Ted Koehn with his arsenal of inexpensive/free materials

Last year in New Orleans, I attended the session Sixty Labs You Can Do with Little or No Budget (see related posts below). Last year, so many people were there that some had to stand and some of us had to sit on the floor. I decided to go again this year because I was curious: Who would come this time? How many, given the late time slot of 5 p.m. on Saturday afternoon? What would I learn that I missed last time?

Ted literally describes his 60 high school physics and chemistry activities in a fast-paced, one-hour session. All of the materials he uses are either free or very inexpensive, and he even will tell you the exact amount–to the penny–he spent to acquire them (“at least in Lincoln,” Nebraska—his hometown—he adds). He provides each audience member with a packet containing guides for doing each of the labs, and the hour was filled with the sounds of pages turning as the teachers followed along.

He covered chemistry labs on moles, acids and bases, the periodic table, solubility curve… (the clock was ticking: 1 lab…10 labs…15 labs…)

…using gumdrops and toothpicks to create models of molecules…buying 100 chromatography strips for $3…10 vials of pH paper for $10…using eyedroppers as titration tubes…(20 labs…30 labs…)

Then came the physics labs. How to construct four inclined planes using inexpensive plywood…getting free ball bearings (from a truck repair shop) that students can roll down the inclined planes…checking garage sales for bargain supplies…propping a curtain rod on some books to create another inclined plane…(35 labs…40 labs)

…getting softballs from the PE department to use to teach projectile motion…”Ohaus gave out free spring balances in the Exhibition Hall; did you get one?”…having students use old film canisters and loading them with different amounts of pennies to see whether they would sink or float in water…(50 labs…60 labs! Hooray!) The audience applauded enthusiastically!

As you can see, the 5:00 start time did not deter science teachers from showing up for Sixty Labs. One teacher commented, “He’s amazing. I’m exhausted—but it was great!” (You can find Ted’s e-mail address online in the Saturday/Sunday program.)

Longtime readers of NSTA Reports, NSTA’s monthly newspaper, may recall the headline of this post was once the name of a popular column in the paper. (And hello to the former Reports editors reading the blog, who will remember the fun we had coming up with the names for the newspaper’s columns.)

This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a Madagascar hissing beetle. I enjoy going to NSTA conferences because I get to see all sorts of denizens of the animal world that I would never get a chance to view ordinarily.

During their workshop on Connecting With Animals in the Classroom, Stephanie Selznick (left) and Suzanne Flynn showed us some of their friends in the animal world and described how teachers could “create the ‘aha!’ moment for students by teaching about animals. Suzanne said treating students to the sight of a mother gerbil giving birth and nursing her baby is something students will never forget—and can inspire a love for science. “Kids love to look at and touch live things,” said Stephanie.

Teaching about animals also provides a vehicle for linking other subjects to science—and “the more links, the more thinks” for students, said Suzanne. Young children can count an animal’s legs and even create Venn diagrams about the animal’s characteristics and compare them with those of other animals, for example. That sounds much more fun than the Venn diagrams I remember doing in elementary school!

Suzanne described how teachers could use the NSTA/CBC Outstanding Science Trade Books and find other books using NSTA Recommends to integrate language arts into lessons involving animals. She praised the scientific accuracy of the books on the NSTA/CBC lists.

Stephanie told us about a 20-minute activity for fifth graders that can be used as an end-of-unit assessment. She has her students choose an animal they’ve studied and write four or five facts about it on a card. Her fourth graders have created “notebooks of cool facts” about their favorite animal, including its physical features, its favorite foods, and how it can be characterized.

Other than two insects that leaped out of their containers and had to be rescued (both successfully!), the workshop went very smoothly, and I heard many teachers say “Great session” as they prepared to leave for their next adventure.

My next-door neighbor is a lovely young woman, currently at the top of her junior class and gathering information on colleges. She’s interested in studying chemistry/chemical engineering (hooray!). I was reflecting on the opportunities she has that did not exist years ago when I was in her situation. Many colleges with strong science/engineering programs were men-only then or they did not encourage women to apply to these majors. We’ve come a long way, but we’re still talking about science-for-all issues.

This article Universal Design suggests purposeful design of instruction and facilities that will meet the needs of a greater number of students. The author notes that “when UD principles are applied to the classroom, content is presented in multiple methods.” I’m curious about possible connections between UD and differentiated instruction. After reading the article I followed the link to the University of Washington’s DO-IT website to learn more. It appears that many of the things we already do in classrooms (e.g., wait time, posting assignments on the board, avoiding jargon, using large type on projected material) fit into the strategies of UD.

Unlocking Science Vocabulary is subtitled “Lessons from an ESOL teacher.” Don’t think that the strategies apply only to ELLs (English Language Learners). All of our students are SLLs (science language learners) and these strategies for learning the specialized vocabulary of science are teacher-tested and align with the research of Robert Marzano and others who have studied the issues of learning vocabulary. It seems like another twist on UD—what is helpful for ELLs may be helpful to many other students who are struggling with specialized vocabulary. I was fortunate to have studied Latin in high school (thank you, Sister Euphemia), which was a great basis for understanding science vocabulary. The author provides a link to a list of root words and affixes from Latin and other languages, which would be a nice reference for students to play around with words.

3-D Teaching Models for All shows another example of how strategies for students with visual difficulties can be used to help all students learn. The SciLinks topic using models has more examples of models and visualizations on various topics.

Two articles in this issue illustrate what the 5E learning cycle (engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate) looks like in a real classroom. Who’s in the Zoo turns a traditional animal report into an investigation of the Earth’s biomes. (This could be adapted for younger students, too.) Check out the additional information on biomes in SciLinks. Students are great users of electronic technology. As described in Make Your Own Digital Thermometer, students investigate how to make scientific instruments, scaffolded by the 5E cycle. SciLinks has additional resources on the topic of temperature and regulation.

If you’re looking for ways to stimulate student interest and observation skills, this month’s NSTA Recommends includes The Exploratorium Science Snackbook. The Exploratorium is a must-see,  interactive science museum in San Francisco (where the NSTA national conference will be in 2011!) and is one of my favorite places in the city. The book is a collection of “snacks”—simple demonstrations and activities that can be used to explore topics and generate questions. If you’re not sure what a “snack” is, visit the Exploratorium website for a list and descriptions. The Tools for Teaching on the museum site is a treasure of resources, too.

Check out the Connections for this issue. Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, this resource has ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, and rubrics.

We can work for the day when Science for All becomes a commonplace reality, and this theme can be retired!

What’s happening in the early childhood world of Pumpkin Science? Have you planted and harvested pumpkins? Have you weighed, floated, cut-open, counted seeds, printed, or rolled pumpkins?

Share your pumpkin science lesson here! Add a comment by clicking on the word “comment” below. Hint: write and save your comment in a separate document to cut and paste in, because the anti-spammer “capcha” box may time out before you are ready to submit your comment. You may have to do it twice. To see that your comment has been added, scroll down.

I have pumpkins, now I need some ideas!

Peggy

I’m planning a fall gardening activity now, before school starts, and the first step is to mark my calendar to buy spring flowering bulbs before the end of September. Seasonal changes vary across the many climates in the United States. If you get temperatures below 40°F for extended periods of time, you can plant these bulbs too. If not, go to the Tag Cloud menu on the left and click on “Growing Plants” to see the September 15, 2008, post with a link to growing other types of bulbs.

Read the activity about planting spring-flowering bulbs in the Early Years column in the September issue of Science and Children, the National Science Teachers Association’s elementary school journal.

If all your students are years beyond the exploring-with-their-mouth stage then they can plant my favorite flower, daffodils or jonquils. If there is any chance that a student might bite into a bulb, buy Camassia spp. (also called Camas, Quamash, and Wild Hyacinth) bulbs which are a safe plant to eat (although I never have). Check out plant toxicity online using the lists for unsafe and safe plants at the California Poison Control System before making garden choices. And most importantly, know your students and be watchful.

Sing a song before and after planting bulbs, and all winter long while wondering if the bulbs really will sprout.

Act out the following song while you sing it, to the tune of the traditional song “Jack in the Box”.

Spring flowering bulb, (children curl face down on floor, hiding face)
So safe in the ground,
Way down inside, your little dirt mound, (hands curve over head)
Spring flowering bulb so quiet and still,
Won’t you sprout up? (heads up and jump up, stretch arms up high)
Of course I will!

Do you have a favorite book about planting flowering bulbs? Both non-fiction and fiction that ties into the science topic are useful. Here are some that have been successful in my classes:

• A Flower Grows by Ken Robbins. 1990. Dial Books.

The book follows the growth of an amaryllis bulb through photos.

• From Bulb to Daffodil by Ellen Weiss. 2007. Children’s Press (CT).

This excellent book includes plant structure details through photography and introduces some vocabulary so it can be useful for English language learners as well as early readers. I wish the book did not use the word “sleeping” instead of “leaf senescence” to describe the leaf and flower die-back because young children can learn, and like to use, big words that are more precise. “Senescence.” I clap and say it to help myself remember: sen-nes-ence, (sənes′-əns).

• The Life Cycle of a Flower by Molly Aloian and Bobbie Kalman. 2004. Crabtree Publishing Company.

Photographs reveal the details of flower structures and plant parts and the text describes seed production and other ways plants reproduce.

• Investigate Plants by Sue Barraclough. 2009. Heinemann Library.

With a question and answer format, this book asks readers to answer before turning the page.

• Planting a Rainbow by Lois Elhert. 1988. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

This classic shows bulbs in the ground before sprouting and when blooming.

What seasons do you experience? Do your students remember the way it rained and rained last spring or the big snow that happened as long as 1/4 their lifetime ago? Here are some books for discussing the cycle of seasons and the passage of time with young children:

• Boxes for Katje by Candace Fleming Candace Fleming and Stacey Dressen-McQueen. 2003. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

This story about tough times in post World War II Holland is based on the experiences of the author’s mother who sent boxes to a family in Holland.

• Spring: An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schnur, illustrated by Leslie Evans. 1999. Clarion Books.

Spring from A to Z, each page an acrostic poem beginning with the letters of the alphabet. Your class may want to write their own acrostic poem about a word related to the season. The series includes Winter, Summer, and Autumn.

• What Comes in Spring by Barbara Horton, illustrated by Ed Young. 1992. Knopf.

In this story a mother relates the family’s milestones to the seasons.

• When This Box is Full by Patricia Lillie, illustrated by Donald Crews. 1993. Greenwillow Books.

Children love to guess what the girl will put in the box next to represent the month (one object per month). It reminds me of The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown in that it says what is important to a child about a time of year. For me it would be ice, a heart, seeds, a kite, sunscreen, swimming pool, a novel, tomatoes, school supplies, birthday cake, pumpkins, and a candle. What would you and your class choose?

• A Year in the City by Kathy Henderson, illustrated by Paul Howard. 1996. McGraw-Hill.

Some seasonal changes are specific to urban environments: snow grey with car exhaust, Chinese New Year parades, and city park garden blooms.

Share the seasonal books you find useful by posting a comment below. Hope you get to plant with your class!

Peggy

I was excited to see a Monarch butterfly land on the Butterfly Bush in the yard (I hesitate to call it a garden).

Click on the photo for more Early Years pics.

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 claim to the Milkweed, making it unattractive to butterflies. Monarch butterfly migration is the subject of a citizen science project called Monarch Watch, which encourages the creation of “Monarch Waystations”, plantings of caterpillar food (milkweeds) and nectar sources for the adult butterflies. This is a project your class could initiate in the spring after studying the butterfly life cycle.

Read more about butterflies and how they are the same and different from moths in What’s the Difference Between a Butterfly and a Moth? by Robin Koontz with informative illustrations by Brandelin-Dacey (Picture Window Books, 2010).  Both are in the group Lepidoptera and your children will love to become Lepidopterists, butterfly and moth scientists. Butterfly information is also available online from California to Florida. See the Educators’ Guide: Butterfly Rainforest at the Florida Museum of Natural History for answers to questions such as “How do Lepidoptera see, taste and hear?”

Citizen science projects are one way to connect your class with habitats other than your local one, and to broaden their knowledge of the world while helping them understand that sometimes science is a collection of data collected over time by many individuals. Here are some activity ideas that may inspire you to participate with your class, and join with others in a network to provide data that can be used by other classes and scientists.

In the Square of Life project, students plot square meters in their school yards and record all the living and non-living things they find in the square. They compare the information with what other classes have found by looking at the information posted on the website. View student reports to see how your class can learn by participating in the project which was developed by Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) and Bank Street College of Education .

In Bucket Buddies, another CIESE project,  students collect samples from ponds to answer the question: Are the organisms found in pond water the same all over the world?  Then they compare their data with that from other classes and look for patterns.

Participating in Firefly Watch means observing and recording the presence or absence of fireflies in your area. Read about “How These Beetles Create Light” and what scientists know in David Farenthold’s article in the Washington Post.

On one recent morning with the unseasonable summer temperature of 64°F, I saw a bumble bee resting on a purple cone flower, perhaps waiting for the sun to warm it up. I was tempted to pet it! If you are in Illinois and your students are interested in taking photos of bees, learn about Beespotters, another project where citizen scientists lend a hand.   One beespotter’s photo showed a rusty-patched bumble bee, Bombus affinis, a bee that was thought to be locally extinct!

Learning about the lives of insects can expand our students’ world.

Peggy

Can you tell that it will rain soon by the way the air smells? Do you like the smell of snow? I like the way the air smells just as a badly needed rain begins—it makes me think of the earth exhaling as the water soaks in (but this could be a misconception on my part).

(Click on the photo to see the details of the raindrops and the fallen redbud tree flowers.)

Rainfall is a significant event in children’s lives, in some places a daily one, while in others a rare pleasure. Rainy days usually mean that children play indoors so they may not know how much it rained or how long. What can we do to connect children to the patterns in nature determined by precipitation?

Taking brief note of the weather as part of a daily circle or calendar is more common in early childhood classrooms than recording those weather observations through drawings, photography, or writing. When temperature, precipitation, and cloud cover are recorded on a year-long chart, seasonal changes can be easily seen.

Notable events, such as, “the storm that blew down the big tree” or snow days that closed school, can be highlighted and reflected upon. If you record weather phenomena, compare your class’ results with that of the National Weather Service, Climate Prediction Center. 

Recording the weather can help children make sense of the natural phenomena that are not in our control but affect our lives profoundly. I knew a three-year-old who cried when she noticed any clouds moving overhead. I wonder if drawing the clouds daily in a notebook might have reassured her that they were a familiar occurrence, and not threatening. Teachers who live in areas with occasional severe weather—how do you talk about it with young children? Please add your comments by clicking on the word “Comment” below.

Peggy

Snack sorting! It’s an interesting way to involve students in classifying and, while sitting together to eat, there is time to talk about why certain groupings were chosen. Children might sort by shape, create an ABAB pattern, and count the number of each snack shape.

Classification is the theme for the March 2009 issue of Science and Children

I was especially interested in the performance standard scale for the process of classification developed by a group of first-grade teachers in the Coast Metro school districts of British Columbia, Canada (see “Classifying Classification”, pgs. 25-29). The scale details the skills and behavior that may be seen in first graders as they classify and answer these questions:

How are these the same? How are they different? Is there another way you can sort theses into groups? Where would you place this new item in your system? Explain.

The teachers put classification skills on a continuum from Matching, to Sorting, to Categorizing, to Interpreting, “to help them describe how students move through different levels of classification tasks.”

I’m eager to apply this model to the next classification task I introduce in my teaching, and improve the sequence of classifying tasks we work on next year.

Peggy

Photo by Keith Weller

“Why is corn used as a decoration in the fall in the United States?” asked a student’s grandmother. She is originally from Estonia where she said seasonal decorative include straw weavings, hung as symbols to bring a good harvest in the next year. I don’t know when it became popular to hang ears of multicolored corn (Zea mays) as decoration in the United States but it may come from the harvesting of dried corn in the fall. Whatever the origin of this decoration, as symbols of a good harvest, or wishes for such in the coming year, by decorating with varieties that don’t usually appear on our plates we expose children to a variety of corn ears. The variety in corn is interesting to children and prepares them to study genetics when they are older. Worldwide, the word “corn” can refer to any local grain. (The photo at right is from the photo gallery at the  Agricultural Research Service website.)

Young children love to ‘dissect’ ears of fresh or dried corn and can learn new words while learning plant structure—first the husk, then the silk, then the harder job of picking the kernels off the cob. Place a variety of dried corn cobs in a bin or sensory table and allow children to take them apart. See the November issue of Science and Children to read about examining and measuring corn ears in The Early Years column.

Maybe in the spring you’ll plant Zea mays with your class.

Peggy

For an activity to explore buoyancy—what materials and which objects sink or float in water—I gave each child in a small group an object to hold. Then I explained that we were going to think about the objects and say where we think they will come to rest in a big tub of water—at the bottom or near the top of the water—BEFORE we put the objects in the water. Most of the two-year-olds are in the “thought is action” stage and immediately dropped (threw, in some cases) the objects in the tub. “I think it’s going to…It’s floating!”

The four-year-olds seemed to savor their anticipation of “doing”. They took their time to tell where they thought the object would come to rest before testing their prediction. It’s wonderful to work with children who are not afraid to be “wrong”. My hope is that I do nothing to change that.

Pumpkins are fun objects to use in this activity. Children often predict that the largest one will sink, even after witnessing the smallest and the medium pumpkins floating. Children can record their results by drawing the pumpkin shape on a teacher-made template of the tub.

Some children may notice and explore the effect of magnification, especially if the tub you use is round.

Read the October Teaching Through Tradebooks column, Pumpkins! By Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan for more pumpkin exploration (grades K-6) with literature connections to How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Margaret McNamara and Pumpkin Circle by George Levenson.

Peggy