On their walk home from school, twins Jane and Jim explore why sounds can be startling (like sirens), soothing (like music), or mysterious (like eerie creaking in an empty house). By coming along, young readers of What Makes Different Sounds? can learn as the twins do. They’ll be introduced to the roles vibration, pitch, and volume play in how rustles, rumbles, and rat-a-tat-tats are made and transferred to their own ears.
On their walk home from school, twins Jane and Jim explore why sounds can be startling (like sirens), soothing (like music), or mysterious (like eerie creaking in an empty house). By coming along, young readers of What Makes Different Sounds? can learn as the twins do. They’ll be introduced to the roles vibration, pitch, and volume play in how rustles, rumbles, and rat-a-tat-tats are made and transferred to their own ears.
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2012-10-14
A system is more than a collection—each component is related to others, and changing one component affects the others. The featured articles in this issue describe how students can learn systems thinking (as well as content concepts).
The authors of Modeling Earth’s Climate describe a model that shows the interdependence and complexity of the components that affect climate. The suggested computer model (the URL is provided) lets students study feedback loops and test their hypotheses. [SciLinks: Global Warming and Global Climate Change]
Why Do I Crave That Cookie? is a question I often ask myself (although usually in the plural). The authors of this article have designed a set of activities in which students explore the relationships among body systems. A set of questions that drive the unit is suggested—for example: How do I know I’m hungry? Where is the cookie? What happens to food in my stomach? How do nutrients get to other parts of the body? This makes more sense than the typical lessons on each system. [SciLinks: Body Systems]
A study of introduced species can exemplify what happens when an ecosystem is disturbed with, for example, a species with no native predator. Nonnative, Invasive, Exotic, Oh My! describes a such a study. [SciLinks: Invasive Species]
Classification systems are important in science. Engaging Students in Classifying Matter has ideas for helping students learn chemical and physical changes and properties. [SciLinks: Physical/Chemical Changes]
Many students view computer science as game-playing, without understanding the system behind the applications they use. The activities described in A Computer Story: Complexity from Simplicity use electric circuit construction, digital systems, base-n number systems, and truth tables to examine the decision-making that is the basis of computing. [SciLinks: Electrical Circuits]
All Things Being Equal describes an investigation into factors that affect the equilibrium of a system and includes questions that can be used as an assessment of student understanding. [SciLinks: Chemical Equilibrium, Factors Affecting Equilibrium, Le Châtelier’s Principle]
Scientific Discoveries the Year I Was Born doesn’t exactly address systems thinking, but the activity does show students that science isn’t just something that happened in the time of Galileo or Newton. By researching more recent discoveries and inventions, students can see that science and engineering are not just the domain of old folks. I must admit I looked up events from my birth year, including the use of radiocarbon dating and the first recorded snowfall in Los Angeles.
Don’t forget to look at the Connections for this issue (October 2012), which includes links to the studies cited in the research article. These Connections also have ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, etc.
By Peggy Ashbrook
Posted on 2012-10-13
Atlanta, Georgia is the place to be this November for professional development opportunities at two conferences—the National Science Teachers Association’s area conference November 1-3, and the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s national conference November 7-10.
Atlanta, Georgia is the place to be this November for professional development opportunities at two conferences—the National Science Teachers Association’s area conference November 1-3, and the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s national conference November 7-10.
By Peggy Ashbrook
Posted on 2012-10-11
Pumpkins are beautiful and varied, and so are apples, plus they taste good. No wonder these fall crops are part of early childhood activities in so many programs. Accomplished early childhood teachers don’t just “do” pumpkins—they use pumpkins as a platform for deep learning about a concept, such as life cycle changes in living organisms.
Marie Faust Evitt describes how her students use pumpkins to learn about measurement on the Gryphon House, Inc blog.
“Gourd-ous Decomposition” by Amy Rubenstein, Stacey Cleary, and Christina Siry, in the September 2009 Science and Children, describes an in-depth observation of a pumpkin before and while it decomposes.
Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan, authors of More Picture-Perfect Science Lessons: Using Children’s Books to Guide Inquiry, Grades K–4 write a “Teaching Through Tradebooks: Pumpkins!” column in the October 2008 Science and Children about making observations, asking questions, and designing a simple investigation. (Note that some of the NSTA journal articles are free to all and some require membership. Join the NSTA Learning Center at no cost and search for resources, free or otherwise, and join in the discussions in the forums.)
Here is a song to use while becoming familiar with the feel and heft of pumpkins. Pass around a variety of sizes of pumpkins while singing (to the tune of Way Down Yonder in the Pawpaw Patch)
Pickin up pumpkins, pass em to your neighbor,
Pickin up pumpkins, pass em to your neighbor,
Pickin up pumpkins, pass em to your neighbor,
Way down yonder in the pumpkin patch!
After planting pumpkin seeds, and harvesting pumpkins, your students can learn this chant (with apologies to Laura Joffe Numeroff who inspired this with her book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie):
Pumpkin seeds are usually planted in the spring or summer. Read about parenting and art-making on the Poesies & Rye blog.
Pumpkins are beautiful and varied, and so are apples, plus they taste good. No wonder these fall crops are part of early childhood activities in so many programs. Accomplished early childhood teachers don’t just “do” pumpkins—they use pumpkins as a platform for deep learning about a concept, such as life cycle changes in living organisms.
By Martin Horejsi
Posted on 2012-10-10
Small document cameras, or mini doc cams, are making inroads into many classrooms due to their low cost, USB power, small size, and adaptability. It is the latter feature that makes them especially attractive to science teachers.
One camera in particular is the IPEVO Point 2 View USB document camera. Since the camera connects to a computer, the full projection capabilities of the camera are only limited by the computer it is connected to. Unlike large tabletop document cameras, the IPEVO camera weighs about 60 grams with two thirds of that being the USB cord.
The tradeoff of low cost and light weight often disproportionately hits performance and resolution, but with a few tips and minor concessions, the advantages of the mini doc cam outweighs the disadvantages. But the strongest advantage of the mini doc cams are their portability and simplicity of operation, which in turn can give it an teaching adaptability that tabletop doc cams can only dream of.
As evidence of this, a magnifying lens designed for the Point 2 View camera has been released and for less than $20, students can use a flush surface-focus 2x lens with built-in lighting on mini doc cam.
While 2x might not sound like much given magnifying lenses and loupes are often 4x-20x and microscopes usually begin at 40x, the 2x is a big deal given the lens is almost touching the object under study. Further, when magnifying objects, the technical complications are also magnified including focus, lighting, and stability that in turn can become insurmountable obstacles to usable photography.
For conventional document projecting uses, the mini doc cams can attach to stands that allow them to mimic their tabletop brethren while maintaining their Superman-like ability to morph into a tiny, fast, mobile camera. And the mobility of a laptop is actually accented, not compromised, with a mini doc cam taking microphotography to a new level and into the field.
Here are a couple examples and applications for the camera outside my classroom. Enjoy.
The veins of the leaf are easily visible, and the rich color and good-enough resolution outweighs most shortcomings of a mini doc cam.
Because the camera is USB-powered, portability is limited only to the environment to which you would subject your laptop.
A camera mount included with the Point 2 View was drilled out in order to fit on a tripod adding to the options students have for holding this camera.
The add-on lighted 2x lens allows the camera to focus as close as the surface of the lens housing. That allows the camera to be in contact with the object being photographed adding to the stability of the system.
The adapter designed to hold the Point 2 View on a laptop or desktop monitor was drilled out so it would screw onto a tripod allowing the IPEVO Point 2 View camera to be mounted onto any standard tripod. The mount on the left has been drilled, and the one on the right is unmodified.
The camera with additional lens can be pressed against the subject of study adding stability and simplifying the work the camera/software has to do focusing the image.
This tree bark shows the texture and has depth which is something that a magnification greater than 2x would have missed. The higher the power, the narrower the depth of field, not to mention the sensitivity of movement.
The flexibility of the camera allows it to be hand-held. You can snap a picture using a camera button, or a mouse-click on the computer side. The images are date stamped and dropped into a folder. This picture also highlights both the limits of the depth of field as well as the sharpness of what is in focus. The camera seems to have a center-weighted autofocus preference so the composition of the above image was done through cropping.
Small document cameras, or mini doc cams, are making inroads into many classrooms due to their low cost, USB power, small size, and adaptability. It is the latter feature that makes them especially attractive to science teachers.