JoinGetting ready for college chemistry
By Debra Shapiro
Posted on 2011-10-21
photo by Bret Brookshire
Why are these Texas high school students from the ChemBridge Program smiling?
Perhaps it’s because they’re taking a course that lets them earn college chemistry credit and high school science credit. Perhaps it’s also because they’re visiting Freshman Research Initiative science labs at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin. UT developed ChemBridge for students in high schools that are underrepresented in postsecondary institutions, to acquaint them with its college chemistry program.
Find out how ChemBridge is helping both students and their teachers succeed in chemistry in this NSTA Reports story.
photo by Bret Brookshire
A New Reason to Visit the Library
By Debra Shapiro
Posted on 2011-10-20
photo by Michelle Sixta
They say “everything old is new again”: The time-honored practice of seed saving is taking a new twist, with seed-lending libraries springing up around the country. California middle school teacher Rebecca Newburn started one at her public library–and helped her students start a seed-lending library at her school. She’ll tell you how seed saving can help you integrate science in your curriculum in this NSTA Reports story.
photo by Michelle Sixta
Catch sessions on Framework and Science Standards in Hartford
By Cindy Workosky
Posted on 2011-10-20
Greetings … Interested in learning more about NRC’s Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards now in development, catch one of the many sessions slated for the Hartford Regional Conference.
Featured Panel: Stephen Pruitt, Achieve, and Francis Eberle, NSTA
Thursday, October 27
12:30–1:30 PM
Connecticut Convention Center, Ballroom A
A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Helen Quinn, NRC Study Director
Friday, October 28
12:30–1:30 PM
Connecticut Convention Center, Ballroom A
Exploring the Science Framework; Harold Pratt and Francis Eberle, NSTA
FRIDAY, October 28 (CORRECTION)
2:00–3:00 PM
Connecticut Convention Center, Ballroom A
If you need more information on the conference, click here.
Greetings … Interested in learning more about NRC’s Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards now in development, catch one of the many sessions slated for the Hartford Regional Conference.
Featured Panel: Stephen Pruitt, Achieve, and Francis Eberle, NSTA
Thursday, October 27
12:30–1:30 PM
Connecticut Convention Center, Ballroom A
Effective meetings
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2011-10-19
I recently became the science department chairperson. My meetings are a disaster! People arrive late and complain when I try to discuss issues. I don’t think we accomplish anything. What can I do to make meetings more productive?
—Irene from Wisconsin
As a new chairperson, you may run into some resistance from teachers used to an existing format (or lack of one) for faculty meetings. Their resistance often results in off-task behaviors that interfere with your goals. We teachers complain there’s little opportunity to collaborate, yet without any structure, faculty meetings often become gripe and gossip sessions. If meetings in previous years were seen as a waste of time, you may have to be persistent to let people know that things are going to be different—and then make sure they are different.
Send out an agenda a few days in advance and send a copy to the principal. Use e-mail or an attachment to the agenda to communicate information items so the meeting time can be spent more productively. Rather than a bulleted list of agenda items, phrase them in the form of a question for your colleagues to consider. For example, instead of “Safety,” ask, “What do you do to ensure that students work safely in your lab?”
Be respectful of people’s time. For afterschool meetings, give your colleagues a few minutes to tidy up their classrooms, but start and end the meeting at the designated times. Follow the agenda (unless the discussion becomes really interesting or productive). Set aside a few minutes to recognize new issues or other concerns but use the “parking lot” idea for those that could or should be addressed at another time. Celebrate any of your colleague’s successes or accomplishments, too. (One of my principals would give out posters, tote bags, or other goodies he picked up at conferences as door prizes at meetings. Some thought it was trivial, but most of us appreciated his efforts). Some treats at the end of a long day may sweeten the meeting atmosphere.
Rather than giving advice or mandates as the department chair, ask questions to start discussions: “What happens when…? Have you ever tried…? Did you notice that…?” Get to know the curriculum and standards for areas of science in addition to your own so you can ask meaningful questions and help others make connections among subjects. The cooperative learning strategies you use in class (e.g., jigsaw or think-pair-share) could be modified for small-group discussions at your meetings. And listen to your colleagues. Sometimes they just need to think out loud. However, if someone tries to sidetrack the meeting, return to the agenda.
It may be helpful if the meetings have a theme or purpose. Perhaps the teachers would be willing to use meeting time for tasks such as developing a safety contract, creating rubrics for student work, or establishing guidelines for notebooks or science projects. These activities may take more than one meeting to accomplish and can be standing items on the agenda. Introducing new technology or applications and providing time for teachers to work together with them can also be productive. But you don’t have to do this all yourself. Are any of your colleagues willing to demonstrate technology or share instructional strategies with the rest of the group.
At the end of the meeting, ask each participant to submit an exit slip with any comments, commendations, or recommendations. Send meeting minutes to all members of the department and to the principal to keep him/her in the loop.
It may take a while for teachers to adapt to a new format outside of their comfort zone, so give yourself (and them) some time.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecogh/3479000511/sizes/s/in/photostream/
I recently became the science department chairperson. My meetings are a disaster! People arrive late and complain when I try to discuss issues. I don’t think we accomplish anything. What can I do to make meetings more productive?
—Irene from Wisconsin
Move it! Motion and forces
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2011-10-17
Click here for the Table of Contents
The topic of motion and forces would be in my Top 10 list of topics in which students benefit from hands-on investigations, simulations, and videos. Students of any age (K–12 and even college) enjoy rolling, sliding, dropping, and flying things. It’s one thing to focus on mathematical formulas in physics (as my college physics courses did) but I might have learned more if I had the chance in earlier grades to manipulate and visualize the processes.
The articles in this issue have many suggestions for manipulations and visualizations. Although designed for younger students, the activities can certainly be used with older students who are unfamiliar with the topics or kicked up a notch or two for experienced students. Pushes and Pulls includes a probe you can use to assess students’ (mis)conceptions on the topic.
With all of the electronic pastimes available today, children are unfamiliar with some classic toys that illustrate motion and forces. Objects in Motion describes how spinning tops can engage students in conversations about movement. (Am I showing my age by remembering Slinky, yo-yos, and hula hoops as ways of experimenting with motion?) [SciLinks: What Are Forces?]
Why don’t rolling objects reach the bottom of an incline at the same time? sounds like a question tailor-made for investigations with a few different kinds of balls and a desk chair that spins. Or the investigation that connects play and science in Let It Roll. How many ways are there to move? is another question worth discussing, using the 5E activity describe in this article. [SciLinks: Friction]
Becoming Science “Experi-mentors” describes a professional development project in which teachers worked together in learning communities to investigate moving objects. I’ve been involved in similar projects, and it is exciting to see teachers become more confident in their own inquiry skills and share their learning with their students. The project used simple materials and focused on developing a sense of collegial curiosity on the part of the teachers. [SciLinks: Forces and Motion]
Interdisciplinary activities can be used to make connections with the theme, too. The Art and Science of Notebooks ties into some of the ideas in this month’s Science Scope and its theme of Science and Art. Inquiry Science and Active Reading caught my eye, because reading in science has been a professional interest of mine since my grad school days. The authors describe how to use a modification of the cloze procedure in which students work in teams to develop and use skills in comprehension, inference, and interpretation of science text.
A Balancing Act contains activities for primary and upper elementary students on the topics of balance and center of gravity. The authors of May the Force Be With You describe a 5E lesson in which students make and use a simple tool to investigate net forces. [SciLinks: Balanced and Unbalanced Forces]
The classrooms described in this issue appear to be busy places with engaged students. Isn’t it a shame that more students are not encouraged to explore their world through play?
And check out more Connections for this issue (October 2011). 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.
Click here for the Table of Contents
Not your typical science fair
By Debra Shapiro
Posted on 2011-10-17
photo by Brian Dunkley
It may look like a science fair, but the Invention Convention at Crosby Middle School is much more. The event at this Louisville, Kentucky, school is the climax of a three-month unit that takes sixth graders through the process of creating an invention while showing them the real-world aspects of science, math, reading, and writing. Science teacher Brian Dunkley describes the process in this NSTA Reports story.
photo by Brian
Meaningful feedback
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2011-10-14
Our department chair is encouraging us to add comments to student writing assignments. This sounds time-consuming; I have more than 100 students in my Earth science classes. Would students even read my comments on lab reports or term papers?
—Steve, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
When students don’t understand the purpose of their assignments, they may think of them as something that happens so teachers can assign a grade at the end of a marking period. The type of feedback they get may reinforce this misconception. If all students see are red checkmarks, circles around misspelled words, and a “grade” at the top of the page, it is understandable when they put the paper into their notebooks without paying much attention.
Students may appreciate positive signs such as a generic smiley face or “Nice work” at the top of the paper. But it sounds like your department chair is focusing on informative feedback to help student recognize quality work and learn how to improve their writing.
Feedback should focus on what specifically the student did well, point out where the student may have made errors or demonstrated incomplete thinking, or discuss how the student could improve. With more than 100 students, it would indeed be overwhelming to write a detailed analysis for each student. Rubrics can be used to provide feedback, showing students how they performed on components of the task.
A personal remark or specific suggestions from the teacher can also be helpful to students. For each assignment, you could decide on a part of the task to focus on—the conclusion, the data tables, the graphs or diagrams, the description of the procedure, data analysis. Skim through the papers to get a general sense or patterns in the writing. Then focus your comments in this area.
Eventually, you’ll develop comments that can be personalized to various projects:
- Sammy, I can see how you’ve supported your conclusion with evidence from the lab.
- Using a diagram to compare and contrast plant and animal cells was a great idea, Rosa. It helped me to understand what you observed.
- Your explanation was very clear and included three supporting reasons.
- I don’t understand what you mean in this paragraph. Could you please clarify?
- Allen, you have some creative ideas that show a lot of imagination.
- The procedure seems to be missing a few steps. Please revise it to show all of the steps.
Should you provide feedback or comments on grammar and spelling? It’s common for rubrics to have an “effective communications” criterion that includes conventions, spelling, and legibility. But in looking at students’ writing in science, feedback on the content of the response and the use of inquiry skills should be more important considerations. You could spend hours trying to edit student work, highlighting and correcting every error in spelling, usage, or punctuation. But an overabundance of corrections could discourage students from writing. You could certainly ask students to revise for the basics of standard grammar and usage and correct spelling of words that are essential to the unit (those on the word wall or in their notebooks). But you will have to make exceptions for students who are learning English or who have disabilities affecting their writing.
Do students remember a teacher’s comments? I did not consider myself a writer in high school. I did what was expected on writing assignments, and my work was often returned with comments such as “Well done” on it. This generic comment did not do much to change my attitude about writing. In my senior math class, the teacher assigned a term paper (what was she thinking—a term paper in math?). I chose the topic of projective geometry and perspective, which I found fascinating. When I got the paper back, I looked at the grade, but what I remember most is Sister Raphael’s comment: “Your paper is so interesting, I put down my pencil and read it again for pure pleasure. Thank you.” That comment meant more to me than any “A” I ever received and changed my attitude about writing. If you’re wondering if your comments will have any effect, I still have the paper in my file cabinet more than 40 years later, and as a teacher I followed her example of providing feedback.
Photograph: http://www.flickr.com/photos/judybaxter/3310525306/
Our department chair is encouraging us to add comments to student writing assignments. This sounds time-consuming; I have more than 100 students in my Earth science classes. Would students even read my comments on lab reports or term papers?
—Steve, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Young children using microscopes to see more
By Peggy Ashbrook
Posted on 2011-10-13
Hypolimnas misippus butterfly head photo by Muhammad Mahdi Karim
Magnifiers and microscopes can reveal small details that children otherwise might not notice. I would love to have a digital microscope in the classroom so children could really see the head of an insect such as a butterfly.
No happy face, no smile, no eyes with pupils and eyelashes but many other interesting structures —setae (hair), eyes, antennae, palpi (mouth parts), and proboscis (tongue-like organ for drinking nectar). For close-ups of an adult butterfly’s tiny body parts, see Monarch Watch’s Biology page.
I think it is useful for children to be able to both tell a story with their drawings—a butterfly with a happy face on a yummy flower—and to draw scientifically, as accurately as developmentally possible.
Display boxes make it easier to get a close up look.
I have a collection of dead insects and others (anything small enough with mostly hard body parts that easily dry out). The children can look closely with a hand lens to see how ‘it really looks” without concern for themselves or for hurting a live animal.
If you raise and release butterflies, or see them in the schoolyard, have your students talk about where the butterflies are going next and what they might do. Encourage them to be as silly or scientific as they like. When they go with scientific, ask them for evidence, such as, “What do you notice that suggests the butterfly is looking for food?”
Have magnifiers or digital microscopes supported student discovery in your classroom? I’ll post images taken by your students using digital technology or other magnifiers–no children in the photos. Peggy, science is simple at yahoo dot com (no spaces).
Hypolimnas misippus butterfly head photo by Muhammad Mahdi Karim
Instructional time
By Francis Eberle
Posted on 2011-10-11
NSTA Executive Director Francis Eberle
Now that the school year is into full swing and students are settling into the routines of the school day, I was thinking about the concept of time. During a recent meeting about exemplary schools this question was asked: Are the models of exemplary schools where educators are willing to put in 60–80 hours a week really achievable or scalable models that can be accomplished in a normal work week?
A “normal” work week is different for most people. I know I don’t put in a normal work day and I suspect many teachers do not either. Should we count the contracted hours or the actual hours we put in during the day, evening and weekends?
As a benchmark of comparison on instructional time I looked at the data in the 2009 PISA report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The international mean total learning hours and allocation of learning time for science per week is 2.99 hours. The United States mean is 3.51 hours per week. Countries that had more time include the United Kingdom (at 4.25 hours per week) New Zealand (at 4.06 hours per week), Canada (at 4.00 hours per week), and Korea (at 3.58 hours per week. The other 25 countries were either the same or less than U.S. A couple of countries that surprised me were Germany (at 3.06 hours per week), Japan (at 2 .27 hours per week) and the Netherlands(at 2.17 hours per week).
The U.S. seems to be at near the higher end for instructional time. What about you? Do you have enough instructional time? Is the instructional time more or less than previous years? How does it compare to these other countries? Is the idea of an extended school day or an extended school year one that would give you more time to teach and think?
One last question, which is just as important—do you have time to think about your work or are you just running? Let me know how it is going this year.
NSTA Executive Director Francis Eberle
Science and art
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2011-10-10
Click here for the Table of Contents
I must say that I really enjoyed this issue. Helping students see the connections and relationships between science and other subjects and interests is a wonderful part of being a teacher. Illustrations, diagrams, field sketches, photographs, videography, and performances are relevant ways for students to explore connections between science and art and authentic opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of concepts. And the arts should definitely be considered a core content area, not an “extra” to be cut from the budget.
One of my fondest memories of my middle school teaching days was working in collaboration with the art teacher (who sadly passed away a few years ago). He would have enjoyed Avenues for Inspiration: Integrating the life and work of nature artists into middle school science. The article describes the works of four nature artists (including Maria Sibylla Merian, John James Audubon, Wilson A. “Snowflake” Bentley, and Andy Goldsworthy) with links to more on these and others (such as Ansel Adams). The authors include a rubric for student art projects. [SciLinks: Snowflakes]
My colleague would also have enjoyed Enhancing Science Education Through Art (with Seurat as the illustration). Rather than a single lesson or activity, the author discusses the relationship between art and science in terms of characteristics such as creativity, curiosity, the use of tools, and using visuals as communication. There is a section on using art for assessment (not only the visual arts, but also video, music, and performance).
The NSTA listserves sometimes have requests from teachers asking for songs that will help students remember facts, definitions, or other concepts. Learning Science Using Music describes a teacher’s efforts to create songs to help students learn through music. These can be very powerful – I still remember rules for Latin grammar from songs that Sister Euphemia taught us in class. Perhaps it would be even more relevant (and creative) for students to create the songs?
Designing solutions for problems is another form of creativity. Two articles describe activities and investigations that foster that kind of creativity: Charcoal—Can It Corral Chlorine? [SciLinks: Water Quality, Water Pollution and Conservation] and Environmental Literacy Through Relationships: Connecting Biomes and Society in a Sustainable City [SciLinks: Biomes, Sustainable Development]
Are you looking for ideas for interdisciplinary activities? Art in Motion: A Sailboat Regatta has resources for a 5E lesson. Apps for Ancient Civilizations sounds anachronistic, but students would have some fun creating tools based on current technology. I know a social studies teacher I’m going to share this with! Creating a smART Camp has suggestions for summer enrichment or a club.
Science is full of beautiful images, from living things to microscopic views to the solar system. The illustration of the earth’s magnetic field that accompanies the activities in Polar Misunderstandings: Earth’s Dynamic Dynamo is such an image. [SciLinks: Magnetic Fields] I had a high school colleague who insisted that the students needed a “unit” on the microscope. It didn’t matter that in elementary and middle school students had many experiences with microscopes; they still had to go through labeling diagrams and taking a quiz on the parts. Making Art with Microscopes shows how to integrate learning about the microscope with the purposeful goal of observing and learning about cells. [SciLinks: Microscope]
Websites and trade books have many suggestions for arts-and-crafts science activities, but I wonder how students make the connection between the activity and the concept. For example, I visited a class where 5th-grade students were making bracelets out of beads following a pattern based on DNA molecules. They enjoyed the activity, but I’m not quite sure what science concepts they were learning. I’m hoping the teacher helped them to see the connections in a later class.
SciLinks has collections of websites with background information and activities related to several other articles in this issue: Trash Talk: How to Compost Safely [SciLinks: Composting], Comet Watch [SciLinks: Comets]
On a seasonal note, The Halloween Lab has suggestions for activities related to oobleck, slime, and bubbling cauldrons.
Click here for the Table of Contents