I’m hoping that secondary teachers will take a look at the articles that describe authentic investigations conducted by young scientists in their communities: Creative Soil Conservation and Boulder Creek Study. The latter has examples of student work as they studied the water quality in their communities, using various indicators, including the presence of aquatic invertebrates. The authors noted that their students did not have much background in the topic of a “watershed.” If your students need this information also, use the keyword watershed in SciLinks. SciLinks also has websites with information and activities on topics related to soil for grades K-4 and 5-8 (e.g. types of soil, soil erosion, microorganisms in soil).

From hurricanes to earthquakes, forest fires mudslides, and record-setting snowstorms and rainfall, children often ask “Can it happen here?” Three articles are related to this topic. Along with Can We Protect Our Communities From Natural Disasters?,  check out the SciLinks keyword disasters for grades 5-8. Even if you’re not in an earthquake zone, activities such as those in Shake It Up and The Built Environment tap into the creativity of future engineers. SciLinks has lists of related websites on the topic of earthquake resistant structures and the science of bridges. One of my favorites is Building Big: All About Bridges from PBS.

If you like the ideas in the article How It’s Made, SciLinks has more information on pencils (5–8).  Action Figures describes how to hook students into a study of the skeletal system. Even though my curriculum did not include human anatomy, I learned that a brief review of the human skeleton helped students to connect to the skeletons of other vertebrates. In SciLinks, search for bones (5–8) or skeletal system (5–8), which includes other systems of the body. Three examples include Bird Skull Collection, the Mr. Bones interactive puzzle, and Virtual Body, which is also available in Spanish

To extend your activities on growing seeds, check out From Mystery Seed to Mangrove Island (I wonder what other variations on the mystery materials teachers who do not live in Florida can come up with!) and The Farmer in the Lab, which makes the investigation more complex and challenging for older students.

Many teachers are looking for ideas to integrate science with other content areas. It’s challenging to keep the project focused on a theme or essential question, rather than merely putting together a collection of “activities.” Living Off the Land dispels some of the misconceptions children have about Native American cultures as they focus on the relationships between people and natural resources. Outdoor Classrooms has suggestions and resources to use a corner of the schoolyard, a window box, or an outdoor center. And check with a local rescue or rehabilitation center if you have students similar to the Turtle Girls and want to give them ownership of their project.

I’m going to reread Using Learning Progressions to Monitor Progress Across Grades. I wonder how this way of assessing students in science processes is interpreted in schools where science takes a back seat to test prep in reading and math? I’m also curious as to how students beyond grade 4 would “score” on this. This article has related resources in the Connections for this issue, along with ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, for several of the other articles.

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 knowledge.

Shrieks of delight let me know that a slug is on the move, and hearing excited consultation with the classroom’s confident “wrangler” tells me that the children have it under control.

Peggy

Who needs a slug? was the question this week at a program I gave at the public library. The children, ages 6-10, carefully picked through habitat-like containers I had compiled the day before from my yard. For some reason slugs were scarce this week, but there were plenty of roly-polies (isopods), millipedes, earthworms, and I even managed to catch a few centipedes—for viewing only as these animals can give a painful bite. With magnifiers in hand, the children made both life-size and diagram-size drawings in a science notebook made from a folded sheet of paper. There were a few die-hards who had to be reluctantly parted from their invertebrate companions.

A wonderful book about the lives of insects for those of you who enjoy a conversational read and want to know “what are they up to?” is Broadsides from the Other Orders: A Book of Bugs by Sue Hubbell (Mariner Books, 1998).

I also enjoyed reading an amusing and eye-opening article about entomophagy (insects as food) in Science News (June 7th, 2008; Vol.173 #18). Apparently insects are full of wonderful protein and minerals! One of the experts, Patrick B. Durst, a senior forestry officer with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s regional office in Bangkok, suggested that removing the heads makes insects more appealing and entomophagy advocate David Gracer says they are no more disgusting than shrimp. How many times do you have to offer a new food to children before they will try it?

Peggy

It feels like summer will be over before we know it! Many of you—those who actually had a summer off that is—are busy preparing your classrooms and projects for the coming school year. In the summer Early Years column, An Invertebrate Garden, Peggy Ashbrook described how to attract invertebrates to an outdoor area for later study. Planting flowers to attract butterflies is something we’d all love to do, but be honest, how many of you will be collecting some of our less lovely invertebrates for study?

Even if you don’t have an outdoor space suitable for gardening or invertebrate attraction, there are still many preparations to be made and long-term projects to dream up. Tell us your plans for your classroom below.