There has been an interesting discussion going on among the middle and high school science teachers on the NSTA General Science email list about the lack of direct experience in their students’ background. Some have suggested that early childhood and elementary schools are not laying the groundwork for the later learning. One teacher said, “I [...]
Many NSTA journal articles refer to working in “Outdoor Classrooms.” I teach in a neighborhood school with no grass or trees in the schoolyard, so I’m thinking of bringing the outdoors indoors by adding some plants and live animals to my classroom. I’ve never had animals before. Do you have any recommendations? —Jack, St. Paul, [...]
I was excited to see a Monarch butterfly land on the Butterfly Bush in the yard (I hesitate to call it a garden). Does that mean that the Milkweed plant may yet become a home to Monarch caterpillars? I haven’t seen any eggs but there is still time. Maybe another insect has already staked a [...]
Although I credit my early childhood exposure to orchard, field, woods, and creek as the foundation for my understanding of the natural world, I would despair if I thought that same understanding is lost to children who grow up in urban, constructed places, or mostly indoors. My father told of swimming in Wissahickon Creek, a Schuylkill River tributary, [...]
What percentage of children ever get to see a tadpole grow into a frog? Reading about tadpoles amazing metamorphosis into adult frogs is less amazing than observing the living animals and noticing a daily change in size or form. The seasonal nature of this transformation means that young children may not remember the last time [...]
I’ve never taken part in the Great Backyard Bird Count but it sounds like an interesting way to learn about collecting data and become part of a greater group contributing to knowledge about bird population trends. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has partnered with the National Audubon Society on a project that includes the contributions [...]
Dinosaurs! This high-interest subject is a focus for questions relating to how animals live in many different environmental niches. What evidence do we have for what we think we know about dinosaurs? How do we know how they were shaped and how they lived? What was that body shape best suited for? What did they [...]
With the theme of “record keeping,” we might have expected the cover photo to show children writing in a notebook or typing on a computer. Instead, the editor chose a photo of a child looking through binoculars with an “Oh Wow!” expression. As teachers, we live for these Oh Wow! or Aha! events. But if [...]
Does it seem to you that the pigeons and seagulls that roost and circle the grocery parking lot are more active in winter? I wonder if they are really more active or just more noticeable as there is less action on the street with fewer people walking by. Winter wonderings like these make me realize [...]
Children often do not think of invertebrates as animals. If we can train ourselves to talk about insects and other invertebrates not as “bugs” but as “small animals” we’ll help children make that connection. Visiting small animals, such as isopods (aka roly-polies or pill bugs) and slugs, allow observations to build into a body of [...]
