August is here, and that can only mean one thing: The new school year is right around the corner!
Teacher Vision offers some tips for starting off the school year, such as organizing portfolios for students and designing bulletin boards. There is also a list of science tips, including:

• Have a Science Table in the classroom, and keep changing the theme: rocks; seashells; insects; birds; magnets; inventions; and so on.
• Put a prism on a countertop on a sunny day to catch the children’s attention and to launch a unit on color, sunlight, or refraction.

This is an especially nice suggestion:

• Memorization is not the key at this level. Exploration and discovery are important. Explain that real scientists work in this way, too.

Check out the list and add your suggestions here. How are you preparing your classroom? What is the first science you want to teach your students when the year begins?

As the new school year is getting underway, are you looking for some experiences to get students focused on scientific thinking and research skills? How can we show students what scientists actually “do” and how they communicate?
In one of the NSTA’s listservs , the site Natural Inquirer was mentioned and recommended, so I took a look. This is described as a “middle school science education journal” for students and teachers and is published by the USDA Forest Service. The articles are written by scientists who conduct various types of research. These aren’t just summaries or digests – the articles describe the methodology and discuss the results, just like an article in a professional science journal. The difference is that these are written in student-friendly language and include resources for the classroom.
In each issue, the articles can be downloaded as PDF files. Many are also available in Spanish. Each article introduces the scientists and has a glossary, graphs, diagrams, charts, and photographs. What I really like, though, were the reflection questions throughout the article to get students to stop and think as they read. Many articles also have a “factivity” that extends the concept to the classroom as a hands-on investigation or a vocabulary review.
Some of the issues have several articles relating to a theme; others are monographs with one article. You can browse the contents of each issue, but I found the search feature helpful. The “Education Resources” link has ideas for lesson plans, downloadable podcasts, and slide shows. And, best of all, the downloads and other resources are FREE.
Some of the topics include the effects of nonnative earthworms on the environment; the relationship between carbon, photosynthesis, and roots of trees; the relationship between nonnative trout and pacific tree frogs; using harmonic radar to track the flight of beetles; the potential impact of rising levels of carbon dioxide on U.S. forests.
If you’re an elementary or high school teacher, please take a look at this site, too. Even though the journal is designed for the middle school level (ages 11-14), the articles and activities could be useful at other grade levels: for upper elementary students who are interested in science and who could handle the reading level or for high school students with little experience in science thinking and hands-on science or those who struggle with the advanced reading level in traditional textbooks. Or for teachers who want to learn more for themselves! You could also give a copy of the articles that are in Spanish to the Spanish teachers in your school for their students to read “real” materials.
The articles are multidisciplinary, focusing not just on biology and ecology, but also on related topics in the physical and earth sciences. There is an invitation to “login” (which is necessary to purchase hard copies), but I just browsed through the site and downloaded a few articles without registering. Can you tell that I like this site?

Each Early Years column features resources selected by real teachers–and we want yours! We’re seeking Teacher’s Picks on the following themes:

• Investigation Skills
• Literacy Development
• Physical Science
• Communication in Science
• Plants
• Classification
• Social Studies
• Technology
• Habitats
• Asking Questions
• Math and Science Explorations
• Observation Skills
• Weather
• The Senses
• Outdoor Learning

If your resource list is published in the journal, you’ll receive a free book from a selection of books from NSTA Press.
Send your your top five resources (books, websites, multimedia, and so on) on a topic to earlyyearsblog@nsta.org.

The Summer Early Years column An Invertebrate Garden featured Teacher’s Picks from science resource teacher Fred Arnold of Spencerport, New York, who helps teachers and students raise Painted Lady butterflies, mealworms, super mealworms, and milkweed bugs in their classrooms. He finds insects can awaken an appreciation and understanding of the intricacy of our world.

Books

For Teachers

Life on a Little-Known Planet. Howard Ensign Evans. 1993. The Lyons Press.
This book highlights the wonderfully strange habits of insects and is richly described by an entomologist and naturalist.
The Handbook of Nature Study. Anna Botsford Comstock. 1986. Comstock.
Found a preying mantis, a walking stick, or firefly and want to know what it eats, where it lives, how it defends itself? This is a great book for you to demonstrate to your students what it means to “look it up.” It also has terrific ideas for investigations.

For Students

Bugs! Bugs! Bugs! Bob Barner. 1999. Chronicle Books.
Even the youngest bug enthusiast will find these colorful collage rendered illustrations and the rhyming text engaging. Eight common “bugs” are featured. The final pages list details and real-life-sized renderings for students fascinated by the facts.
From Caterpillar to Butterfly. Deborah Heiligman. 1996. HarperTrophy.
Butterflies may be the most easily appreciated of all insects. This book follows the growth of a Painted Lady butterfly raised in a classroom, from caterpillar to adult flying out the window. A brief final section introduces other common butterfly species and lists butterfly centers that can be visited.

Internet

BioKids
Kids’ Inquiry of Diverse Species. University of Michigan, School of Education and Museum of Zoology.
Teachers can use the Field Guides: Invertebrate ID Guide to narrow the field and identify the collected invertebrates, and students can view photos in the Critter Catalog to find a match and learn a little about the animal.
What’s That Bug?
Found a cool bug but no one seems to know what it is? This website was set up to identify insects from submitted photographs. Chances are good that you can find your interesting insect discovery in their enormous library of identified insects, just by browsing the site. Not there? You can send in a picture which, in time, may be identified.
Have other favorite invertebrate resources? Share them below.

To a science teacher, an ideal summer day might include a stroll through a zoo or botanical garden, a cool afternoon in a planetarium or aquarium, a hike in a state or national park with a pair of binoculars and a guidebook, or a visit to a museum. On these personal field trips, we don’t need to worry about permission slips and bus counts – we can enjoy and learn on our own terms with family and friends.

What happens in these out-of-classroom programs is referred to as “informal education.” These experiences allow us to choose and explore topics of personal interest and learn new things. NSTA’s position statement on informal science education recognizes the contributions of informal science institutions and organizations in providing opportunities for lifelong learning. Check out the article Formal vs. Informal Education for a comparison of these.

It’s enjoyable to visit one of these places with another science teacher. The level of conversation is different than when you visit these places alone or with your families. A day exploring one of these venues and discussing science topics is a great way to increase or integrate content knowledge. For example, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, my colleague and I spent a lot of time with the exhibits related to plate tectonics. We learned new content information, and the displays gave us some ideas for sharing this with our students. We took lots of notes. Our spouses (who are not science teachers) eventually gave up and wandered off to other exhibits!

Or visit these places through the eyes of a child or teenager. What strategies do the informal educators use to attract our attention and hold our interest in the exhibits? Learning Science Beyond the Classroom in the summer issue of The Science Teacher describes some of these techniques. Could any of these apply to the formal classroom?

As the price of travel increases, don’t overlook places closer to home. To find a new place to visit, check out the website of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums or the American Association of Museums.

Many of these informal science venues have excellent websites, too. I can spend hours on the website of the Exploratorium in San Francisco with its comprehensive collection of lessons and demonstrations for the classroom. These institutions may also have virtual tours, too. The National Park Service website has armchair views of the parks – not quite the same as being there, but still a good learning experience.

With all that we can learn both onsite and online, perhaps we need to coin a new phrase: informal professional development. This process keeps us informed and up-to-date, extending our previous content knowledge and inspiring us to learn new things. I’m sure that my childhood visits to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia had a profound influence on my own interest in science.

Last August I had four monarch butterfly larvae chewing up milkweed leaves on my kitchen windowsill as fast as I could provide them. The caterpillars were borrowed from the elementary school habitat as eggs to show to children in a workshop in a few weeks. Well, they hatched before the workshop so I showed the caterpillars instead. (So small upon hatching that I didn’t notice for a few days!) There were five to begin with, but one morning I came down and saw a spider with one of the caterpillars (half inch long at that point) in its grip. Needless to say, that spider had to move outside and the rest of the caterpillars moved into a large pretzel container. Here I thought I was protecting these babies by keeping them indoors! The remaining four went home to the school habitat after the workshop.
Journey North, a website from Annenberg Media that engages students in a global study of wildlife migration and seasonal change, has a Monarch butterfly migration page for information and to report sightings.

Who needs a slug? was the question this week at a program I gave at the public library. The children, ages 6-10, carefully picked through habitat-like containers I had compiled the day before from my yard. For some reason slugs were scarce this week, but there were plenty of roly-polies (isopods), millipedes, earthworms, and I even managed to catch a few centipedes—for viewing only as these animals can give a painful bite. With magnifiers in hand, the children made both life-size and diagram-size drawings in a science notebook made from a folded sheet of paper. There were a few die-hards who had to be reluctantly parted from their invertebrate companions.
A wonderful book about the lives of insects for those of you who enjoy a conversational read and want to know “what are they up to?” is Broadsides from the Other Orders: A Book of Bugs by Sue Hubbell (Mariner Books, 1998).
I also enjoyed reading an amusing and eye-opening article about entomophagy (insects as food) in Science News (June 7th, 2008; Vol.173 #18). Apparently insects are full of wonderful protein and minerals! One of the experts, Patrick B. Durst, a senior forestry officer with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s regional office in Bangkok, suggested that removing the heads makes insects more appealing and entomophagy advocate David Gracer says they are no more disgusting than shrimp. How many times do you have to offer a new food to children before they will try it?
Peggy

It feels like summer will be over before we know it! Many of you—those who actually had a summer off that is—are busy preparing your classrooms and projects for the coming school year. In the summer Early Years column, An Invertebrate Garden, Peggy Ashbrook described how to attract invertebrates to an outdoor area for later study. Planting flowers to attract butterflies is something we’d all love to do, but be honest, how many of you will be collecting some of our less lovely invertebrates for study?
Even if you don’t have an outdoor space suitable for gardening or invertebrate attraction, there are still many preparations to be made and long-term projects to dream up. Tell us your plans for your classroom below.

Early childhood science educators: this is your place! We’re starting simply but hope to expand this site with your help. Here are a few plans for the blog. We hope you’ll chime in with your suggestions.
Science and Children editors will be:

• posting resources,
• highlighting early childhood articles from S&C and elsewhere, and
• learning from you—the early childhood experts.

Early Years columnist Peggy Ashbrook will be:

• posting about her Early Years columns,
• sharing web finds, and
• talking about her preschool classroom.

You’ll be:

• telling us what you think in Comments,
• finding great ideas, and
• submitting discussion topics (and giving us tips on resources) at earlyyearsblog@nsta.org.

We look forward to working with you as we build this exciting and we hope helpful online early childhood education community!

The solar system, the metric system, the circulatory system, the system of checks and balances, transportation systems, broadcasting systems, information systems, the Dewey Decimal system – we see the word “system” every day in a variety of contexts.
The word “system” refers to a group of interrelated objects that form an integrated whole or that work together to achieve a desired result. The concept of systems is an underlying theme or “big idea” in the sciences. And yet often we concentrate exclusively on the components such that students don’t see how they are connected or affect and influence each other. For example, students learn about the body systems but may not realize how these systems of cells, tissues, organs, and functions are interrelated.
Some people can intuitively see and understand these relationships; others may need guidance and modeling to do so. This month’s Science Scope has several articles with activities that can help students understand this concept.

• Systems Concepts Effectively Taught Using Systems Practices uses a cell phone simulation (that should get students’ attention!) to help students learn about networks.
• Teaching Science Through a Systems Approach has many examples of systems and shows how concept maps can be used to visualize systems.
• Focusing on Function: Thinking Below the Surface of Complex Natural Systems describes how a classroom aquarium can be used to illustrate the structures, behaviors, and functions are connected within a system.

So why should we bother with the concept of systems when there’s so much else to “cover?” Is it all that important? The National Science Education Standards include systems as one of the Unifying Concepts and Processes in science. In Pennsylvania (the state I’m most familiar with), the first science standard category is “Unifying Themes” and the first standard deals with understanding systems! Check your state’s standards in science to see if the concept of systems is mentioned.
The concept lends itself to interdisciplinary studies, too. The article Farm to Table and Beyond describes activities to “help students make sense of the global food system” and integrate their knowledge of biology, geography, economics, and nutrition. And who doesn’t like to think about food! This would be an eye-opening discussion for students who do not live close to the sources of their food.
Log into Scilinks and use the code SS070801 for web resources on the topic of systems theory and examples of more activities. If you’d like more background on systems theory, here are some places to start: General Systems Theory, Systems Theory, System Theory, Systems Thinking, and Introduction to Systems Theory.
Here’s a pop quiz: Our classrooms and schools are examples of systems, too. Are they “open” systems or “closed” ones?