I’d like to try hands-on labs with my fourth graders, but I’m worried they’ll make mistakes. I guess I’m afraid they won’t learn the concepts if they don’t get the right answers. Is there a way to make the activities fool-proof? I’m a first year teacher.
—Melissa, Murfreesboro, Tennessee
If you scripted the procedures down to minutest details, hovered over the students, and intervened immediately when students were on the verge of doing something differently, you might get everyone to come up with the same correct, fool-proof results. But you’ll be exhausted from doing most of the work, and the students will learn that science is about following directions and watching the teacher. This style of teacher-centered activity doesn’t exemplify the real nature of science as wondering, investigating, questioning, data collecting, and analyzing.
As teachers, we want our students to be successful, but we have to let go a bit and let students work on their own (of course, if anything dangerous is about to happen we must intervene immediately). Science activities can be messy and unpredictable, especially with more than 20 students, but it’s possible for class time to be used productively and with a minimum of chaos.
You could start with a few simple investigations to learn about the experience levels of your students. Try the activities yourself ahead of time to determine what materials are necessary, what safety issues could arise, and approximately how much time to provide. It helps to have or develop class routines for lab activities and to organize materials so students know where to find them.
Two words should guide your own behavior: model and monitor.

Model the behaviors you expect of students: questioning, accuracy, organization, following class routines and safety guidelines, enthusiasm, and cooperative learning roles. Monitor the students as they work, but don’t do the work for them. For example, if you see students measuring inaccurately or using equipment incorrectly, show them how to do it and then watch as they do it again themselves. Ask students to explain what they’re doing before offering your advice. If they are deviating from the procedure, guide them back (or let them go, if they’re thinking creatively outside of the box).
It’s important for you and your students to view mistakes or unanticipated outcomes not as abject failures but as learning opportunities. As I noted in a previous blog, during a fourth grade class I visited, students were investigating the relationship between volume and temperature. They had made their predictions, but as the teacher, Mrs. M., put their data on the board, it was apparent that the results were too varied for the students to see any trends and come to any conclusions. As Mrs. M. tried to think of an explanation, a student remarked, “Maybe we didn’t all do the experiment in the same way.” Other students offered suggestions: they may have read the thermometers incorrectly, perhaps they did not all measure the balloons accurately, or maybe some of the balloons had tiny holes in them that allowed some air to escape. The teacher then joined in the discussion about the importance of controls in an experiment and the value of consistency and accuracy in measurement. When the students asked if they could repeat the experiment, Mrs. M. helped them annotate the procedure with their suggestions so they could try again. After class, she reflected on the lesson. She said at first she was disappointed the activity did not work out as planned, but she was excited about the way the students responded. She concluded that learning from a “failed” experiment was a valuable experience—the students took ownership in the activity beyond getting a correct answer.
I still stay in touch with Mrs. M. and we both agree: if we had a dime for each class in which something unexpected happened, we’d both be in a much higher tax bracket! But the enjoyable experiences with our students are priceless.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elycefeliz/4448688868/sizes/q/in/photostream/

The tablet computer like the iPad can be a magic box of inquiry. For instance, it has a camera, and in particular a front facing camera. Why that is important is because students can manipulate objects on the camera and collectively view the results. And of course you can, with the touch of a finger, record the image for later use. Or even take a video.
To get started, here is a short list of five things to put on an iPad camera:

1. A prism. A prism “bends” light, and when placed on an iPad camera, the camera sees at a right angle. If the prism is centered, you have half the view in one direction and half in the opposite direction. Sliding the prism more to one side will adjust the view proportionately. The above image show the prism positioned towards the edge of the iPad Mini filling the screen with the hand.

2. Polarizers. A pair of linear polarizers easily demonstrates the effect of cross polarization. When one polarizer is laid over the camera, the other polarizer can be manipulated at a distance from the iPad causing a reduction or blockage of the light reaching the camera. The above image has one polarizer covering the camera, and a second polarizer held above the camera that when rotated allows or filters the amount of visible light.

3. A Spectrometer. Both low and high quality classroom spectrometers can be placed directly over the camera providing a large-screen view of the color spectrum or color bands of various light sources. The image above uses a slit spectrometer. The image below uses a traditional classroom spectrometer. As you can see in the picture, the incomplete spectrum of the fluorescent lights is clearly visible. This is a good example what can be easily photographed.

 

4. Lenses. The effects of convex and concave lenses are obvious when placed at varying distances from the iPad camera. Imagine the assessment potential if you could show a real-time and testable lens effect. In fact, student photos could be the quiz. The above image shows a concave lens while the image below uses a convex lens.

 

5. UV and IR light sources. TV remotes and UV lights might not emit wavelengths the human eye can see (or even safe to look for in the case of UV light), but the iPad camera has no trouble seeing longer and shorter wavelengths of light.  You can also test the penetration of the light by placing things over the light source. The image above is a short wave UV light that produces very little visible light. The iPad camera, however, has no trouble showing the large amount of light emitted by the UV flashlight.
The Best of All Worlds! How about combining the prisms, polarizers, lenses, spectrometers, and the UV and IR light sources into an inquiry based light lab? Sounds like a lot of science fun to me!
What do you think will happen if two crossed polarizers are placed between the UV light and the camera?

While you’re looking forward to winter break, here’s a way you can have fun and do a little bit of science data collecting to contribute to a citizen science project.
The Baby Laughter project would like to know what kinds of things babies find funny. Who are the funniest people? What are the funniest songs, sounds, toys and games? What are the funniest parts of your baby’s daily routine?
Psychologists at Birkbeck Babylab are inviting the public to submit a simple field report describing how you made a baby laugh. They think babies are going to be laughing at things that they are just starting to understand. Your data will help them learn what babies understand at different ages. The report is anonymous, confidential and takes about 15-20 minutes to complete.
This sounds like a great project for families of preschoolers with baby siblings.

As I browse through tweets and Facebook pages, I sometimes feel overwhelmed at the wealth of resources that are available for teaching STEM topics! I’ve learned to skim selectively, looking at some right away and bookmarking others that relate to current projects and curriculum topics or that are versatile and adaptable to a variety of situations. Here are a few that I discovered this month:
50 Education Technology Tools Every Teacher Should Know About – OK, I don’t have the time or energy to master all 50 of these! But the author divides them into four categories: Social Learning, Learning, Lesson Planning and Tools, and other Useful Tools. I was pleased to see that I was familiar with a few in each category, and I’ve added a few more to my “explore these” to-do list.
NASA recently announced its Wavelength Digital Library, a collection of resources for earth and space science education. With Wavelength you can find educator resources including hands-on learning, discussions, guided inquiry, models, and visualizations (more than 600 just for elementary grades!), NASA apps, videos, and images.
NOAA’s Ocean Today website has recently added its 100^th video. These are brief clips that could be used as bellringers or discussion starters. They are embedded in the NOAA site, not as YouTube videos. If you don’t have time to preview them all yourself, this could be a task for students to “preview and review”!
And from NOAA’s Environmental Visualization Laboratory: The 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season in 4.5 Minutes. It’s fascinating to watch the movement patterns of clouds, and hang on for the 3:36 time when Hurricane Sandy first appears. This NOAA site has many other animations and photographs.
If your students are eager to add music to their presentations and online projects (along with the visuals), check with you technology coordinator for the latest in copyright guidelines for sound files. Students also discover that the cool songs this week might sound “lame” a few weeks later! So you might want to show them some sources of “timeless” music they can use without worrying about copyright limitations. Two that were suggested recently are Royalty-Free Music and Purple Planet. I would still have students document the source of the music, though.

The non-profit Minnesota coalition SciMathMN, published A Guide for Parents: “What Should I Look for in the Science Program in My Child’s School?”
Some of the items apply only to Minnesota but others are useful to families everywhere who want children to get a good science education. The last section, “What can I do to support good science education?” lists eight ways to be involved:

• Learn about and investigate the natural world with your child. You don’t have to know all the answers.
• Instill in your child the belief that he/she can succeed in science and that hard work pays off.
• Encourage your child to read about science and scientists and provide opportunities for them to explore science in your community.
• Learn to recognize a standards-based K-12 science program.
• Talk with your child’s teacher about their needs, concerns, and expectations for students in science.
• Volunteer to help in the classroom during science activities and learn with your child.
• Advocate for the resources necessary for a standards-based K-12 science program.
• Learn about the Minnesota K–12 Science Framework and the Minnesota Graduation Standards in science and how they are used in the school’s science program.

Reading about standards and guidelines for science teaching in early childhood gives me a framework from the research and practice of others. While not holding up any set of standards as “The Best,” I can compare them to my state’s guidelines, those in books, and my own experience. Here are just a few that I’ve looked at:
New Jersey State Department of Education’s Preschool Teaching & Learning Expectations: Standards of Quality (2009) pages 44-50, has Preschool Teaching Practices and Preschool Learning Outcomes for five science standards.
 The Oklahoma Early Learning Guidelines For Children (October 2010) has four science standards, Pages 51-58.
The state of Massachusetts Department of Education lists 26 learning guidelines for Guiding Preschool Learning in Science and Technology/Engineering (Pgs 19-25) in the 2003 publication Guidelines for Preschool Learning Experiences.
What standards and guidelines do you find most helpful?

I participated in a “gallery walk” during a session at an NSTA conference. Would this be appropriate for middle school students?
—Carolyn from Pennsylvania
A gallery walk would be an excellent tool to add to your collection! In a nutshell, a gallery walk is a discussion strategy that engages groups of participants as they examine and respond to a document or artifact. Often these items are displayed on a wall and the participants move as a group from one to the next, hence the name. I suspect electronic tools can be used to display work and accept comments, but I like to get middle-schoolers up and moving!
In one version, groups of students display their work (e.g., a project, poster, graphic, lab results, or a response to a prompt on a large sheet of paper). Then the student groups rotate around the room providing feedback. Each group then reviews and reflects on the comments made on its work. Groups can then make modifications or prepare a summary/presentation.
Another version has groups of students responding to questions or graphics provided by the teacher and adding to the work of others. This can be used as formative assessment or a way to uncover misconceptions
I’ve found several excellent resources on preparing for and conducting gallery walks in the science classroom:

• Gallery Walk
• Promoting Discussion in the Science Classroom Using Gallery Walks (from the 2006 JCST)

I’ve used gallery walks with students and in professional development sessions with teachers, and I’ve learned a few things:

• For students who have never done a gallery walk before, be sure to model the kinds of feedback and group behaviors you expect. If students are asking questions or responding to a teacher prompt in the gallery, add a few of your own as examples of appropriate responses. Show comments that are helpful and lead to good discussions. For example, instead of saying “I like this” or “You did a good job” it’s more helpful to say “This is effective because…” Other constructive comments could start with “We wonder…” or “Did you consider…”

• I had a major blunder with markers bleeding through poster paper onto the classroom wall, so I switched to having students post their comments with sticky notes. This actually worked out well—we used different colors of notes for questions, commendations, and suggestions. This helped the students focus on their comments and helped me to see at a glance the kinds of responses being made.

• Be sure to monitor the students as they participate. You can learn a lot by eavesdropping on their conversations, and you can discourage any “ditto” remarks or inappropriate comments.

• My classes were large (7-8 groups of students). I found that if time was an issue, responding to 3-4 gallery entries provided enough information. I usually gave no more than 3-5 minutes to respond. I numbered the entries so that students could follow them in order to prevent (or at least tone down) the chaos.

• In classrooms where we didn’t have enough wall space, the students put their papers or posters on the desks.

If at first this is not successful, don’t give up. It may take a few times before students understand the purpose and see the value of the activity. Your examples and modeling are important to the success of any new strategy.
 
Photo: http://www.nsta.org/publications/news/story.aspx?id=52391

In addition to sentences and paragraphs, the typical science textbook includes diagrams, photographs, flowcharts, graphs, maps, tables, and sidebars. Many of these (along with animations and videos) are also found in online or electronic resources. All of these visuals are (or should be) correlated with the learning goals: to visually represent the information, to provide additional information, to present information hard to express in words (e.g., maps or diagrams), or to illustrate how concepts are related.
Interpreting visuals as they read informational text can be a challenge for younger or less experienced students. Do your students really understand the purpose of visuals and know how to make sense of them? This issue focuses on ideas for improving students’ visual literacy, starting with Visual Literacy, the Must-Have Skill for the 21st-Century Learner, this month’s guest editorial on the topic.
Many of us have encouraged students to write about science and to create visual representations of vocabulary words in science notebooks and on word walls. [SciLinks: Teaching Strategies, Writing for Science]

• Hats Off to Science describes a project in which students created hats to illustrate a science term. They did a “parade” in the school and presented their work to others. Photographs of the final products are included.
• Sparking Old and New Ideas has ideas for using graphic organizers, as well as a rationale for doing so.
• Interactive Technology Strategies discusses ways to enhance vocabulary learning for English language learners. Many of these would be effective with all students.
• Putting Science Literacy on Display shows how cross-curricular instruction can enhance students’ reading motivation and engagement.

I’ve been in many classrooms where word walls were displayed, many them teacher-created bulletin boards. A Winning Combination: Interactive Word Walls and the Language of Science has ideas to involve students in creating and displaying vocabulary definitions and illustrations. The photographs show the students’ work–it’s obvious that students had ownership in the displays. [SciLinks: Literacy Skill]
In addition to interpreting and using visuals, another part of visual literacy is creating visuals to communicate. Drawing Out the Artist in Science Students shows how teachers can help students create “sci-a-grams” to describe, explain, and demonstrate their understanding. The authors provide examples and suggestions for instruction and modeling. Drawing Movement has suggestions for helping younger students describe through drawings what they know or are learning  [SciLinks: Forces and Motion]
Soil Science in the Digital Age describes an investigation in which kindergarten students record, draw, analyze their data on soil composition and the organisms that live in soil. I enjoyed seeing examples of student work, and I suspect that playing in the dirt is a new experience for many of our students! The author includes links to the resources used. [SciLinks: What Is Soil?, Soil Layers]
Birthday Candles: Visually Representing Ideas is this month’s Formative Assessment Probe. What do your students understand about light transmission and vision? [SciLinks: Light, Properties of Light]
Many of these articles have extensive resources to share, so check out the Connections for this issue (November 2012). 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.
More blog entries related to  visual literacy in science.

This month’s topic for Continuing the Conversation focuses on discussing your favorite professional development opportunity that you participated in during your career. These could be online for face to face courses, a seminar, institute, fellowship or workshop—is it still available? How do people apply? Why should they apply?
I have been fortunate in my career—and have traveled to many different locations for professional development opportunities, taken many online classes, and engaged with many outstanding educators and scientists.  In considering my favorite I thought back to conversations with colleagues throughout the years and had many fond memories pop into my head. There are those friends and colleagues I met in Costa Rica while exploring inquiry based instruction within rainforest ecosystems; one of my friends who I spent two weeks with nearly fifteen years ago as part of a NASA NEWMAST workshop in Maryland; as well as the many educators I have met and become connected with at summer institutes or national conferences.  Each experience in itself gave me insight into new pedagogical practices, assisted in developing content expertise as well as building a network of colleagues many of whom I still interact with regularly.  While there are many PD opportunities that I have been involved with throughout the years, in hindsight all of them seem to abide by some of the guidelines and recommendations that have come out in reports in recent years.
These reports provide information on:

• The needed funding for strong professional development for science teachers is supported in a report titled Professional Development in the United States:  Trends and Challenges—Part II of a Three-Phases Study (2010) by the National Staff Development Council. It examines and analyzes results of numerous studies regarding student achievement, professional development, and needs of teachers.
• Two other reports help to illustrate what we know now relating to professional development and the need for sustained, in-depth professional learning opportunities. Does teacher professional development have effects on teaching and learning? Evaluation findings from programs in 14 states,” “Professional learning in the learning profession: A status report on teacher development in the United States and abroad,”
• The Opportunity Equation report recommends that:
• Promote professional learning that engages teachers in data analysis, identification of students’ differentiated learning needs and assessment of school-level interventions.
• Invest in sophisticated online professional development systems that facilitate learning communities and cyber learning by teachers, along with research to enable the improvement of those systems.
• Develop programs that engage teachers in collaborating with scientists, mathematicians, engineers, museum educators and others.

The aspects that my favorite (okay favorites) professional development opportunity incorporated included these three recommendations—and I should state before this report became available. They include the experiences in the Costa Rican Rainforest, the in-depth learning about astrobiology from an online course offered through Montana State University, and a fellowship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories.
So what was your favorite professional development opportunity and why?  Is it still available and how would others apply?
The Leading Edge is a blog that asks those involved in science education leadership whether that be administrators, policy makers, supervisors, state leaders to continue the conversation on something that was presented in the recent issue of The Leaders Letter, an e-newsletter that is a joint project of the National Science Teachers Association and the National Science Educational Leadership Association. To sign up to receive future issues of the Leaders Letter, click here To see archived copies of the e-Newsletter, please click here.

LEGO Education Simple Machines Set is designed for elementary teachers to introduce the concept of Simple Machines to their students in the first through third grade levels. Not only does this activity help to encourage skills needed in the workplace such as communication and teamwork. I remember how fun it was to play with LEGOs when I was a child. So, I was very excited to review this product. The set came with an activity pack with binder, a cd with all of the blackline masters, a plastic storage container, and all the materials to build every model. But, if you were using this in a class, you would need to purchase an activity set for each pair of students. In addition, you would probably want to purchase extra pieces as well. There is a lot of technical jargon that needs to be introduced to the students, but you can rest assure that once you have introduced this particular concept from the Physical Science category, you will most definitely provide an environment that challenges their prior knowledge and introduces them to the use of the creative problem-solving techniques. In addition, the students will have numerous opportunities to communicate new ideas with one another as well. Scientific inquiry skills of the students will be enhanced through the use of the scientific method by the use of the 4C approach: Connect, Construct, Contemplate, and Continue.

            Once the package was received, I opened up the 4 sets of materials and counted each piece according to the element inventory. There were no materials missing at all, with the exception of a few extra pieces. A survey was taken of all materials with the use of the Element Survey. I would recommend the teacher buy additional pieces, if at all possible, in order to have each model made for the students to use as a reference point when completing the Principle Models activity. The activity pack with the binder allows the teacher to obtain background information for each type of simple machine, such as, gears, wheels and axles, levers and pulleys. Each activity contained an overview for the teacher and images for classroom use. The images are great to use, especially if you have additional technology within your classroom for presentation of a new lesson. Principle models provided the students with an opportunity to build each model and compare and contrast the materials and how each functions. Observation skills of each student can be increased with the additional concepts that followed gears. There were Main Activities which helped to connect and/or bridge that gap from the classroom to the student to the real world relevancy.

            The Problem-Solving Activity was progressively more challenging than all the previous activities due to the fact that it allowed the students to reach farther than just was written on the student handout, but it allows you the opportunity to critically think and work within a group to solve problem. I can see students relating to this very well and becoming more and more engaged in the concept of simple machines. It is fun, challenging, exciting and it also leaves you with the feeling of wanting to do more with the LEGOs and find more opportunities to incorporate them in your classroom. This is most definitely a product that I would recommend because of the challenging environment that is full of activities that are fun and can bridge that gap of concepts learned in class and how they relate to their everyday lives. It also influences students and exposes them to career paths in the sciences. This product creates a common ground for all students to learn and have fun doing it.