In the interest of making it easier for early childhood educators to teach science, I am unabashedly tooting my own horn—read the Early Years column I write in the National Science Teachers Association’s elementary school journal, Science and Children. Not an NSTA member? Some of the Early Years columns are available online to non-members at no cost in the NSTA Learning Center if one follows these steps:

1. Create an account (no charge).
2. Use the “advanced search” option.
3. Search for “early years” as a keyword and “ashbrook” as author, and “free” as cost.

I think it will be worth your while to find columns about such topics as melting, inventing animals, and the sun’s energy. While you’re there take a look at some of the other benefits of membership. Members get one journal in the mail and online access to all four NSTA journals.
Is there a topic you would like me to write about in the Early Years column? Post a comment below and let me know.
Peggy

Congratulations to our new colleagues! Whether you’re a new college grad or changing to a new role as teacher, NSTA’s SciLinks can be a valuable resource for you. Through SciLinks, teachers and students can access vetted web pages that provide real-time information and new content on a host of science topics. The websites were selected and reviewed by a team of educators (aka “webwatchers”)  before being added to the database. Some are tagged as teacher resources if they address professional issues, instructional strategies, or lesson plan suggestions.
There are two ways to find websites in SciLinks:

• Use the codes in a SciLinked textbook or NSTA publication. These codes usually appear in the margins.
• NSTA members can search the site by keyword and grade level.

Once you find the websites related to your topic you can use them in several ways:

• Recommending sites to students. As a teacher, you can provide logins for students to look at particular sites, or you can give them a list of suggestions from your “favorites.” For interested students, you could go to the next grade level to search a topic or go down a level for students who may struggle with the text. Share a login with the librarian so that he/she can remind students of this resource. If your students use the technology at the local public library, perhaps the staff there could be alerted to how and why students would access this.
• In large group settings. Why just talk about science topics when there are many sites that lend themselves to illustrating the concepts? Building bridges, watching volcanoes erupt, seeing animals congregate around a water hole at night, or accessing videos and graphics of various topics bring these topics to life. If you have a smart board or projection unit, using a simulation or video clip with the class or a small group of students could be an engaging experience for them – and the resources are free and ready when you are. You can print some of the pages of a site to supplement or update textbook information.
• Teacher learning. One thing I’ve enjoyed over the years is using the SciLinks websites to keep current on topics such as the human genome and climate change. I especially enjoy the earth science topics (I taught life and physical science, so I’m continuing to learn). If you’re unfamiliar with a topic, searching for sites geared to middle or high school students would be a quick and painless way to learn more about it.

Recently, a “Quiz Manager” feature was added in which you can create questions for a particular website in the SciLinks database and assign students to complete them. Click here to read more about this feature.

What’s New for June 14 on NSTA’s various online outposts

Highlights of stimulating conversations taking place right now on our listservs:

• Biology—Science Olympiad and online high school biology courses;
• Chemistry—“gag” lab gift ideas, like stink-bombs;
• Earth Science—Glacier activities, the Moh hardness scale, and an excellent mini-tutorial on how to find what you’re looking for on the NSTA journal archives (thanks to Nora McDevitt!;
• Elementary Science—Activities for gifted 8th graders;
• General Science—Labs on forces in motion and matter, interviewing tips and skills;
• Physical Science—Smartboards and lessons.

In NSTA’s online professional learning communities, welcome to our 82 new users this past month!
On our “core site” (www.nsta.org): read about our Urban Science Education Leadership Academy—and then register to attend!
On Facebook, educators are discussing registering for NSTA’s fall conferences, the first of which is in Kansas City.
On LinkedIn, more direct posts from NSTA’s Career Center, and discussions about springtime ferns and next generation education.
And of course, on our Twitter stream, science educators are tweeting and re-tweeting about several freebies that NSTA offers, the upcoming national San Francisco conference, and more!
Renew Your Membership!
Now is the time to insure that you don’t miss a single journal issue or one minute of the time you use to network and build professional connections here in these online communities. Click the link above to renew your membership and insure that NSTA stays in your corner for your science education career!

I teach fourth and fifth graders in our school’s “Discovery Lab.” With over 700 students I am constantly brainstorming procedures to help the lab run smoother. One thing that I want to try is to assign student roles for group work. Do you have suggestions for these roles or any other information that might be helpful?
—Melody, Grenada, Mississippi
Defining roles is a key component of cooperative learning where students share the responsibility for learning. The literature on cooperative learning describes a variety of roles: ones commonly used in science classes include group leader, data recorder, measurer, equipment manager, liaison/questioner, artist/illustrator, researcher, timekeeper, and notetaker.
However, most of these traditional roles focus on logistics and procedures. I recommend the article “Teaching Students to Think Like Scientists During Cooperative Investigations” in the April/May 2008 edition of Science Scope. The authors (Voreis, et al.) describe how they use cognitive, or thinking, roles to help students develop inquiry skills and focus their activities on higher-order discussions and questions. The article has detailed descriptions of their roles (evidence collector, prediction manager, skeptic, and researcher), guidelines for the type of questions and responsibilities for each role, and an example of an evaluation sheet.
Regardless of what roles you decide to use, have job descriptions for each. These could checklists, a bulletin board display, index cards, or a page in the students’ science notebooks. The job descriptions could include mini-rubrics and conversation starters.

If you have students with unpolished interpersonal skills, start with brief and highly structured activities. Model cooperative behaviors and examples of appropriate language. Ask students to describe how they and their teammates did their jobs (this could be an exit activity). Rotate the roles so students have a variety of experiences. Once students are comfortable with these roles, they could create video clips of what the roles “look like” in the lab setting.
To keep the groups focused and on-task, be sure students understand the expectations for the project or investigation. Share the rubric ahead of time. Monitor the groups as they work, eavesdropping on their discussions and observing their interactions (this can be a formative assessment). Cooperative learning models emphasize the importance of both group work and individual accountability. You could have the group create some parts of a report together (perhaps in their notebooks or with a class Wiki or GoogleDoc page) and then have each student write an individual conclusion or summary. Some teachers hold each student responsible for one part of a project, evaluating the components separately and then assigning a holistic evaluation for the entire project.
Working with 700+ students in a lab setting is a challenge. In addition to your cooperative groups, there are other ways you can organize activities and materials to preserve your sanity:

• Establish a routine for getting ready for class, such as posting an agenda on the board with what students need for class (notebooks, textbook, pencil, assignments to turn in, etc.).
• Have a box or tray for each lab group to make it easier to organize and count the materials and to make sure everything is in place for the next class. Label or colorcode the trays so each group can find theirs.
• Have assigned seats, assigned lab groups, and assigned roles for lab group members. These, of course, can be changed periodically.
• Designate and label places to turn in assignments and equipment trays.
• Put labels on shelves or tables to help students locate materials they may need during class.
• Colorcode materials and handouts as much as possible to distinguish grade levels, homerooms, and lab groups. Have a graphic, number, or other code that students put on work they hand in so that you know to which section it belongs.
• Be sure everything is in order before students leave.

Establish communications with the homeroom teachers (assuming they also teach science lessons) to help students make connections between the lab and classroom activities. A quick glance at a few science notebooks would let you know what the students have been doing since their last visit to your lab. And the homeroom teacher can see what projects the students are doing with you. Perhaps one role would be class secretary—a student responsible for bringing the notebooks to the lab and updating you on their other science-related activities.
Photograph:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/kasimetcalfe/118471837/

Have you ever taken your students to STEM education events at an amusement park? We’re working on a story about theme parks where students can learn while having fun, such as Ohio’s Kings Island, which holds Math and Science Days every spring. We invite you to share your experiences at these parks by leaving a comment here. We might include some comments in the story, which will be published in July.

In SciLinks, as the webwatchers review new sites, each site is correlated to a specific keyword (such as Food Chains, Phases of the Moon, or Magnetic Fields). But sometimes, we run into collections of activities that include a broad spectrum of science-related topics. Although many of the individual activities are aligned with specific SciLinks keywords and are included in the database, the entire collection may be of interest.
These are not simply a list of someone’s favorite sites or activities. These are activities, simulations, and resources created by organizations or institutions as part of an outreach program or related to their projects and research. You can search the sites by grade level and subject area. Here are some examples of these collections:

From the Teachers’ Domain site you can access hundreds of individual multimedia resources (video clips, photographs, audio files, animations, PDF documents) from WGBH/PBS programming. Most of these resources have a generous use policy. All of them can be used online, most can be downloaded, and many can be shared or added to your own presentations. The site also has a set of K–12 lesson plans that integrate these resources.
The Molecular Workbench has many interactive simulations and includes topics in science and engineering. Use the “Software” link to download the software and get a list of available simulations. The “Curriculum” link leads to a database of lesson plans that use the simulation. The lesson plans include objectives, key concepts, and correlations to popular textbook chapters.
Use the Vision Learning Library to find modules on a variety of topics in biology, chemistry, physics, and science processes. Each module, written by an expert, includes text, graphics, animations, and a quiz. You can register (free) to create your own classroom space on the site. The library is also available in Spanish.
Explore has on-line exhibits, lesson plans, and information from the Exploratorium Museum. There are activities for students of all ages and resources for classroom implementation.
Cool Science from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute has virtual labs, videos, and “BioInteractives” with in-depth investigations and information.
With Smithsonian Educators you can search the collections of the “nation’s attic” for resources and lessons. You can even enter one of your state standards and get resources related to it.
You can search the index of PhET simulations by science content area or by grade level. Each animated simulation has teaching ideas and could be used by individuals or small groups or projected to a whole class.
If your students are interested in photography, here are themed galleries of high-quality pictures and tips for taking digital photographs from National Geographic Photography.
Paso Partners: Integrating Mathematics, Science, and Language includes lessons can be used in classes with young English language learners in grades K–3. The topics include life science, health, earth science, and physical science. The resources are available in both English and Spanish and include vocabulary lists, graphic organizers, activities, and assessment ideas.
NIH Curriculum Supplements for high school, middle school, and elementary grades are lessons and activities that help students understand the science behind health topics such as bioethics, genetics, and the brain.

I am a school librarian. When I was cleaning out a cupboard, I found a box of nature-related prints. There are over 300 of them, with a copyright of 1900. Most are of birds, but there are others of flowers, other animals, seashells, and rocks. Are they worth anything? What should I do with them
—Jeannie, Loganton, Pennsylvania
What a treasure! (And thanks for letting me look at them in person.) I’m not an expert in prints, but it looks like they might be from several sources, and with the exception of a few that have wrinkled edges, they’re in great shape for being over 100 years old.
All are numbered and many of them have a footnote “Copyright 1900 by A. W. Mumford, Chicago. Others are labeled “from Nature’s Garden copyright 1900 by Doubleday, Page, and Company.” They’re in a box embossed with “Perry Pictures – Animals,” and there’s also a booklet titled Perry Pictures Bird Manual (undated) that matches up with the numbers on the bird prints. According to online sources, these publishing companies produced prints and magazines devoted to nature study and marketed to schools.
At the start of the 20th century, the “Nature Study” movement was dedicated to the idea that children should learn from nature (rather than textbooks) and from tangible objects in a hands-on manner. I wonder if this is a precursor to environmental education and the “No Child Left Inside” discussions we’re having at the beginning of the 21st century?

I suspect these prints were meant to be used in classrooms. They are very realistic, almost photographic, depictions, many with background details showing the animal’s habitat (similar to museum dioramas). Some of the bird and animal ones look as though they were drawn from museum specimens.
If you want to know about their monetary value, I’d take them to a dealer who specializes in antique prints. If you find out that they are really valuable, your principal or district administration may have some suggestions on what to do with them and where to keep them.
Assuming they do not have great monetary value, you could put them back in the cupboard and save them for another 100 years, but since they were meant to be a learning tool, you and your science colleagues could use them as such.

• Inventory them and create an index or list (a project some students or volunteers could take on) Share the list with other libraries in your district so the teachers know what you have.

• Get some inexpensive frames and display some of them (perhaps as rotating exhibits) in the school offices, conference rooms, library, hallways, or teachers’ workroom. Your art teacher may have some suggestions on how to frame these prints.

• Put some of them in plastic sheet protectors and have students use them as writing prompts, using precise language to describe the appearance of these plants or animals or to compare and contrast their attributes. The prints could be used in activities for sorting, categorizing, or classifying. Students could note how some of the names of the birds have changed. Cover the names with a sticky note and practice naming birds. Although pictures are readily available online, your students may be impressed using documents more than 100 years old.

• Use them in binders or on classroom bulletin boards (in the sheet protectors), where students may enjoy looking at them. When I displayed a collection of seaweed pressings in my classroom, I was surprised and pleased the seventh graders often would look at them, noting differences among the species (or perhaps they were just amused by the genus name Fucus).

• Ask a high school student or class to do some more research on the publishers and other types of Nature Study materials. This could also be an interesting topic for a teacher taking a graduate class in environmental education or educational history.

• If you’re willing to part with any of them, framed prints could be given as tokens of appreciation or recognition to volunteers, retiring teachers, paraprofessionals, or students.

If anyone has more information about these prints, please add a comment. Who knows what else is buried in the closets and cupboards in our schools? Perhaps the Antiques Road Show could do a special episode!
To see copies of Nature Study magazines:
Nature’s Garden
Birds and Nature