Giving students opportunities to explore and observe plants, birds, or bugs on the school grounds or in nearby gardens and parks can bring multiple benefits. The Children & Nature Network highlights research findings that support the positive benefits of environment-based studies on school achievement, citing standardized measures in basic subject areas and other indications that environment-based programs foster cooperative learning and civic responsibility. NSTA Press has a rich collection of resources on easy ways to incorporate outdoor science activities in any green area in your schoolyard or nearby park. Read April’s issue of NSTA’s Book Beat for free lessons about seeds, plants, schoolyard surveys, and “Diary of a seed” writing prompts for students preK through high school.

I’m interested in finding some science assessments to supplement the state tests at the high school level. I’m especially looking for ones that will help me understand students’ thinking.
—Lisa, Fort Myers, Florida
It would be very difficult to find an existing test that matches your curriculum exactly. Some textbooks have test-generators as an option, but the questions and unit topics may not align with your curriculum or match up with your learning objectives (and some of the questions I’ve seen in these resources are not well designed and many of them are focused on factual recall). Another option would be to create the items yourself, but constructing items can be a time-consuming process.
The state science assessments I’m most familiar with give teachers yearly reports on their students’ scores but do not provide information on how the students answered individual items. It can be useful to see what percentage of the students chose the incorrect distracters. This information can help the teacher identify misconceptions and areas in which additional instruction is necessary. But most standardized test results do not provide this type of item analysis.
I’m really interested in the Science Assessment tool recently published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). High school level topics address concepts in life science, physical science, earth science, and the nature of science. For each topic, there are several key ideas and sub-ideas (some schools may refer to these as big ideas and essential concepts) you can match to your science curriculum. Each sub-idea has a collection of multiple-choice items to add to your test bank. The items are designed to help you determine what your students understand and what misconceptions they may bring to class (there’s a section for each item with an analysis of how students in the pilot group answered the questions). You must register (free) to use the site, and you can save the items you select and print them as PDF or HTML files (or copy and paste into a word processor, spread sheet, or test generator).

TIMSS has released items in science and mathematics for grades 4 and 8. A scoring guide is provided for the open-ended questions. Another option would be to look at the website of your state assessment system to find released items and scoring samples for science.
The resources I’ve noted are not test-generators. You would have to copy and paste into your own documents. But the bonus information they provide on misconceptions and how students performed on these items is worth the formatting work. If you use the test (or individual items) with a clicker system, you can get immediate feedback on the students’ answers for your own item analysis.
PALS (Performance Assessment Links in Science) is another resource you could consider. There are dozens of performance assessment tasks, organized by standard, grade level, and topic. Each one references one or more of the National Science Education Standards. Each assessment includes a detailed description, a student handout with places to record data and observations, a scoring rubric, and the results of any formal validation. There are examples of actual student work at each of the rubric levels. This could definitely be a supplement to traditional paper-and-pencil tests.
I’d also recommend the Uncovering Student Ideas in Science series of books from NSTA. These formative assessment probes can help you uncover student preconceptions and can be used as a pre-assessment or warm-up for a unit.
 
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/46632302@N06/4279477491/

CNN video: Kindergartners getting iPads

Years ago, I followed closely the Maine schools 1-to-1 laptop project. I found it interesting on multiple levels, but also I was skeptical for several reasons. Not that I wasn’t in favor of laptops in the classroom or one-to-one initiatives, but for more because of ratios. Concerns of cost/benefit and training/outcomes were obvious, but the the thought festering in my mind was if the collective imagination of the teachers was ready to embrace the immense power and opportunity that a 1 to 1 laptop program would allow. Or instead, would the laptops merely be another vehicle for doing digitally exactly the same things that were done in the analog classroom.
Now it is time to dust off my past thoughts and update them given the changes across education, technology, and the 21st century world in general.
In the meantime, here are a few links to get you up to speed:
The Impact of Maine’s One-to-One Laptop Program on Middle School Teachers and Students: Phase One Summary Evidence Research Report #1
The Impact of Maine’s One-to-One Laptop Program on Middle School Teachers and Students Use of Laptop Computers and Classroom Assessment: Are Teachers Making the Connections? Research Report #4
Article: Going One-to-One from the December 2005/January 2006 issue of Learning in the Digital Age
And a video:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBAduBgV0LI[/youtube]
Personally, I have an iPad and am quite pleased with the device’s potential in education. The iPad2 is even better, but ultimately, it is not the machine but its use. As an instructional technologist encouraging the effective and appropriate application of technology in education, my goals include the fearless use of technology in academic and creative endeavours in order to pursue, with reckless abandon, great teaching and learning. In other words, the tech should become invisible within the experience and the learning be conceptualized and owned independent of the device.
In the above CNN video, I tired to figure out what the students were doing with iPads. A lesson learned (from my perspective anyway) from the earlier Maine 1:1 Laptop initiative was that in order for the technology to truly impact the students within the overall longterm goals of American public education, it had to take a backseat to the content and message of the lessons. However, in studying the 1-to-1 results of the past including those in the links I referenced above, I sometimes had a hard time separating out the computer from its effects.
The yardstick I am using here is not to make the project platform-independent whereby any similar looking or sounding tech might/should yield similar results (as I believe that is often a mistake by the uninformed that leads to 1) the rapid downfall of a project, 2) measurable results contrary to those intended, and 3) a clear path for opponents to challenge the hardware decisions and budget), but instead to focus on the learning objectives and outcomes by which the device is an efficient conduit to personalization and success.
The kindergarten entry point for this integration will also be something to watch. Not only is the project launching from a grade level often contrary to conventional district technology expenditures, but provides a wonderfully effective leverage point causing all grades to follow to either get with the program or risk giving the impression that a student’s matriculation is actually downhill slide into mediocrity.
So grab a bowl of popcorn, make yourself comfortable and let’s watch the action.

Salads, sandwiches, and, of course, hamburgers feature condiments for flavor and texture. Tuna and chicken cling to onions and celery with the aid of mayonnaise. A teaspoon or so of mustard might add some bite to the salad. And if you’re feeling inventive, you could add a drop or two of hot sauce mixed with ketchup. How are these condiments made, and how do they manage to sit in the refrigerator door for so many months without breaking down into their constituent parts? Chemistry, my dear Ms. Child… chemistry.

As you’ll learn from the Chemistry Now video, mustards and ketchups are suspensions in which the vegetative matter, tomatoes and mustard seeds respectively, are mixed in with a bit of water and other liquids to make a flow-able paste. Mayonnaise is a colloidal dispersion in which two materials that don’t normally mix—oil and water—are held together by an emulsifying agent, in this case lecithin found in egg yolks. Throw in some garlic and an herb or two and you have a secret sauce to spice up the menu.

We have reached the 11th week of the weekly, online, video series “Chemistry Now,” and the chemistry of the kitchen sticks around as a source of interesting video and lessons. As we’ve written before, please view the video, try the lessons, and let us know what you think.

Photo: Morten Rand-Hendriksen

Through the Chemistry Now series, NSTA and NBC Learn have teamed up with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to create lessons related to common, physical objects in our world and the changes they undergo every day. The series also looks at the lives and work of scientists on the frontiers of 21st century chemistry.

Video: “The Chemistry of Condiments” (one in a 6-part Cheeseburger Chemistry series) uses ketchup, mustard and mayo to explain two different types of mixtures: suspensions and colloidal dispersions (emulsions).

Middle school lesson: the Aqueous Systems lesson helps students an understand the properties of different types of aqueous mixtures: solutions, colloids, and suspensions.

High school lesson: the Solubility and Bonding lesson describes the  relationship between types of bonding, polarity, and solubility.

You can use the following form to e-mail us edited versions of the lesson plans:

[contact-form 2 “ChemNow]

Children in my preschool love to cook, and in some ways cooking is much like science learning. We feel the ingredients, measure them, follow a procedure to (hopefully) replicate the results of others, and make observations as we mix and apply heat. We get to eat our work, something we do not do in science activities, and we collect data (was it yummy, too dry, not enough salt) and share the results (actual product and written observations) with others (classes or families).
Collecting data and analyzing it can be part of a non-edible cooking-as-science activity: making play doughs. The April 2011 Early Years column shares the steps for making play dough cookery into a science activity, including observing the nature of the ingredients, measuring, mixing to make a change, evaluating the product, and recording the data .
There are many play dough recipes collected online and in books.
Online
Here are some sites to get you started, but note that I have not made all the recipes on these sites. Check for allergies. Do try them first yourself at home, and plan for safety by having the children wear goggles (salt in the eyes hurts!) and using a wooden cover for an electric skillet to protect from burns.  

• http://teachnet.com/lessonplans/art/play-dough-options-do-it-yourself-recipes-for-kids/
• http://www.playdoughrecipe.org/
• http://www.hummingbirded.com/play-doh-recipes.html
• http://www.easy-kids-recipes.com/play-dough-recipes.html

 In print
A classic from the 1960’s, Mud Pies and Other Recipes by Marjorie Winslow with illustrations by Erik Blegvad, is a cookbook for imaginative play—use it outdoors to make pretend food with natural materials.
Mudworks: Creative Clay, Dough and Modeling Experiences by MaryAnn F. Kohl. Look for real recipes you need in the cooking, no cooking, air dry, bake dry, edible, caution, and “adult supervision always necessary” categories.
Children are discerning consumers of play materials, but not all have the same preferences. Have your students record their observations on a chart (see an example at www.nsta.org/SC1104) and see which play dough recipe they want to make again. Do you have a favorite recipe or cautionary tale to share?
Peggy