in Context, UMass: Boston, MA). More sessions on Leading From the Classroom include the following:

• Preparing for the Future: Developing Science Teacher Leaders
• Opening Up Your Door: Fostering Teacher-led Communities of Inquiry and Collaboration
• Becoming Teacher Leaders Through Curriculum Development: Collaborating to Design and Implement the Science Youth Action Research Curriculum
• Teachers and STEM Education Policy
• Building Teacher Capacity: The Role of Science Leader-Teachers
• Science Education Fellowship Program: Supporting District Cohorts of Science Teacher Leaders
• How to Effectively Implement a Curricular Review as a Teacher Leader
• Teachers Developing as Leaders: A Panel Discussion
• Analyzing Student Work for Language Structures That Support Conceptual Understanding
• Teacher Leaders in the RESTEP to STEM
• Developing Teachers into Master Educators and Leaders: National Board Certification
• Who Me? Yes, YOU! How to Become a Teacher Leader
• Making the Case for Elementary Science Specialists
• Professional Development: Capturing the Trends, Practices, and Research to Strengthen Teaching and Learning
• Partners in Learning and Leading: Teacher Residencies in a Science Museum
• To Lead from the Classroom, Get Out of the Classroom!
• Streamline to Mastery: A Model for STEM Professional Development
• SILT (Science Instructional Leadership Teams): A Model of Student Work Analysis to Improve Teacher Practice
• Levels of Leadership for Teachers in Educator-based Organizations: An Example from the Pennsylvania Earth Science Teachers Association
• Collaborative Capacity Building for Next Generation Science Teacher-Leaders

Want more? Check out more sessions and other events with the Boston Session Browser/Personal Scheduler.

Lindsey Vonn—probably the closest to a household name as any winter Olympian. Sadly, we won’t be able to see her defend her women’s downhill gold medal in Sochi due to her ACL injury. But you can find out a bit more of the back story in Injury & Recovery, one of ten videos in the latest installment of NBC Learn’s Emmy Award-winning “Science of Sports” series—Science & Engineering of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Partnering with NSF, the videos reveal how key engineering and science concepts, as well as cutting-edge technology, play an integral part in each athlete’s sport. Of course, NSTA is providing connected lesson plans to make your STEM efforts cutting-edge as well.
The videos provide you with several “jumping off” places, and you’ll find a timeline at the beginning of each lesson plan that steps you through the action. Then, scan through the Injury & Recovery Integration Guide for suggestions of where you can tap into the video as one of your resources. Take a look at the Inquiry Guide too, for suggestions of hands-on investigations into both science and engineering design concepts.
Find the series, available cost-free, on www.NBCLearn.com and www.science360.gov. Leave a comment. We’d love to hear your reactions!
Image of Lindsey Vonn training in Vail, CO, in November 2011 courtesy of Snow Buzz.
Video
Injury & Recovery discusses the occurrence of knee injuries in downhill skiing and an innovative new technology to repair one type of knee injury: anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) damage.
Lesson Plans
Injury & Recovery Integration Guide spells out the STEM in the video and gives you mini-activities and ideas for research, teamwork, projects, and interdisciplinary connections.
Injury & Recovery Inquiry Guide models a science inquiry focused on the function and structure of the knee joint AND an engineering design inquiry focused on making and testing a bracing system for knee joints.
You can use the following form to e-mail us edited versions of the lesson plans: [contact-form 2 “ChemNow]

This month’s guest editorials address the theme of science for ALL students:

• NGSS Case Studies: All Standards, All Students includes a table that highlights effective strategies for various demographic groups of students. The editorial also describes case studies that reflect the implementation of NGSS in real classrooms. These are worth a read. http://www.nextgenscience.org/appendix-d-case-studies
• Making a Difference describes some of the challenges of meeting the needs of all students in an elementary science class. Students with special needs or disabilities will need modifications to business as usual, and the article lists some research-supported effective practices such as adaptive materials for physically-challenged students, hands-on learning, well-designed heterogeneous grouping for cooperative activities.

For some of out students “hands-on” can be a challenge. The authors of Let’s Get Physical* show how they adapted two elementary science investigations (egg drop and plant growth) to include accommodations and suggestions for students with cognitive, physical, and sensory disabilities so they could fully participate. The suggestions could apply to any grade level and activity! [SciLinks: Learners with Disabilities]
Kindergarten students find out What’s the Weather Like Today?* with lesson ideas and strategies designed to reach students of all abilities. Focusing on wind patterns, students gather and chart data. Eventually they also collect and chart data on temperature and precipitation. The authors describe how the lesson uses trade books and can be adapted for students who use assistive technologies or have visual impairments. Watching the Wind* features several trade books and lessons that help children focus on what the wind can do so they can understand that wind has power and can be used to simply blow items around (K-2) or generate wind power through building windmills (3-5). The lessons include links online resources and connections to Common Core and [SciLinks: Winds, Weather]

Students come to our classrooms with varied experiences to build on: cultural backgrounds, ELL, reading level, learning preferences, age, and a range of abilities. Assessment for All discusses how formative assessment probes can address all students and ways teachers can adapt them to meet the diverse needs within their own classrooms.
Watching the Wind* features several trade books and lessons that help children focus on what the wind can do so they can understand that wind has power and can be used to simply blow items around (K-2) or generate wind power through building windmills (3-5). The lessons include links online resources and connections to Common Core and [SciLinks: Winds]
NGSS for English Language Learners* addresses the question of how to get ELL students to engage in scientific argumentation. When a lesson did not go as intended, the authors revised their thinking with reflection on NGSS goals, planning and practice in designing a lesson on forest ecosystems.
Most teachers appreciated the role of visualization in learning. The authors of The Power of Multimodal Representations* share research findings on the effectiveness of visual supports with students with learning disabilities and with emotional or behavioral disorders. They provide several examples of concept maps and student-generated drawings and photographs. The article also includes a template for a claims-and-evidence discussion
Do you have a family night or similar event for students and parents? The authors of Culture Matters in Science Education* describe a multicultural “festival” that engaged students, parents, and the community. The article also discusses the concept of “culturally relevant teaching” in terms of the diverse ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious backgrounds of students.
Using the school yard as a resource and building on their prior experiences, students investigated renewable and nonrenewable resources as described in Learning Science in Cultural Context*.
This month’s Early Years column, Shape Exploration: Another Dimension* has suggestions for young scientists to explore three-dimensional shapes.
*And check out more Connections  or this issue (January 2014). Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, there are ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, and other resources.