Connecting with other educators who share my interests and help me expand them is one of the benefits of writing for NSTA’s journal and blog. Guest blogger Tom Lough is a contributor to Science and Children and has taught science and science education classes at many levels. He is now a science education consultant in Round Rock, TX.  

Welcome Tom!

Like many, I have unbounded enthusiasm for the 2018 August issue of Science and Children! Well done, NSTA! Did you read the Early Years column, titled “Making Sense of Their World”? Young children soak up their experiences and observations of the world around them, and ask all sorts of questions as they try to put everything together.

The second part of the column reminded me of an activity we are doing with five classrooms at Caldwell Heights Elementary School in Round Rock, TX, observing the apparent motion of the sun.  These rooms all have south-facing windows, meaning that the sun shines into each room all year long.

A small craft mirror glued to a south-facing windowsill.

A spot of reflected sunlight on the classroom ceiling.

Instead of observing the sun directly, we are using a small craft mirror glued to a south-facing windowsill to produce a reflection on the classroom ceiling. As soon as the mirror was installed and the spot appeared on the ceiling, the effect was immediate on the children. They were mesmerized by the bright dot. They couldn’t take their eyes away from this new classroom visitor. After a few minutes, someone said, “I think it’s moving!” They were hooked! 

If you decide to try this, from this point on you can expect many questions from the children. It is not necessary, or even preferable, to answer them. Rather, invite them to continue their observations and see if they can find their own answers. Encourage journaling, sketching, or photographing as ways to document their observations. Then they can search for patterns more systematically. 

There are many advantages to this particular activity. One of the most important ones is safety. There is no need to look directly at the sun. Second is its simplicity. Just glue the mirror in place and step away. No moving parts, no further assembly required. And then there are the many different patterns.

Children will be quick to point out the obvious patterns, including when and where the dot appears and disappears each day, which direction it moves across the ceiling, and the degree to which the sky is cloudy or clear. 

As the weeks and months go by, they might notice that the path of the daily movement changes. During the fall months, the path gets farther away from the window, and during the winter/spring months, the path is closer to the window. Older children might figure out that this has something to do with the height of the sun in the sky at different times of the year, which, in turn, is related to the tilt of the earth’s axis.  For example, children might choose to photograph the dot each week. It won’t be long before the movement of the path is obvious, especially if the ceiling is patterned or if it has a grid of tiles for easy reference. 

Can you spot the mirror on the windowsill and the reflected sunlight on the ceiling?

Within this simple activity is an unexpected level of complexity that can be uncovered with the addition of a simple action by the teacher or other adult. Select a convenient time of day somewhere between 11:00 and 1:00, and use a push pin or piece of tape to mark the location of the dot on the ceiling at that same time once or twice per week. You will need to be consistently punctual about this, down to the minute. Don’t worry, though, because your “little alarm clocks” will remind you! (And use a safe stool or ladder.) 

 Over the course of the school year, the marks on the ceiling will trace out part of a pattern called the analemma, which is the apparent path of the sun in the sky as seen at the same time each day for a year. (To trace the full analemma, someone would have to come in during the summer months to continue marking the dot position at the appointed time.)

The analemma is a pattern that has been known for hundreds of years, and was printed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on globes some time ago (see photo). Shadows of outside objects outdoors, such as the school flagpole, could also be used to generate an analemma. 

Who knew that something as simple as gluing a mirror to a window sill could produce such a wide range of effects and invite so many questions? 

Note that if you do decide to trace the analemma, be alert to when Daylight Savings Time comes and goes. We suggest keeping the same observation time, so that the children can see the curious effect of the change in path. In other words, if you had selected 11:30 AM as your “dot time” prior to the time change, continue using 11:30 AM after the change, even though the sun will be in a different location. 

Resources

An example of the type of mirror, https://www.joann.com/big-value-mirrors-1-inch-round-25-pc/10232692.html 

Lough, T., & Vanover, C. (2014, October). Find your School’s Analemma. Science and Children, 52(2): 55-59.

This week in education news, Missouri Senate passes STEM awareness legislation; NSF awards 5 diversity grants under its new INCLUDES initiative; U.S. Congress pledges $71.5 billion in education funding for fiscal 2019; new framework developed to help define high-quality project-based learning; Arizona program instructs teachers on how to bring more engaging STEM lessons into their classrooms; and NSTA president discusses her ideas on science literacy and education at the World Conference on Science Literacy in Beijing.

Alternative Sentencing Courts, STEM Awareness Program Pass Senate

Legislation that expands alternative treatment courts and STEM education was finally passed by the Senate and sent to the governor. Many jobs that require training in STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering and math — are not being filled because schools are not training enough people, said Sen. Doug Libla, R-Poplar Bluff. Read the article featured in The Missourian.

What NSF’s New Diversity Grants Say About Attempts To Help Minority Students

Ted Hodapp has spent the past 5 years helping boost the number of minority students pursuing U.S. graduate degrees in physics. But Hodapp, who works on education and diversity issues at the American Physical Society in College Park, Maryland, knows the society’s Bridge Program will at best make only a small dent in the nationwide dearth of blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans working in all science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. He wanted an opportunity to show that Bridge’s approach—which starts by encouraging graduate schools to de-emphasize scores on the standardized GRE entrance exam in the student selection process—could work in other STEM disciplines and, in doing so, promote the value of diversity in U.S. higher education. Read the article featured in Science magazine.

Science Fair’ Documentary Makes Its Own Statement About Young Science Whizzes

That other film, “Science Fair,” produced by the National Geographic Society, opens in one New York City theater Friday and in other cities throughout the fall. “Science Fair,” directed by Cristina Constantini and Darren Foster, follows several groups around to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, meeting them in their home states or countries, watching as they nervously prepare to explain their projects to the judges and interact awkwardly with their peers, and waiting for the payoff—the awards presentations. Read the article featured in Education Week.

Appropriations Bill Sets Aside Over $71B For Ed, But Is It Enough?

A group of lawmakers from the U.S. House and Senate finalized a massive appropriations bill Thursday that would pledge $71.5 billion in education funding for fiscal 2019. But as school districts wait for President Donald Trump to sign the bill into law, many struggle, especially in the face of a new school year, to fund the bare necessities. Read the article featured in Education DIVE.

Defining High-Quality Project-Based Learning

A growing number of educators around the world believe that project-based learning (PBL) is an important instructional approach that allows students to master academic skills and content knowledge, develop skills necessary for future success, and build the personal agency needed to tackle life’s and the world’s challenges. Many districts are either already using PBL or are on the verge of using this approach in classrooms. Educators can find a wealth of resources on how to plan for and get started with PBL, but until recently, there were far fewer resources on what the outcome of high-quality student experiences ought to look like. Read the article featured in eSchool News.

Igniting Students’ STEM Interest Begins With Education Their Teachers

A program in the Arizona Science Center trains teachers how to bring more engaging STEM lessons to their classrooms. When 3rd grade STEM teacher Amanda Roum went to camp this summer, instead of playing games and learning archery, she developed a science curriculum. And after five days at the Arizona Science Center in Phoenix, she took that curriculum, along with the materials she needed, back to her classroom at the Tartesso Elementary School in Buckeye, Arizona — just in time for school to start in August. Read the article featured in Education DIVE.

World Conference On Science Literacy In Beijing: Talk By Christine Anne Royce

Christine Anne Royce, President of the US National Science Teachers Association, talks about her ideas on science literacy and education during the World Conference on Science Literacy in Beijing. Listen to her interview with China Daily.

Beyond STEM: Why AI Demands Higher-Level Skills

There is plenty of discussion about the need for STEM skills as the gateway to employment opportunities (and for employers, staffing requirements) in the artificial intelligence-enhanced economy ahead. But emphasizing STEM skills may not be enough — there needs to be a greater emphasis on the way people interact with each other and manage their workplace challenges. Shirley Malcom, for one, sees a need to recalibrate the educational system to not only teach STEM, but also lead and succeed in digital organizations. Malcom, head of education and human resources programs of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says creating a workforce ready for the challenges of an AI and digital future requires teaching people to think differently. Read the article featured in Forbes magazine.

Cash-Strapped Teachers Are Getting Up Early To Tutor Students In China

Newhouse is one of the more than 60,000 American and Canadian tutors who work for VIPKid, a Beijing-based online English-tutoring company. Frustrated with their salaries and looking for second jobs they can work around school hours, some U.S. teachers have turned to teaching Chinese students online for a source of additional income. Peak tutoring times in China line up with early-morning hours on the East Coast and in the Midwest. Read the article featured in Education Week.

Stay tuned for next week’s top education news stories.

The Communication, Legislative & Public Affairs (CLPA) team strives to keep NSTA members, teachers, science education leaders, and the general public informed about NSTA programs, products, and services and key science education issues and legislation. In the association’s role as the national voice for science education, its CLPA team actively promotes NSTA’s positions on science education issues and communicates key NSTA messages to essential audiences.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

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I will be student teaching in a school with small classes – between 6 and 12 students. I find this to be challenging. Any suggestions or advice?
— M., Kansas

I have had a few small classes in my career and I found them to be great opportunities to delve deeply into topics, conduct some very interesting projects, and become a really cohesive group. I also discovered I could monitor and coach students much more effectively. The small class size helped me be more of a mentor than a teacher.

On a practical level, you can perform labs and experiments requiring elaborate or expensive supplies that would be impractical or even impossible with a bigger group. Larger projects are easier to manage and student presentations take less time overall. Coordinating field trips was not as cumbersome and I could take smaller classes to places that couldn’t accommodate larger numbers. Grading reports and other work was considerably less onerous. Because of the smaller scale, I was able to try some really innovative and new things with fewer headaches.

Surprisingly, we had better conversations and discussions. I thought my larger classes had good discussions, but as I reflect on it I believe it was the more extroverted students who would always participate and many students would simply listen. In the smaller classes, it was easier to coax quieter students to participate—there was no where to hide!

Attempt to view your smaller classes as opportunities to try some cool things.

Hope this helps!

A huge controversy over whether districts and states can use funds from the new federal education law to purchase guns and pay for firearms training is still ongoing, weeks after the issue first surfaced in an article published in the New York Times.

 Earlier this summer two states asked the Department of Education if it was allowable to use the Every Student Succeeds Act ESSA Title IVA (Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants) grant funds to train and arm school marshals.  The flexible block grant program under Title IVA  Part authorizes activities in three broad areas:

• Providing students with a well-rounded education (e.g., college and career counseling, STEM, music and arts, civics, IB/AP, computer science)
• Supporting safe and healthy students (e.g., comprehensive school mental health, drug and violence prevention, training on trauma-informed practices, health and physical education) and
• Supporting the effective use of technology (e.g., professional development, blended and personalized learning, and devices). More on how Title iVA can be used for STEM education here.

A few weeks ago, Education Secretary DeVos indicated she would not take a position as to whether districts could use federal funding in ESSA for purchasing guns and providing firearms training saying that Congress—not the Administration—had to specify if Title IVA grant funds could be used for these purposes.

A letter from 44 Senate Democrats and a letter from 170 House Democrats have urged the Ed Secretary to expressly prohibit states or school districts from using federal funds to buy guns.  

NSTA joined a number of other education groups on a September 19 letter calling on Secretary DeVos to clarify that Title IV-A funds should be used for their original intent and cites examples that support gun-free campuses in current law that “clearly shows that the Administration’s proposal is counter to congressional intent. “

 A September 17 letter from a coalition of than 100 civil rights groups calls on Secretary DeVos to “immediately publicly clarify that ESSA funds cannot be used for weapons.”

Stay tuned.

FY 2019 Spending Bill Includes Gains for Education

On September 18 the Senate passed the final version of the FY2019 education appropriations bill that rejects the Administration’s request to eliminate key K-12 education programs and instead includes an increase in federal spending for education programs in FY2019.

The Labor, HHS, and Education FY2019 is  part of a “mini-bus” bill that was paired with the Department of Defense spending bill and attached to a short tem continuing resolution (CR) that will fund other federal programs  until December 7 (after the midterm elections).

The House will vote on the bill next week and then send the spending package to President Trump for his signature. 

The Education Department overall would receive an additional $581 million compared to the current fiscal year funding.

The Title IV-A (the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grant) under ESSA, which can be used by districts and states to fund STEM programs, will receive $1.17 billion, a $70 million increase over last year. 

Title I funding was increased by $125 million and special education funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was increased by $87 million to $12.4 billion.

Funding for charter schools was increased by $40 million, bringing the overall level to $440 million.

The Perkins Career and Technical Education program, received a $70 million increase up to $1.3 billion, and afterschool programs in Title IVB 21st Century Community Learning Centers received a slight increase of approximately $10 million for FY2019.

Read the bill here and check out the AIP budget tracker for STEM education here.

And finally,

NSTA joined other scientific associations to support University of Oklahoma meteorologist Kelvin Droegemeier’s nomination in the Senate to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The letter states “The President faces a wide range of domestic and international challenges, from protecting national and energy security, to ensuring U.S. economic competitiveness, curing diseases, bolstering agriculture and responding to natural disasters. These challenges share one thing in common: the need for scientific knowledge and technological expertise to address them successfully.” Read the letter here and more on the nominee here.

Stay tuned, and watch for more updates in future issues of NSTA Express.

Jodi Peterson is the Assistant Executive Director of Communication, Legislative & Public Affairs for the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and Chair of the STEM Education Coalition. Reach her via e-mail at jpeterson@nsta.org or via Twitter at @stemedadvocate.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

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Problem-based learning (PBL) is a strategy that is tailor made for teaching science. Under the PBL framework, students actively drive the learning process, one that takes them through rich and authentic, but incompletely defined, scenarios. This educational approach requires students to collaborate with others to analyze the problem that’s presented, ask questions, propose hypotheses, identify the information needed to solve the problem, and seek related information via literature searches and scientific investigations.

Implementing PBL for the classroom, however, can be challenging for science educators as curriculum resources are hard to find. That’s one of the reasons why veteran science educators Tom McConnell, Joyce Parker, and Janet Eberhardt teamed up to write Problem-Based Learning in the Physical Science Classroom. This book first takes readers through the overall PBL structure and discusses how it can be applied to the K-12 classroom. Then the authors share a collection of PBL problems which were developed by content experts who participated in the PBL Project for Teachers, a National Science Foundation –created professional development opportunity that used the PBL framework to help science educators develop a deeper understanding of science concepts across eight different content strands.

The authors also ensured that the problems they included are useful to science educators by including information that aligns the objectives and learning outcomes for each problem with the NGSS—and can be taught to learners with differing levels of prior knowledge.

The book’s chapters are arranged as follows:

• Chapter 1 discusses why PBL should be an essential tool in each teacher’s teaching toolbox. The authors provide background on how PBL was developed, how it works across a range of disciplines, and the basic framework for a PBL lesson.
• Chapter 2 covers the alignment of the PBL problems and the analytical framework of the NGSS.
• Chapter 3 takes science educators through strategies for facilitating the PBL lessons.
• Chapter 4 shares tips on how teachers can group students, manage information, and assess student learning throughout the process.
• Chapters 5-8 present designed and tested problems (describing motion, forces and motion, engineering energy transformations, or engineering, electricity and magnetism), show the NGSS alignment, and provide teacher and student resources about the science concept and the problem.

The authors readily acknowledge there are far more science problems that the 14 that they present in this book that would make excellent PBL topics. That’s why they included a final chapter, one that shares strategies for teachers to write their own PBL lessons and offer tips for creating problems that are “rich, engaging, and ideal for addressing the standards you need to teach.”

This book is the third volume in NSTA’s PBL series, the first of which presented life science problems and the second volume that offered problems specifically written for teaching Earth and space science.

“There is a lot to like about this text,” said Peggy Ertmer, professor emeritus of Learning Design and Technology at Purdue University, and founding editor of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning. “Implementing PBL is difficult for teachers, and few curriculum guides are available to support their efforts. This book fills that gap by providing the kinds of strategies and examples teachers need to facilitate open-ended inquiry in science classrooms.”

Read the free sample chapter, “Facilitating Problem-Based Learning,” to understand how to help students: function in a self-directed classroom; establish discussion guidelines and procedures, launch the problem, and generate hypotheses; develop a plan for gathering information; and share what they found. Teachers are given helpful information on how to assess their students’ learning and how to use the assessment results to respond to student needs.

This book is also available as an e-book. It’s also available as part of a set of three books: Problem-Based Learning in the Earth and Space, Life Science, and the Physical Science Classroom, K-12.

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Whether you’re looking for ideas on systems thinking, adding strategies to your teaching repertoire, or creativity in science, this month’s K-12 journals have it all. Regardless of what grade level or subject you teach, check out all three journals. As you skim through the article titles and description, you may find ideas for lessons that would be interesting your students or the inspiration to adapt a lesson to your heeds or create/share your own.

NSTA members, as always, have access to the articles in all journals! Click on the links to read or add to your library.

Science Scope – Earth Systems

From the Editor’s Desk: Earth: The Ultimate Recycler “…I’ve found students don’t always easily comprehend the importance or the mechanisms behind geoscience processes. Even something as simple as the water cycle is fraught with misunderstanding as students tend to harbor ideas that range from thinking that the water coming from various sources in their house differs in terms of its potability, to thinking that the water from a water bottle has never been part of the water cycle.”

Articles in this issue that describe lessons (many of which use the 5E model) include a helpful sidebar documenting the big idea, essential pre-knowledge, time, safety issues, and cost. The lessons also include connections with the NGSS.

• Classroom-Scale Experiments in System-Scale Modeling With Application to the Global Cycle of Water and Energy shows how to connect modeling with experimentation, using energy flow in the water cycle as a context.
• Expand students’ knowledge and experiences of plate tectonics. Getting Beneath the Surface has a series of five activities that model how plate move.
• Students are interested in weather and weather patterns. The unit documented in When Air Masses Collide! Incorporates seven “investigations” (the last is a culminating assessment) on predicting the weather based on several variables.
• From the layers of the Grand Canyon to the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon, our National Parks have fascinating rock formations. The lesson in National Parks Investigation integrates learning about types of rocks and the rock cycle with exposure to the resources of the National Park system.
• Integrating Technology: Using Science and Technology to Protect Urban Water Sources involves students in an investigation of urban water quality. The authors share a graphic organizer/worksheet for students to compare data on two cities.
• Classic Lessons 2.0: Where Did the Leaves Go? updates a traditional lesson into a 5E investigation on how leaves decompose. The article includes examples of student work and suggestions for implementation.
• Teacher To Teacher: Using Phenomena to Drive Student Questions incorporates student questions and misconceptions about flooding in urban areas.
• Turn cloud gazing into Citizen Science: Cloudy With a Chance of “Cirrus” Science, using a NASA app.
• Graphs summarize and present data. If your students need a refresher on graphing,, Interdisciplinary Ideas: Data Literacy 101 has suggestions on choosing effective graphs for a variety of purposes and types of data.
• Scope on the Skies: Ozone: The Protective Layer Above Us has a refresher on the effects of ozone on climate.

These monthly columns continue to provide background knowledge and classroom ideas:

• Disequilibrium: The Connection Between Weather and Air Masses
• Science For All: Creating a Culturally Responsive Middle School Science Classroom
• Teacher’s Toolkit: Community Connections: Involving family in homework.

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Air Masses, Biotic/Abiotic Factors, Clouds, Decomposers, Ecosystems, Flooding and Society, Floods, Greenhouse Effect, Ozone, Phases of Matter, Plate Tectonics, Rock Classification, Rock Cycle, UV Index, Tornadoes, U.S. National Parks, Water Cycle, Water Quality, Watersheds, Weather, Weather Forecasting

Keep reading for The Science Teacher and Science & Children.

The Science Teacher – Creative Thinking

Editor’s Corner: Creative Science “Problem- and project-based learning, authentic engineering tasks, and student-centered inquiry can all involve students in creative, complex problem-solving and design. And, Job security increasingly requires imagination and creativity. As routine tasks become digitized and automated, successful workers will be those who imagine and create. “

The lessons described in the articles include a chart showing connections with the NGSS. The graphics are especially helpful in understanding the activities and in providing ideas for your own investigations.

• Earth’s Energy Budget focuses on the relationships between energy, greenhouse gases, aerosols, and temperature. The article includes a description of the Energy Budget Model and samples of student explanations.
• Learning Biology Through Molecular Storytelling uses a storytelling approach along with data from the Protein Data Bank (URL provided) to help students connect the shapes of biomolecules with their functions.
• In The Bold Fold activity, students create protein models while studying transcription, translation, and protein folding. The authors include their research on student learning using this model.
• There are stories in every data set. Data Jams has advice on using a model to improve students’ data literacy, analyze scientific research, and share their findings. The authors share their experiences and include photographs of student projects.
• Infographics are another form of story telling. Creative Visual Representation shows how students can synthesize data sources to support a claim in a visual format. The examples provided show infographics as alternatives to research papers, in poster sessions, and as reinforcement.
• In addition to Focus on Physics: Making Sense of Distribution Curves, the author includes action research on the distribution of grades as a context/example.
• Artists can apply their talents in science, as described in Career of the Month: Medical Artist.

These monthly columns continue to provide background knowledge and classroom ideas: Right to the Source: Coloring the Russian Empire One Photograph at a Time

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Biomolecules, Blackbody Radiation, Climate Change, Communication Skills, DNA, Energy in the Atmosphere, Eukaryotic Cell Structures, Graphing Data, Organelles, Proteins, Sickle Cell Disease, Transcription, Translation, UV Index

Science & Children – Teaching Strategies

Editor’s Note: Finding a Way — With so much going on in the classroom, above and below the surface, a teacher needs to have a wheelbarrow full of strategies to help deal with the expected and not-so-expected events.

The lessons described in the articles have a chart showing connections with the NGSS. Many are based on the 5E (or 7E) model and include classroom materials, illustrations of student work, and photographs of students engaged in the activities.

• Don’t get turned off by the title! Killing Two Birds With One Stone describes ways to integrate reading/writing with science through interactive notebooks. Samples of student pages are included.
• Science Is “RAD” also addresses notebooking, including strategies for helping students with disabilities or who need additional support. (RAD is a mnenomic for Record-Analyze-Develop an Explanation as a writing strategy).
• Asking questions about meaningful issues can involve elementary students. Debate, Dialogue, and Democracy Through Science! incorporates the Socioscientific Issues framework to increase students’ “science content knowledge, understanding of the nature of science, quality of argumentation abilities, and characteristics for global citizenship, including empathy and perspective taking” The sample lesson shows students learning about the characteristics and value of wetlands using hands-on activities and trade books.
• Engaging in Argumentation shows how argumentation and the 5E model can be integrated, including suggestions for students who are English Language Learners. A useful diagram illustrates the integration, along with graphic organizers and photos of student work.
• Testing Oil Spill Cleanup Methods Ethically incorporates engineering practices and discussion about ethics as students design strategies to clean up an oil spill.
• Engineering Encounters: The Soda Can Crusher Challenge also involves students in the engineering design process.
• The author of The Early Years: Begin With Open Exploration where students “acquire hands-on knowledge of what they know and begin to wonder, think, and raise questions.” The included lesson Exploring Isopods has an example of this open exploration.
• In addition to recommending trade books, Teaching Through Trade Books: Biological Diversity: In the Present and in the Past has lessons on Honing Into Habitats (K-2) and Looking at Living Fossils (3-5).
• Methods and Strategies: Hiding in Plain Sight also addresses integrating literacy and 5E science lessons through trade books.

These monthly columns continue to provide background knowledge and classroom ideas:

• Teaching Teachers: Seeing the Struggle and Reaping the Rewards — A Pathway for Beginning to Explore the Next Generation Science Standards
• The Poetry of Science: Teaching Strategies
• Science 101: How Can I Make Science Fun and Have Students Learn More By Using Phenomenon-Based Learning? (a Background Booster for teachers on electric circuits, magnets, speed and motion)

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Biodiversity, Buoyancy, Electric Current, Fishes, Food Chains, Forces and Motion, Fossils, Habitats, Insects, Magnets, Plant Growth, Reading and Writing in Science, Water Quality, Wetlands

What you call these small animals probably depends on where you grew up. Pillbug, sowbug, roly-poly, woodlice, potato bug, cochinilla, slater, and Armadillidium vulgare are some of the names I’ve heard for my favorite animal, the isopod. What kind of animal is it? To answer this question begin by making close observations, taking comfort in knowing that they will not scratch, bite, or sting you, and they don’t smell bad and are not sticky. And they are relatively sturdy animals that can be handled without damaging them, and the common land species are plentiful in many places so are not endangered. Avoid touching other invertebrates such as spiders, bees, and centipedes because they may bite or sting. And wash your hands after handling the isopods, just in case.

Searching for isopods, observing their behavior, and where they are found introduces children to a kind of animal that likes damp places. Reading about them, creating a container habitat, and caring for the isopods provides young children with multiple occasions to observe their body structure and learn that they are different from familiar animals such as worms, caterpillars and butterflies, fish, birds, and pet dogs in many ways. Children build on their prior experiences each time they are engaged with a science concept. Using a simple hand lens will reveal small details. Taking and enlarging digital photographs is also a good way to see small body parts.

Any enclosed habitat becomes soiled over time and needs to be refreshed. Children delight in misting the container with water and adding leaves. Your isopods will need some fresh soil and decaying vegetable matter, preferably from the area where you found them.

I wrote about the value of children’s open exploration of phenomenon and materials in the Early Years column in the September 2018 Science and Children. The activity page, “Exploring Isopods,” gives beginning instructions for implementing this open exploration. Learn more about open exploration in the Young Scientist books. See other articles in Science and Children about learning through observing isopods by searching on the “Your Elementary Classroom” page or in the NSTA Learning Center for “isopod.” I’m not the only educator who likes these animals!

Online there are scientific studies about these cute animals and an International Symposium on Terrestrial Isopod Biology. Here are two online sites that have additional information for children and educators. How will your children share what they learn through observation?

Featured Creatures, Entomology and Nematology Department, University of Florida.

http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/MISC/Armadillidium_vulgare.htm 

BioKids, Kids’ Inquiry of Diverse Species

http://www.biokids.umich.edu/critters/Armadillidium_vulgare/ 

This week in education news, West Virginia hasn’t externally tested whether the SAT test’s “Analysis in Science” section actually measures what students are learning in their science classrooms; New Teacher Center unveils new coaching standards; teachers face barriers to using data in the classroom, including a lack of time and training to put data to work for students; and national teachers group confront climate denial.

WV Hasn’t Externally Tested SAT’s Alignment To State’s Science Standards

The West Virginia Department of Education hasn’t yet had an external, independent study done of whether the SAT test’s “Analysis in Science” section actually measures what Mountain State students are learning in their science classrooms. The department, nevertheless, plans to report SAT science scores to the federal government, at least for last school year. Read the article featured in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

New Teacher Center Releases Instructional Coaching Standards

The Santa Cruz, California-based New Teacher Center has released standards for instructional coaching programs and practices that are intended to improve teacher effectiveness, support teacher leadership, and create more equitable learning experiences for students. Read the brief featured in Education DIVE.

Climate Change Is Not Up For Debate. Why Do So Many Teachers Act Like It Is?

Is it hot enough for you? Five of the hottest years on record have occurred in the last eight years. It’s not just temperature. This summer, the Mendocino Complex Fire became the largest in recorded California history. From simple increases in temperatures to complex feedback effects on ocean currents, weather patterns, and hydrological cycles, the consequences of human-driven climate change are no longer distant theoretical threats, but the subject of near-daily headline news. And yet far too many students are still not learning about this urgent problem in their science classrooms. Read the commentary featured in Education Week.

Survey: More Than Half Of Teachers Say They Don’t Have Enough Time To Dig Into Data

More than 90% of teachers report using data — test scores, graduation and absenteeism rates, and behavior in the classroom — to understand how their students are progressing, according to the Data Quality Campaign’s (DQC) first-ever survey of teachers’ views on data. But the results, released Wednesday, also show that more than half of the 762 K-12 teachers responding — 57% — say they don’t have enough time during the school day to dig into students’ data, and more than 40% placed most of the responsibility for creating time to work with data on principals and district leaders. Read the brief featured in Education DIVE.

National Teachers Group Confronts Climate Denial: Keep The Politics Out Of Science Class

In response to what it sees as increasing efforts to undermine the teaching of climate science, the nation’s largest science teachers association took the unusual step Thursday of issuing a formal position statement in support of climate science education. Read the article featured on Inside Climate News.

Teach Like It’s Summer School All Year Long

Middle school teachers in southern Wisconsin’s Janesville School District spent the summer giving kids opportunities to learn while doing. They gave them real-world problems to solve, they sent them outside to explore, they prioritized hands-on projects. In this modern summer school, where more students enroll for the enrichment opportunities than to make up credits, teachers have a greater incentive to make learning fun. Read the article featured in The Hechinger Report.

I Work 3 Jobs And Donate Blood Plasma to Pay the Bills. This Is What It’s Like to Be a Teacher in America

Hope Brown can make $60 donating plasma from her blood cells twice in one week, and a little more if she sells some of her clothes at a consignment store. It’s usually just enough to cover an electric bill or a car payment. This financial juggling is now a part of her everyday life—something she never expected almost two decades ago when she earned a master’s degree in secondary education and became a high school history teacher. Brown often works from 5 a.m. to 4 p.m. at her school in Versailles, Ky., then goes to a second job manning the metal detectors and wrangling rowdy guests at Lexington’s Rupp Arena. With her husband, she also runs a historical tour company for extra money. Read the article featured in TIME.

Stay tuned for next week’s top education news stories.

The Communication, Legislative & Public Affairs (CLPA) team strives to keep NSTA members, teachers, science education leaders, and the general public informed about NSTA programs, products, and services and key science education issues and legislation. In the association’s role as the national voice for science education, its CLPA team actively promotes NSTA’s positions on science education issues and communicates key NSTA messages to essential audiences.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

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NSTA recently issued a position statement calling for greater support for science educators in teaching evidence-based science, including climate science and climate change. The statement promotes the teaching of climate science as any other established field of science and calls on teachers to reject pressures to eliminate or de-emphasize climate-based science concepts in science instruction. The statement acknowledges the decades of research and overwhelming scientific consensus indicating with increasing certainty that Earth’s climate is changing, largely due to human impacts. It also establishes that any controversies regarding climate change and its causes that are based on social, economic, or political arguments—and not scientific evidence—should not be part of a science curriculum. Read more about the statement and access climate resources at www.nsta.org/climate.

NSTA has asked a few members of the position statement panel to give science teachers further insights on important issues related to the teaching of climate science.

What are the key takeaways from NSTA’s position statement on the teaching of climate science?

When I think about classroom teachers, I know that they wish the best for their students, especially in preparing them for the challenges they will face once they leave school. In order to do that, and to best refine their own science knowledge and skills, teachers need the very best findings and tools that science can offer. They also need to know that other stakeholders will support them in the classroom. This position statement lays out a beacon in all of the noise that surrounds the teaching of the science of climate and climate change. The statement expresses not just the urgency and critical importance of understanding climate change, but also offers constructive tools for distinguishing science from non-science around climate change. It also lays out what teachers themselves should perhaps demand of other stakeholders if their students are to leave school with tools for resilience in dealing with future climate change effects and not face the future with sense of despair over the environment.

Eric J. Pyle (Chair)
Professor, Department of Geology & Environmental Science
Coordinator, Science Teacher Preparation, College of Science & Mathematics
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, Virginia

What challenges do K–12 teachers face teaching climate science and how can this statement help them?

This statement addresses three of the challenges that K–12 teachers face when teaching climate change: teacher-training, lesson planning, and networking.

Researchers and college faculty are reminded that all preservice and inservice teachers need exemplary and rigorous instruction in climate change. To teach climate change well, all teachers need a deeper understanding of the associated science and resulting social issues. No one course should bear the burden of teaching climate change and its consequences.

We understand that the mindset and strategies of teaching climate change should be no different than that of teaching any other established science. This requires accurate and appropriate vetted instructional resources. By integrating content from exemplary resource collections, teachers can create evidence-based, three-dimensional learning opportunities on climate change.

Strong networks encourage good teaching. We call on researchers, curriculum developers, administrators and peers to encourage teachers to strengthen content knowledge to plan and provide engaging and accurate instruction. These networks provide teachers a place to turn when challenged and give teachers the opportunity to question, reflect, and grow.

Cheryl Manning
Past-President, National Earth Science Teachers Association
Science Teacher, Evergreen High School
Evergreen, Colorado

Can you clarify the difference between scientific argumentation and “debates” based on beliefs and opinions, not science?

The study of climate change allows students to delve into the very nature of science: How are scientific explanations, models, and theories constructed by the science community? How does the scientific community use peer review to come to consensus?  How is a peer-reviewed explanation different from an individual belief or opinion?

While students may harbor beliefs or opinions regarding climate change— based on anything from political affiliation to personal experience with weather events—their individual beliefs and opinions do not inform scientific debate and do not constitute the empirical evidence used to support scientific explanations, models, or theories. So while there is no place in the science classroom to “teach the controversy” or to engage in “debate” about the existence or anthropogenic cause of climate change, there are plenty of opportunities to engage students in learning about the nature of scientific investigation and the process of constructing scientific explanations.

Chris Geerer
6th-Grade Science Teacher
Parcells Middle School
Grosse Point Woods, Michigan

Do teachers have high-quality classroom resources to teach climate science effectively and where can they find them?

The interdisciplinary nature of climate science challenges science educators—who often don’t have formal training in climate science—to identify resources that are scientifically accurate before weaving them together into units that teach about the climate system. This is especially challenging as teachers are working to adjust how they teach science and engineering based on the recommendations of A Framework for K–12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) that promote three-dimensional teaching and systems thinking.

To help, the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) is a comprehensive source of high-quality, NGSS-aligned resources that can be quickly and easily searched. The CLEAN project reviews over 30,000 digital and free related resources and provides over 700 peer-reviewed, classroom-ready resources on climate and energy topics. The CLEAN project also helps educators design NGSS-style, three-dimensional lessons about the climate system. The CLEAN portal also has a NGSS “Get Started Guide” that helps teachers integrate Disciplinary Core Ideas, Crosscutting Concepts, and Science and Engineering Practices based on the teaching strategy chosen for the lesson or unit topic. This model uses CLEAN-reviewed lessons as the core activity but provides the necessary framework for classroom implementation.

There are many other great resources and I encourage you to visit the NSTA Climate Science Resource page to access them.

Frank Niepold
Senior Climate Education Program Manager
NOAA Climate Program Office
Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) Co-Chair
Silver Spring, Maryland

What special challenges and opportunities are provided by the interdisciplinary nature of climate change as a topic?

If you only understand climate change from the perspective of the physical science that causes warming, you do not understand climate change deeply. The most important issues facing global society in the coming decades—climate, energy, water, and soil—are all deeply grounded in both climate science and social science. To understand these issues, we need to understand the Earth as a system of systems, and something about the interplay of those systems. The climate and how it changes are the products of the interactions of rock, soil, air, water, and life. Atmospheric dynamics are obedient to the laws of chemistry and physics. We humans are and have long been changing atmospheric chemistry and that is changing atmospheric dynamics. We care about how we are changing what the atmosphere does because our lives—and most life—depend upon it.

Understanding climate and how it changes requires understandings grounded in all the natural sciences. It is about biology, chemistry, physics, Earth and space science, and engineering. But the interdisciplinary nature of climate and climate change stretches beyond the sciences and across all the disciplines. Perhaps the mechanics of climate change can be understood in isolation, but what then is the point? Language, arts, and mathematics are all required for interpreting climate change’s causes and effects, and for communicating those ideas with others. Further, without the context of human history, economics, or culture such understandings are devoid of purpose.

While the psychological and social issues that push most of us to believe things demonstrably false has historically been outside the realm of the science classroom, I suggest that this be re-evaluated. History and literature can also help us to recognize that we have been telling apocalyptic stories for thousands of years—for as long as we have been telling stories—and the end of the world or of civilization has not yet come to pass. This is not to imply that climate change is not a grave threat. It is. Fortunately, history shows us that when existential threats have arisen in the past, we have risen to meet the great challenges. There is reason for hope.

Don Haas
Director of Teacher Programming
The Paleontological Research Institution
Museum of the Earth & Cayuga Nature Center
President, National Association of Geoscience Teachers
Ithaca, New York 

What is the role of climate science in new science standards and what does the statement say about it?

The NSTA position paper on the teaching of climate science is fully in line with the strong emphasis on climate change that appears in both the NRC’s A Framework for K–12 Science Education and in the ensuing Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). In writing the Framework, the National Academy of Sciences identified a small number of “Big Ideas” to focus science standards. For Earth and Space Science (ESS), one of these Big Ideas is global climate change. In fact, the importance of this topic played a role in the recommendation that students receive roughly a year of geoscience instruction in both middle and high school. In addition, climate change is identified in 8 of the 17 NGSS ESS high school performance expectations and plays a role in many others. Twenty-six states participated in writing the NGSS and a majority have adopted or adapted them, so this NSTA position paper reflects the imperative of states to teach about climate change in public schools. Visit www.nsta.org/climate for links to specific weather and climate performance expectations for elementary, middle, and high school students.

Michael Wysession
Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Washington University
St. Louis, Missouri

NSTA would like to thank all the members of the position statement panel for their time, expertise, and leadership in developing the statement, and also the NSTA members who reviewed and provided feedback during its development.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

Future NSTA Conferences

2018 Area Conferences

• Reno, October 11–13
• National Harbor (MD), November 15–17
• Charlotte, Nov. 29-Dec. 1

2019 National Conference

• St. Louis, April 11-14, 2019

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