Both the NSTA journal Science and Children, and the NAEYC journal Young Children, were especially riveting this month, March of 2012. I quickly look through the journals to get a feel for the issue, and then put them in my reading bag or pile, unless I happen to be sitting down to the rare quiet meal by myself—then I begin to read from cover to cover. This month I’ve read them little by little and here are a few thoughts. Please get these journals and read them yourselves, and then comment below to share your thoughts.

In the Early Years column I suggest that a water source such as a birdbath can attract animals close enough to the school to observe, and collect data by drawing. On a walking fieldtrip today just around the playground and school building my preschoolers saw many signs of spring, including flowering paw-paw and Bradford pear trees, forsythia flowers, Cabbage White butterflies, and a starling carrying pine needles from the big tree up to a hole in a pipe to build a nest. Nature is waiting for us just outside the door.

The Bradford pear trees in my community are in full bloom this week—beautiful when in a still picture and on a still afternoon but troublesome in the real world, especially on a windy day or in a heavy snowfall when their limbs are likely to break, or when they spread into a wild natural area. Read about how teachers developed the role-play to engage fifth-grade students in understanding scientific inquiry, ecosystems, diversity, and risks and benefits in Banishing Bradford Pears by Cynthia Deaton and Michelle Cook. Then think of an environmental problem that is within the control of your younger students, and role-play on how to effect change. The problems that preschool age children can fix are ones we are familiar with: the sandbox is almost empty because the sand has been carried to other parts of the school yard, a classroom toy is missing parts because they were not put away when last used, the paper towel dispenser has run out because people are using two and three towels when one would be enough, or the plants in the garden are wilted because no one has watered them.

Establishing the habit of stewardship, or taking care of the environment, can start before appreciation of why this is important takes root. Even though we model good manners and environmental stewardship, our students may not copy our behavior so we can provide experiences that highlight how important these behaviors are. There will always be a range of expression of empathy in a class but by requiring “pleases” and “thank-yous” we set expectations for children as they grow. When “we all clean up to make our classroom a pleasing place” is a community expectation, it becomes a habit that we hope will carry over into the larger world. (Do you have a favorite clean-up song or signal for your classroom?)

I agree with what David Sobel says in his 2008 Focus the Nation presentation at Antioch University, Global Climate Change Meets Ecophobia. He said, “My desire is to approach this from a perspective that maximizes hope. If we lead with all the tragic implications of climate change, then we risk scaring children into despair. In Beyond Ecophobia I suggested, ‘No (environmental) tragedies before fourth grade.’” You can watch this presentation online at http://www.antiochne.edu/focusthenation/ecophobia_sobel.cfm

What will make children become environmental stewards? I think that the caring community described in the Young Children article, “One Mommy Breast and One Daddy Breast: Encountering Illness as Emergent Curriculum” is what will help young children develop a sense of responsibility for others and develop their ability to take action. In the article, a teacher who was diagnosed with breast cancer said this about how she would tell the children she worked with about her illness and the treatment process she would be going through.  “…We have dealt with difficult topics before—a knee surgery, and the death of a family pet. I believe children are capable, ready to engage, to learn. Gandini’s quote on the image of children is the one I hold on to:

All children have preparedness, potential, curiosity, and interest in constructing their learning; in engaging in social interactions and negotiating everything that the environment brings them. (Gandini, L. 1993. “The Fundamentals of the Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Childhood Education,” Young Children 49 (1): 4-8)

If you believe this, it’s a no-brainer that cancer is an illness that would be discussed, documented, researched, and experienced in the classroom.”

The teacher did not exclude the children from taking the journey with her but she did not begin by describing the seriousness of her illness. The children responded with actions which were within their power—with matter-of-fact questions and discussion, making hats and hair for the teacher and wearing headscarves until they were able to accept her baldness caused by chemotherapy. This teacher and the other authors ask, “Does it protect the children to keep them apart from it [knowledge of serious illness]? Or does it isolate and remove children’s power to act?” They also said “It is not that adults would ask the children to do so [take on the responsibility of supporting an ill teacher], but that their empathy and care contributed in an essential way to the healing of others.”

Sobel reports that involvement with local nature experiences is strongly tied to environmental stewardship. The March 2012 issue of Science and Children focuses on ways to get teachers and students outside to have those direct experiences with nature. By supporting children’s development of empathy and their ability to act, as shown in the Young Children article, and providing direct experiences as part of the local nature, teachers can foster children’s love of the environment and stewardship actions appropriate to their age and ability.

Peggy

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.

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.

Giving students opportunities to explore and observe plants, birds, or bugs on the school grounds or in nearby gardens and parks can bring multiple benefits. The Children & Nature Network highlights research findings that support the positive benefits of environment-based studies on school achievement, citing standardized measures in basic subject areas and other indications that environment-based programs foster cooperative learning and civic responsibility. NSTA Press has a rich collection of resources on easy ways to incorporate outdoor science activities in any green area in your schoolyard or nearby park. Read April’s issue of NSTA’s Book Beat for free lessons about seeds, plants, schoolyard surveys, and “Diary of a seed” writing prompts for students preK through high school.

Last month we shared some resources on the Gulf oil spill and the situation is even more critical now. The Encyclopedia of Life has added an entry on the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill 2010 that describes the diversity of life in the Gulf and has links to news articles about the spill. Unfortunately, the list of articles keeps getting longer.

The Deepwater Horizon Response website is a “Unified Command” clearinghouse of information provided by government agencies (such as the U.S. Coast Guard, EPA, NOAA, USGS, the National Park Service, OSHA, and the Departments of State, Interior, and Homeland Security) and BP. There are daily updates, maps, and articles related to the spill.

With the oceans getting a lot of attention, you may want to check out the Ocean Portal from the Smithsonian Institution and 20 other organizations. According to the press release, users have many options to explore, including

• Ocean Life & Ecosystems, offering information about marine life species and the environments in which they live
• Ocean Science, introducing visitors to the latest experiments and research of ocean scientists around the world
• The Ocean Over Time, providing a look at the evolution of the ocean
• For Educators, providing teachers with activities, lessons and educational resources
• Photo Essays, highlighting feature stories on a variety of topics relating to ocean life
• The Ocean & You, where visitors can learn about important ocean issues and ways to make a positive impact
• Find Your Blue, a section designed to inspire visitors to participate, share, and check out featured actions that they can take to help the ocean
• The website also includes the Ocean Portal Blog and RSS feeds where visitors can go to stay up-to-date on the latest in ocean news. Visitors can also access Ocean Portal content and participate through Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr.

I spent an evening looking at these resources and barely scratched the surface! The photos and other graphics are spectacular, the feature stories are compelling, and many of the features have sidebars with suggestions for the classroom.  Unfortunately, the Gulf oil spill is center stage on the portal.

But on another note—I read that Jacques Cousteau’s Calypso has been renovated and will embark on a tour this year to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of his birth. Captain Cousteau was one of my heros. I wonder what his thoughts would be about the current situation.

Many of you are wanting to download the resources from the conference in Philadelphia. Here’s how.

Highlights of stimulating conversations taking place right now on our listservs:

• Chemistry—iron titration, how to deal with dangerous chemicals, and what incoming freshman need to know;
• Earth Science—Friday, May 28th, being celebrated as the 2,595th “birthday of science,” and combining science with art;
• Elementary—lots of recommendations for books to use to teach the Simple Machines;
• Physical Science—conduction radiation activities;
• Physics—the discussion on grading and homework continues, as well as discussions on ferrorfluids.

In NSTA’s online professional learning communities, there is activity in the Tennessee Chapter group (discussing the implementation of a new state framework for science K–12), the Massachusetts chapter has posted their flyer on their upcoming conference, and don’t forget to download all the presentation resources for our Philadelphia Conference–even if you didn’t come, as a member of these communities, you can access all the handouts and session materials! Click here to access a short video that teaches you how to get the handouts.

On our “core site” (www.nsta.org): read about National Lab Day and get involved!

On Facebook, lots of videos and images being shared on fun experiments for families and microscopic imagery.

On LinkedIn, more direct posts from NSTA’s Career Center, and discussions on getting groundwater science education into schools.

And of course, on our Twitter stream, science educators are tweeting and re-tweeting the latest from NSTA Press!

Renew Your Membership!

Now is the time to insure that you don’t miss a single journal issue or one minute of the time you use to network and build professional connections here in these online communities. Click the link above to renew your membership and insure that NSTA stays in your corner for your science education career!

Photo by NASA

The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico seems to be on everyone’s mind. Even some third-graders I was working with today were talking about it. The major news services are keeping us informed through web articles and photographs as well as traditional television news segments. Blogs and other news sites have current information and images. A recent post on the NSTA blog shared several oil spill resources. A few others to add to the list: EPA Response to BP Spill in the Gulf of Mexico and Google Earth Images.

SciLinks has a collection of websites on the topic of oil spills. Although these are noted for grades 9–12, many of them could be used by younger students. Teachers can also gather background information from them or to provide a context for the current events. The SciLinks collection includes sources such as

• How Oil Drilling Works
• Oiled Wildlife Care Network
• Spill Containment Methods
• What’s the Story on Oil Spills?
• The Effects of Maritime Oil Spills on Wildlife
• How Do You Clean Up an Oil Spill?

This event is being compared to other spills such as a recent on in California and the Exxon Valdez spill that happened more than 20 years ago. NOAA has created a comprehensive look at the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William’s Oily Mess This site is designed as a classroom resource with lesson plans, inquiry activities in a real-world context, photographs, readings, and interviews with scientists.

I’ve experienced first hand how fragile our coastal ecosystems are. And I recently visited the Gulf Coast, where I was impressed with its beauty and how productive and valuable the wetlands are. This event truly scares me, with its implications for the ecology and economy of our country.