A significant challenge that science teachers face is how to help students successfully navigate the bridge from their existing ideas about science concepts to scientifically accepted views. A teacher who uncovers students’ preconceptions about key concepts can use that knowledge to provide learning experiences that support students as they develop richer conceptual understanding. The March 2012 issue of NSTA’s Book Beat highlights resources that can help teachers guide their students on the path from misconceptions to clearer understanding. Page Keeley’s Uncovering Student Ideas in Science Series has been a go-to source for many teachers who want to learn more about what students are thinking about gravity, force and motion, cells, life cycles, and numerous other science topics.

This issue of Book Beat links to two free preview chapters from Page Keeley and Cary Sneider’s brand-new Uncovering Student Ideas in Astronomy. What do your students know—or think they know—about what causes night and day, whether the Moon spins, and what happens to stars when they die? The 45 astronomy probes in the new book provide situations that will pique your students’ interest while helping you evaluate their understanding of how the universe operates. The book covers the broad areas of the nature of planet Earth; the Sun-Earth system; modeling the Moon; dynamic solar system; and stars, galaxies, and the universe. Andrew Fraknoi writes in his Foreword to this new book: “Just like a doctor’s diagnostic tool provides one chemical or physical indicator of our health, each of Keeley and Sneider’s probes measures one or two ideas that lets you know how much surgical repair (if any) might be needed to fix up your students’ astronomical ideas.” For additional resources on misconceptions in science, check out the Everyday Science Mysteries Series; Predict, Observe, Explain; and the Brain-Powered Science Series. Additional NSTA Press resources on astronomy include Project Earth Science: Astronomy, Revised 2^nd Edition; and Earth Science Success: 50 Lesson Plans for Grades 6–9.

Most Popular NSTA Press Books

1. Science the “Write” Way
2. Doing Good Science in Middle School: A Practical Guide to Inquiry-Based Instruction
3. Picture-Perfect Science Lessons, Expanded 2nd Edition: Using Children’s Books to Guide Inquiry, 3-6
4. STEM Student Research Handbook
5. Science Stories: Using Case Studies to Teach Critical Thinking

Most Popular NSTA Press e-Books and e-Chapters

1. The NSTA Reader’s Guide to A Framework for K–12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (e-book)
2. The Nature of Science and Science Inquiry (e-chapter)
3. BSCS 5E Instructional Model (e-chapter)
4. Why Read Pictures Books in Science Class? (e-book)
5. The Virus Debate (e-chapter)

Most Popular NSTA Journal Articles

1. A Sun-Earth-Moon Activity to Develop Student Understanding of Lunar Phases and Frames of Reference
2. Bringing Antarctica Home
3. Springing Into Inquiry: Using Student Ideas to Investigate Seasons
4. Designing Design Challenges: Getting the Details Right
5. Mendel’s Modern Legacy

Rather than rolling your eyes at the common student query, “Why do I need to know this?”, use it to your advantage! Yale astrophysicist Priya Natarajan wrote in the Washington Post, “if we want more Americans to pursue careers in STEM professions, we have to intervene much earlier than we imagined” to help them see connections between classroom learning and the real world. Natarajan notes that early explorations “help students understand that science and math aren’t just abstract equations, but tools we use to understand our world.” The February 2012 issue of NSTA’s Book Beat highlights resources that can help you convey to students how science literacy is relevant to understanding and solving real-world challenges facing our society.

In Front Page Science: Engaging Teens in Science Literacy, Wendy Saul and coauthors show teachers how to use science journalism techniques to help students become better consumers of, and contributors to, a scientifically literate community. The authors ask, “What might we teach students now that will help them make sense of their world 15 years after graduation?” Because students will encounter scientific, medical, and technological issues throughout their lives, they will require the skill to continually seek out and assess new information. The book offers concrete advice on how to help students recognize that science is and will continue to be everywhere—even if they don’t pursue science or engineering careers. Students then become engaged in reporting on a science current event—learning research, interview, and writing strategies along the way. February Book Beat includes links to the free chapter “Setting the Stage by Modeling” for a helpful illustration of how one teacher introduces a potential research topic to her class and models her own questioning about a recent news article. Elementary and middle school teachers might also be interested in the other free chapters linked in the issue: “Keeping Science Current” and “Extra, Extra, Learn All About It” from Science the “Write” Way, in which students find and write about a science topic in the news or create a science-based newspaper. Encouraging students to explore and write about science that’s relevant to them will not only engage them in the lesson today but will also foster an interest in staying scientifically informed for life.

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.

Can it reflect light? Is it a plant? Is it made of cells? These questions are among more than 100 formative assessment probes developed by Page Keeley and her colleagues to help teachers elicit information about what students think about key science concepts. A capacity crowd at Keeley’s Seattle conference session turned out to learn more about these powerful tools and how to use them in the classroom to delve deeper into student thinking. Keeley began her session, “What Were They Thinking?” by pointing out that teachers realize “students don’t come to us as empty vessels; they have preconceptions about science.”  A teacher who brings those student ideas to the surface can challenge students’ existing ideas and encourage them to think more deeply about a science concept. As Keeley noted, lab equipment like Vernier probes can help us see below the surface and collect additional information, thereby deepening our knowledge. The formative assessment probe is a specific type of question that similarly can help us look beneath the surface to learn more about student thinking.

The probes in Uncovering Student Ideas in Science are engaging questions that promote a lot of talk, argumentation, and thought among students. Teachers who use probes at the beginning of a lesson or unit help make students’ thinking visible to the teacher, the class, and sometimes to the students themselves, who might not have realized their ideas until they were brought to the surface in a probe activity. One probe that Keeley highlighted is “Can It Reflect Light?” Students are given a list of items such as water, soil, mirror, rusty nail, and red apple and asked to sort them into items that reflect light and items that do not. The second part of these activity is the most powerful part, Keeley said, because students are then asked to explain their reasoning for the sorted lists they created. The student explanations give teachers rich insights into preconceptions or gaps in students’ knowledge, thereby guiding the teacher in how to structure an ensuing lesson. Several common ideas students have about light and reflection include the assumption that only light-colored or shiny objects reflect light, for example. A teacher might structure a lesson that offers numerous opportunities for students to explore light and reflectivity to gain first-hand understanding that “if you can see it, it is reflecting light.”

Several different types of questions are used in the probes, including one Keeley called “Familiar Phenomena Probes.” These probes are designed to get at students’ thinking about familiar events. Examples are “Wet Jeans,” in which students ponder where the water has “gone” from a pair of wet jeans that dried while hanging on a clothesline, and “What’s in the Bubbles?”, in which students discuss what they think is in the bubbles that form in boiling water. The probes “What’s in the Bubbles?” and “Can It Reflect Light?” are available for download in the NSTA Science Store. Keeley’s session prompted a lively discussion among the teachers present about commonly held misconceptions and how strongly held they can become among students. Formative assessment probes like those in Uncovering Student Ideas in Science can be just the tool for teachers to employ when urging students to reexamine their existing ideas and deepen their understanding about important concepts in science.

Why write in science class? As Jodi Wheeler-Toppen, editor of the new NSTA Press book Science the “Write” Way, notes in her Introduction, “there are many reasons to have our students write, but the one that is most powerful for me is simple: Writing helps students learn.” Scientists write their observations and analyses and publish their work. Students can reap the same benefits that scientists do from writing, including connecting prior knowledge to new findings, organizing their ideas, and uncovering questions for further study. The November issue of NSTA’s Book Beat offers numerous resources for broadening your approach to incorporating writing in your classroom.

In this issue of Book Beat, you’ll find freebie chapters from How to Write to Learn Science, 2nd Edition; Science the “Write” Way; and Lecture-Free Teaching. Strategies and tips for teachers of English learners are included in free-chapter downloads from Science for English Language Learners and Teaching Science to English Language Learners.

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

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.”

The NSTA Science Store at the conferences is a popular meeting spot where teachers can browse new teaching resources and NSTA gear while catching up with colleagues. A few of the popular books at the Store in New Orleans include Science the “Write” Way, Picture-Perfect Science Lessons, 2nd Edition; Celebrating Cultural Diversity: Science for All; Companion Classroom Activities for Stop Faking It! Force and Motion; and STEM Student Research Handbook. Authors like John Eichinger, the guru of Activities Linking Science With Math, K–4, and 5–8, also stop by to visit and talk about their books after sessions conclude. It’s fun to see science teachers sporting NSTA gear items like “I Love Science” hoodies and t-shirts while rushing to their next workshop session.  A cool new item debuting at the New Orleans Store, inspired by Sarah Young’s Gourmet Lab book, is an apron declaring “My Other Lab Is My Kitchen.” All the books displayed at the Store and many of the gear items are available through the online Science Store, too.

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.