Please join in the 15th annual count!

What birds do your children notice as they arrive and leave your site? Taking a walking fieldtrip is another way to have a bird-viewing session with your students. Casual observations of birds can be the beginning of understanding that living things react to their environment. Do birds hang out in the playing field in the morning and fly away when the children come out? Are they sitting in trees on a sunny afternoon but nowhere to be seen on a rainy day? Scientists and beginning bird watchers count birds to understand where birds are.

Your students can take part in The Great Backyard Bird Count, an annual four-day event to count birds. But you don’t have to count on all four days to participate! By reporting on the website what you see in nature, you contribute to a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. The site offers regional checklists so you know what birds you are likely to see.

Read about participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count at Growing with Science, entomologist Roberta Gibson’s blog. Turns out she likes observing birds as well as insects!

Many children can recognize crows.

These days my students are observing a lot of crows and imitating their calls. If we had internet access I might show them some archived video of a crow on a nest (note that this video site has advertisements). Does anyone know of a currently active webcam on crows?

Peggy

An elementary school PTA veteran observed to me, “If you want families to come to school, serve food or have their child take part in a performance.” This advice goes for preschool too!  Serving food makes it easier for families to participate together and seeing their child in action gives families what might be a rare look at what happens at school. Some families can come in at lunchtime—ask them to spend another 15 minutes with their child in the classroom observing the class pet, reading a book aloud, or at a science station.

A “Science Night” or “Science Saturday” opens a different time slot for the same purpose—to connect families to their child’s education. These social gatherings can be relatively simple, with stations such as leaf rubbings, making a seed sprouting bag to take home, spinning and comparing tops, and building castles on a piece of cardboard that won’t fall over when the “ground” shakes. Follow up the action with a pizza and fruit dinner or just an ice cream social. The Foundation for Family Science and Engineering has two publications with very detailed lists of how to prepare for a more elaborate Family Science (and/or) Engineering Night, with instructions for activities to challenge older children too. Take a look at Family Science and Family Engineering: An Activity & Event Planning Guide.

Technology allows teachers to share science learning outside of school hours with any family with access to a computer. PreK teacher Gail Laubenthal built a wiki (a website database), titled  Using the Latest Technology to Support Young Children in Science and Math for teachers to share their’ work in using technology in the classroom and to connect to families. Explore the wiki, beginning with the “Agenda” on the right side, to learn about technologies that you can use. Other teachers use school websites or blogs to connect families to school learning, such as Deborah J. Stewart’s Teach Preschool blog. 

Are you a teacher who sends home a science activity for the student to do with family members? The data collected by each student can be put together back in the classroom to see if there are any patterns, such as, “How did family members describe the cornstarch and water mixture in the bag—as a liquid or solid?” or “What happens to light when it falls on a mirrored surface?” Read about an example activity in The Early Years column in the February 2012 Science and Children.

Or explore this list of other resources to find a take-home science activity for your class:

Exploratorium, museum of science, art and human perception, The Science Explorer excerpts

http://www.exploratorium.edu/science_explorer/secret_bells.html

National Science Teachers Association. April 2009. Parent Involvement in Science Learning.

http://www.familyscience.org/pdfs/PositionStatement_ParentInvolvement.pdf

Questacon. Science Play: Play-based science activities for early learners. Australian Government, Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.

http://scienceplay.questacon.edu.au/assets/scienceplay_booklet.pdf

Scientific American. Bring Science Home activities for families

http://www.scientificamerican.com/section.cfm?id=bring-science-home

WGBH Educational Foundation, Family Science and Math letters in English and Spanish

http://www.peepandthebigwideworld.com/guide/pdf/peep-family-letters.pdf

http://www.peepandthebigwideworld.com/guide/pdf/peep-family-letters_es.pdf

WGBH Educational Foundation, Neighborhood Safari

http://www.peepandthebigwideworld.com/printables/pdf/Peep_safari_parentsguide.pdf

WGBH Educational Foundation, Peep in the Big Wide World Explorer’s Guide

http://www.peepandthebigwideworld.com/guide/

Other articles in the February 2012 issue of Science and Children are great resources for developing a connection with families:

Science Sacks by Kimberlee Freudenberg and Lab With Dad by Brenda Havers and Karen Delmotte.

I send an email to the families of my students once a week to touch on the work their children did and invite their participation. Send a photograph or two, if you can, to entice the families to open up and read the email!

Peggy

Happy New Year! This year I look forward to more conversation in the early childhood community about science education.

The January 2012 Early Years column adapts an activity about making craters from Marie Faust Evitt’s book, Thinking BIG, Learning BIG. Craters on the Moon are visible without a telescope, even in daytime, a time when teachers can point out the Moon to their students. Children enjoy making craters in snow, damp sand, or other fine material, by dropping balls of varying sizes and weights into the material. There are many ways to use imaginative play to allow children to explore the topic of Space, and the ideas they have already learned through media and at home. Some of what we learn as children (Think of “The cow jumped over the Moon”) may lead to misconceptions that, if teachers learn of them through conversation, we can help students replace with accurate information. Simply talking about the accurate information will not correct misconceptions, but through activities and discussion students can discard them.

Learn more about the Moon and its relationship to the Earth and Sun by using some of the resources in the National Science Teachers Association’s Learning Center such as the a collection of resources I created titled “Moon and sky—observations.” Register at no cost, go to Advanced Search and enter Keyword: Moon, Author: Ashbrook, and Type of Learning Resource: User created collections (select in both menus) to see resources in the “Moon and sky—observations” collection. Photos of features of the Moon can be viewed on GeologyRocks site by Dr. Katie Davis and Dr. Jon Hill.

Young children may know the word “gravity” but we don’t expect them to understand yet that it is a force between any two objects and that it pulls the objects together. In the case of the Earth and the objects on it, the gravitational pull of the Earth on the objects is greatest, so objects are pulled down to the Earth (ground). The January 2012 Teaching Through Tradebooks column, “Gravity and Weight”, by Emily Morgan and Karen Ansberry uses the 5E Learning Cycle in activities for grades K-2 and 3-5. These authors are sometimes referred to affectionately as “The Picture-Perfect ladies” because their “Picture-Perfect Science” books are very helpful to elementary teachers (note that the picture trade books they suggest are available through NSTA).

The article “Shadow Play” by Kathy Cabe-Trundle and Margilee P. Hilson is free to all—read about how students can observe shadows to learn about seasonal change. I recommend reading it (even if some of the activities are too advanced for your class) to see the authors’ approach to teaching concepts about which students commonly have misconceptions. I find the articles for older students a useful review of concepts at an elementary level, for myself.

Let me know what your plans are for the New Year, and what you’d like to see discussed on this Early Years blog by commenting below. Best wishes for the new year,

Peggy

From news that scientists have discovered the biggest black holes yet to dramatic video footage of volcanic eruptions, the new information science gleans about Earth and space grabs students’ attention. To help teachers capitalize on student curiosity and interest in Earth science, NSTA Press recently launched updated editions of the popular Project Earth Science Series for grades 5–10 teachers. Check out some of the creative lessons in these four resource books as well as additional lessons from NSTA Press books in the December issue of NSTA’s Book Beat.  One timely lesson offered for free in this Book Beat issue is “Habitable Zone: How Distance and Temperature Are Related.” In this lesson, you can investigate with your students how distance from a light source and temperature help us understand why Earth is “just right” in its ability to support life.  A recent New York Times article focused on findings from NASA’s Kepler satellite telescope that suggest astronomers may soon announce progress in the search for other habitable planets. Imagine other Earth-like planets that we might soon be studying in the lab and the classroom!  The Project Earth Science Series includes individual books on Astronomy, Geology, Meteorology, and Physical Oceanography chock full of activities on a wide range of Earth and space topics.

I enjoyed watching auto races as a child, so I decided to check out Norm Barstow’s session, Elastic Power: Wind Up Your Engines and Explore (a.k.a. “NASCAR in New Orleans”).

Preparing for the big race

Barstow had elementary and middle school teachers use an elastic-powered wooden car to explore energy transfer and force and motion.

Check out Barstow’s “lab coat”: No boring science lessons for his students!

Start your engines…

Click here to view the embedded video.

I interviewed Barbara Park about her experiences in this session.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Steve Rich’s early morning NSTA Press Session in New Orleans “Bringing Outdoor Science Into Your Classroom” drew teachers eager to explore strategies to incorporate more of the outdoors into their science lessons. Rich presented dozens of ideas for activities linked to nature, and the participants brainstormed about “what can we bring indoors to study?” Some of the ideas included samples of soil, seeds, leaves, seashells, and branches. When collecting specimens like this, Rich stresses always following safety precautions like placing caterpillars or bugs into a critter container and then releasing them outdoors again later in the day. Teachers also should be sure to research federal and state regulations on collecting specimens in the wild to be sure they follow the rules in their local area.  A survey of the schoolyard with students is a simple activity that can yield wonderful objects for study, such as seeds for measuring and comparing or artifacts such as insect wings lying beneath spider webs that students can draw and record their observations about in a journal. The teachers present used Rich’s own collection of artifacts as inspiration for a brief writing activity that yielded fascinating read-alouds such as a short poem and a CSI-type case summary. Steve Rich is the author of Outdoor Science: A Practical Guide. His forthcoming book on bringing outdoor science in will be published by NSTA Press in spring 2012. Rich shared the following web links with workshop participants seeking new ideas for outdoor or indoor science activities:

• www.learner.org/jnorth
• www.kidsgardening.org
• www.globe.gov
• www.monarchwatch.org
• www.birds.cornell.edu
• www.amnh.org/ology

Demonstrating the carbon cycle was never so much fun as it was in Kristen Dotti’s New Orleans session, Drop the Lecture and Let the Students Pick Up the Learning in Environmental Science. Dotti, who teaches Advanced Placement high school students at Christ School in Arden, North Carolina, had teachers use brightly colored plastic balls to create models of CO₂ and other chemical compounds. Next, they had to choose which organism they were going to be and act out how the organism would behave in photosynthesis or cell respiration. Around the room, you could hear excited teachers exclaiming, “I’m a coral! I’m a deer!”

That was fine with Dotti. “You should be talking. It should be loud in here,” she declared.

I took a few videos to let you in on the fun. In the first one, a group of teachers are creating their models.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This group is demonstrating mineralization.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now the “dramatization” begins!

Click here to view the embedded video.

This year, K–5 teachers from the Baltimore City (Maryland) Public Schools went from thinking they couldn’t teach STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) and their students couldn’t learn it to expressing confidence in their skills and in their students’ abilities. This sea change resulted from an Elementary STEM Teacher Clinic held by STEM Master Teachers for teachers from struggling elementary schools with many high-poverty students and a predominantly African American population. The clinic provided 130 teachers from 22 schools with hands-on professional development during the summer and also with equipment, supplies, and books from the NSTA Picture-Perfect Science Lessons book collection, which contains standards-based science content and ready-to-teach lessons.

This morning in New Orleans, as part of the Urban Science Education Leadership (USEL) session, presenters from Baltimore City Public Schools described the clinic and how it transformed the teachers. One key to its success was “every teacher had a coach…having that coach is the most critical component,” said presenter Katya Denisova. When the teachers returned to school in the fall, they had the coach available in their school to help them operate software and equipment and answer their questions. Most of these teachers “had not been exposed to teaching rigorous STEM,” she pointed out. By the end of the clinic, however, their self-assessments showed they greatly increased their knowledge of and skills in scientific inquiry.

Presenter Linda Evans declared, “How great is it to see the kids actually touching things and doing things [in class]!” She said the curriculum was based on Common Core state standards, “infusing literature and using [Picture-Perfect Science Lessons] as the anchor” to “push in STEM, touch on all those content areas.”

Adren Kornegay of Baltimore’s Garrett Heights Elementary Middle School said the curriculum “hit all four of the types of science,” and engaged students as young as kindergarteners in engineering design challenges. Kindergarteners developed a recycling program; second graders designed habitats for hermit crabs and worms; fifth graders created wind turbines. Terrell Davis of Montebello Elementary Junior Academy said even the fifth graders enjoyed the curriculum’s picture books, which helped them “relate to the [STEM] concepts.”

Then the presenters gave the attendees some supplies and turned them loose to explore a motion-and-force activity related to the book Sheep in a Jeep. Groups of three teachers created ramps and rolled a tiny plastic sheep in a plastic jeep down them, then measured how far the sheep traveled. Just as their students would do, they varied the heights and lengths of the ramps and tried using sandpaper to see how it would affect the jeep’s motion. This “inquiry allows students to think for themselves,” observed presenter Evelyn Tolliver. Her students “connected all the ramps and were rolling cars across the classroom,” she said, smiling.

Denisova mentioned that the attendees and other K–5 teachers around the country could take advantage of the clinic’s curriculum, even though they won’t be in the next cohort. “We want you to be STEM advocates,” said Evans. “A lot of our elementary teachers are not comfortable with the content…They really do need support.”

Making connections

Emily Morgan and Karen Ansberry, authors of the popular Picture-Perfect Science Lessons Series, led a lively group of teachers in exploring classroom strategies and lessons that combine science with reading in the elementary grades. The Picture-Perfect Science

Roller coaster activity

Preconference Workshop at the New Orleans NSTA Area Conference included activities highlighting reading strategies like making connections, questioning, visualizing, determining importance, and synthesizing. Morgan and Ansberry focused also on the powerful BSCS 5E lesson model, which Morgan credited with transforming her science teaching. In the engage phase of one lesson, workshop participants heard Morgan read Marla Frazee’s children’s book Roller Coaster and shared their own experiences with riding a roller coaster. During the explore phase, they tested ways to change the speed and direction of a rolling object by building roller coasters out of pipe insulation. From exploring mystery objects inside small film canisters, to configuring a loop-to-loop for a model roller coaster and utilizing key reading strategies, the workshop participants shared some laughs while learning new ways to combine reading and science in engaging lessons for students in grades 3-6.  On a picture-perfect day in New Orleans, these workshop participants and their facilitators departed the session with new insights and strategies for transforming their own classrooms for science learning. To read more about Picture-Perfect Science and clever ways to combine science learning with reading, download the PDF “Why Read Picture Books in Science Class?”, a free e-book containing the introductory five chapters of Picture-Perfect Science Lessons, 2nd Edition.

photo by cliff1066™ on Flickr

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning,” said Albert Einstein. Many educators would agree that learning about the science of yesterday through lessons integrating history and science benefits today’s students (who could be tomorrow’s scientists).

“What we know now and how we do science now is rooted in the past,” says one of the teachers interviewed in this NSTA Reports story. She invites her students “to objectively explore the historical events that led scientists to revise their ideas.”

Read the article to find out how teachers around the country are providing their students with a historical perspective on science–and tell us what you’re doing in your classroom.