Are you updating your approach to modeling? Aligning lessons between 5E and NGSS? Incorporating digital resources? Regardless of the grade level you teach, this month’s journals have ideas that can be used or adapted.

Science Scope – Modeling

From the Editor’s Desk: No Glue Required “Models can include diagrams, drawings, physical replicas, mathematical representations, analogies, and computer simulations (NSTA 2014). Regardless of the model used, the key is to engage students in making explanations and predictions—vastly different activities from one in which students merely submit a Styrofoam ball that has been converted into a replica of a cell.”

Articles in this issue that describe lessons include a helpful sidebar (“At a Glance”) documenting the big idea, essential pre-knowledge, time, and cost; many follow a 5E format. The lessons also include connections with the NGSS, and many include examples of student work and classroom materials.

• The series of lessons in Deep Thinking Over Geologic Time: Understanding Fossils and Relative Dating helps students identify relationships between rock layers and learn how scientists use fossils and rock layers to understand the history of the Earth.
• Not all models are three-dimensional. Using Imagery Support Strategies to Develop Powerful Imagistic Models discusses and has an example of how mental models (aka imagery, visualization, spatial thinking) can support learning content and scientific thinking.
• Modeling Mendel: Using a Puzzle-Solving Activity to Develop Ideas About Genetics goes beyond directions for Punnett square to presenting Mendelian genetics as puzzles to be solved.
• Revive your lesson on cellular structures and functions by Engaging All Students in Science Practices Through a Cell Modeling Lesson and creating explanatory models rather than replicas.
• Constructing Scientific Models Through Kinulations shows how students can take on actives roles and cooperatively act out concepts and phenemona (Kinesthetic + simulation).
• Classic Lessons 2.0: Explaining Patterns in Our Solar System and the Role of Gravity in Space includes activities that use modeling to explain patterns in the Solar System.
• Teachers’s Toolkit: Science Can Be a Piece of Cake! has a description of using analogies to explain concepts and phenomena (with examples of students’ work).
• With the resources in Citizen Science: Did You Feel It?, students learn more about earthquakes in real time, use data to predict and model where earthquakes may occur, and create and text earthquake models.
• The 5E lesson in Disequilibrium: Wildfires, the Fire Triangle, and CO2 Extinguishers models a fire extinguisher to help students understand what is necessary for a fire to burn and how to extinguish or mitigate a fire.
• The author of Teacher To Teacher: Creating Conceptual Storylines discusses a narrative approach to learning that can include models and developing investigations.

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

• Listserv Roundup: Technology Tools for Paperless Homework
• Science for All: Using Formative Assessments to Differentiate Instruction
• Scope on the Skies: Star Chart

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Analemma, Buoyancy, Carbon Dating, Cell Structures, Cellular Respiration, Chemical Reactions, Circulatory System, Density, Earthquakes, Fire Extinguisher. Fire Triangle, Fossils, Grand Canyon, Half-Life of Radioactive Isotopes, Identifying Rocks and Minerals, Law of Superposition, Mendelian Genetics, Organelle, Photosynthesis, Relative Dating, Rocks, Solar System, Sound, Spectrum, Stars, Systems.

Science & Children – Using the 5E in Alignment with the NGSS

Editor’s Note: Developing Coherent Lessons With the NGSS and 5E: ” In combination, the research-based NGSS and 5E provide us with opportunities for creating lessons containing learning progressions, a teaching sequence, coherence in instruction, and assurance of integration—the key components of science learning and assessment of student performance… Using the 5E as the structure and the NGSS for guidance in selecting the concepts and skills provides a strategy for developing lessons that can be used with confidence.”

The lessons described in the articles have a chart showing connections with the NGSS and many include classroom materials and illustrations of student work.

• The charts in Generating Clean Water illustrate the connections between 5E and Engineering Design cycles. The authors include an example of a lesson in which students use their understanding of the water cycle to create a water filtration tool. Engineering Encounters: What’s The Buzz on Bees? also integrates engineering design with science inquiry, in the context of a real-life study of bees and pollination.
• Let’s Get Charged Up adds a sixth E to the model (Express), incorporating a formative assessment probe to check on student understanding. The 6E lesson focuses on designing and creating electric circuits. (also see Formative Assessment Probes: Embedding Formative Assessment Into the 5E Instructional Model)
• Kindergarten students explore forces and engineering design with the activities in Oh No, Henrietta Got Out!, including one with a mini-robot.
• Save Beady Kid From the Sun guides students through an investigation of light energy transfer from the sun and an understanding of experimental design.
• When Is Melting Not Really Melting? describes a lesson in which students explore physical properties of matter using Silly Putty culminating in evidence-based explanations.
• Explore and investigate weather phenomena with the lesson ideas in The Early Years: Using the 5Es to Teach Seasonal Changes.
• Teaching Through Trade Books: Codes and Communication has two lessons in which students consider communications using simple code systems and modern communications.
• Are lessons simply a collection of activities? Methods and Strategies: What’s the Story? explains structural and conceptual coherence and how to build storylines around disciplinary core ideas.

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

• Science 101: Why Do You Add Salt When Making Homemade Ice Cream?
• Science 102: Ghostly Visions
• The Poetry of Science: Learning About Trees With the 5Es
• Teaching Teachers: Assessing Students as Scientists

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Electric Current, Forces, Forces and Motion, Honeybees, Identifying Trees, Light, Morse Code, Parts of a Plant, Physical Properties of Matter, Pollination, Radiation from the Sun, Seasons, States of Matter, Ultraviolet Radiation, Water Cycle, Water Quality.

The Science Teacher – Using Digital Resources

Editor’s Corner: Smartphones: Challenge or Opportunity? “Smartphones are here to stay, and they will only become smarter. What is far less certain is whether we can reimagine our classrooms and instructional practices to take advantage of this powerful new tool.”

The lessons described in the articles include connections with the NGSS and many include classroom resources and illustrations of student work.

• Creating Science Websites can be an engaging way for students to share their learning and ideas. The authors suggest tools, techniques and rubrics.
• The 5E lesson in Making Waves incorporates data from a classroom seismograph (or an online station).
• Connecting Science and Technology shows how to create and use historical short studies as case studies to investigate the history and nature of science.
• The series of lessons in Learning Lichens guide students in a study of these organisms in the lab, in the field, and as air quality monitors.
• For each of the NGSS science and engineering practices, the authors of Idea Bank: Using Apps That Support Scientific Practices describe several apps.
• Using art to communicate is the basis for Idea Bank: The Art of Chemistry.

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

• Science 2.0: Choosing a 3-D Printer
• Focus on Physics: Radiant Energy and Global Warming
• Career of the Month: Social Media Manager
• Right to the Source: How the Telegraph Changed the World

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Acids and Bases, Biodiversity, Chemical Reactions, Earthquakes, Earthquake Measurement, Electromagnetic Waves, Global Warming, Greenhouse Effect, History and Nature of Science, Lichens, Plate Tectonics, Renewable Sources of Energy, Ring of Fire, Sustainability, Symbiosis.

This week in education news, one California school district is leading the way on new science standards; a study looks to find the best tactics for flipped instruction; Virginia adopts computer science standards for K-12; new study suggests schools could help uncover the next generation of inventors; a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine on undergraduate STEM education; Taos, NM, students wowed Jimmy Fallon with their science invention; NSTA releases best 2018 STEM books; it’s not how long you spend in PD, it’s how much you grow; and narrowing the achievement gap in K12 is not enough.

How One California School District is Leading the Way on New Science Standards

As schools nationwide take on the most comprehensive overhaul of science standards in 20 years, a school district in a quiet suburb of Los Angeles has become a pace-setter.  Without relying on outside funding, or major grant money, Torrance Unified has trained more than 500 teachers and has unveiled the new standards to all 24,000 students in the district. By devoting thousands of hours to teacher training, the district has shown teachers from kindergarten through 12^th grade how to explain scientific phenomenon in a new way to their students — by letting the students discover the answers on their own, instead of memorizing facts from a textbook. Read the story featured in Ed News.

Does Flipped Instruction Work? New Study Looks to Find the Best Tactics  

More and more teachers are “flipping” their instruction—but what does that really mean? And does it work? A University of Missouri team of researchers has received $450,000 from the National Science Foundation to study these questions over a three-year period. They’re going to be observing 40 Missouri algebra classrooms—20 that will be using some sort of flipped instructional tactic more than 50 percent of the time, and 20 that will be using the traditional classroom format. Read the blog featured in Education Week.

Virginia Adopts Computer Science Standards for K-12

The Virginia Board of Education voted last month to become the first state to adopt mandatory computer science standards for all students. The computer science Standards of Learning were unanimously approved after lengthy discussion on Nov. 16. They laid out the four key fundamentals that must be taught: computer literacy, educational technology, digital citizenship and information technology. Each of these concepts is interwoven into other content areas in most cases. Computer literacy means just that: making sure a student knows how to use computers and programs and can demonstrate that by creating a digital presentation. Read about it in this story in the Daily Press.

Can Schools Help Uncover ‘Lost Einsteins’ in Next Generation of Inventors?

At nearly 326,000, the number of new U.S. patents has more than doubled from 2005 to 2015. But in every year since 2008, the patents granted to foreign inventors have outpaced those of U.S. inventors, and a new study suggests the nation could be overlooking thousands of potential young inventors. Read the blog featured in this Education Week.

Monitoring Undergraduate STEM Education

Quality instruction goes a long way toward keeping students — especially underrepresented minorities and women — in the sciences, technology, math and engineering. But measuring educational quality isn’t easy. A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, “Indicators for Monitoring Undergraduate STEM Education,” says that assessing quality and impact in STEM at the national level will require the collection of new data on changing student demographics, instructors’ use of evidence-based teaching approaches, student transfer patterns and more. Read the article featured in Inside Higher Ed.

Young Taos scientists take fireproof fabric invention nationwide

When The Tonight Show’s host, Jimmy Fallon, praises your product, you might have something there. Three Taos, NM, students wowed Fallon — and the nation — Nov. 29 when they showed off their invention called NanoForm, a breathable, antibacterial, fireproof fabric coating, on a segment of the NBC show. Taos High School students Daniel Córdova, Indigo Acosta and Cameron Gonzáles rolled out their newest version of the material several months ago and took it to the national eCYBERMISSION competition in Washington, D.C., over the summer. The trio were then invited by NBC to be featured guests on The Tonight Show with their invention, which has taken several turns in design. Read the article featured in the Santa Fe New Mexican.

STEM at Its Best

 I have found that science teachers often do not use the textbook they’ve been given. Many make up their own lessons. In recent years, the National Science Teachers Association has been looking for ways to integrate nonfiction literature into science courses. To this end they have created a new list of Best STEM Books. They recently released their second list amidst much excitement. Read more in an article featured in the Huffington Post.

It’s Not How Long You Spend in PD, It’s How Much You Grow

The research is clear: The “sit ‘n’ get” model of professional development doesn’t work. Yet the majority of states continue to base the requirements for maintaining a teaching license on clock hours or seat time. And very often that looks like teachers heading en masse to one-off conferences and seminars, disconnected from their everyday classroom work. But 14 states, including Georgia most recently, are now trying something different. They’re asking teachers to craft personalized plans for improving their instruction, and they’re measuring success with proof of teacher advancement. “How long” teachers spend in PD is no longer the central question; instead, it’s, “How much did they grow?” Read the article featured in Teacher Magazine.

Narrowing the Achievement Gap in K12 is Not Enough

Districts are increasingly tasked with providing options for at-risk and underserved student populations to address persistent achievement gaps. While nationwide gains in closing achievement gaps have been made, research shows that underserved student populations still achieve at lower rates than their peers in many areas. Read the article featured in District Administration Magazine.

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.

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