Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my! Digital cameras, young inquisitive scientists, give it a try! In this project, students create an open-ended question for investigation, capture and record their observations—data—with digital cameras, and create a digital story to share their findings. The project follows a 5E learning cycle—Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate/Extend, and Evaluate—and meets science learning standards as students model inquiry behaviors such as making careful observations and using simple tools (i.e., the digital camera) to gather information and extend their senses, while learning about animal diversity and animals in their environments in a meaningful way.
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In this “O-“fish”-ial” research project, third-grade students use multiple resources to research several fish species, write a research paper and develop a PowerPoint presentation to communicate their findings. In addition, students actually examine these species up close with samples from the local market, and then conclude the project with a celebratory fish-tasting party. Best of all, students not only learn about habitats, ecosystems, and food chains, but also incorporate the science-process skills of observing, classifying, communicating, inferring, predicting, and measuring into this inviting “menu” of learning!
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Records show others what data you have collected and under what conditions. Without records, patterns escape notice. Records also provide accountability and allow someone else to replicate or analyze your methods. Record keeping is fundamental to science. With a new year just under way, there’s no better time than now to get students’ and your own record-keeping skills in shape. Use this issue as inspiration as you practice and develop this fundamental science skill.
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This monthly feature contains facts and challenges for the science explorer.
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Developing good record-keeping habits is essential for organizing, processing, and communicating experimental results objectively. Therefore, the authors designed an interactive method of teaching first graders to record, organize, and interpret data as they studied the life cycle of the spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum). In their curricular sequence, students recorded the water temperature, date, and number of salamander eggs that hatched. Additionally, students illustrated the salamander’s developmental stages over time in a personal journal and learned how to organize data on bar graphs. In this article, they describe their experiences to inspire you to try similar units with your young scientists
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How do you inspire students to keep records like scientists? Share the primary research of real scientists and explicitly teach students how to keep records—that’s how! Therefore, a group of third-grade students and their teacher studied the work of famous primatologist Jane Goodall and her modern-day counterpart Ian Gilby. After learning about the scientists’ work with chimpanzees in Gombe National Park in Tanzania, Africa, students conducted an animal behavior inquiry of their own—with their pets! In doing so, students modeled real scientists as they practiced keeping records while learning how to make and read graphs. Their “Great Moments in Record Keeping” are shared here.
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The elementary classroom is changing, and English Language Learners (ELLs) are frequently a part of the mainstream classroom, learning alongside of native English speaking children, even when the ELLs’ language has not yet developed fully. So, teachers need strategies to help build the language and content knowledge of all of their students, making sure that all children have the greatest opportunity possible to succeed in learning science. While there are many strategies that can be helpful to a teacher, the strategies outlined here will allow teachers to both help their non-ELL students and successfully include ELLs in classroom learning opportunities.
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In science, language denotes the relationship among ideas (e.g., cause/effect; instance/generalization; individual/group member), with features that are often subtle and abstract. Such features of science language make school science difficult for all students. Yet these features complicate matters even more for English language learners (ELLs), who have the added burden of a home language different from English. However, some educators assume that learning English is a prerequisite for learning subject matter like science. Given that it could take 4—10 years to become proficient in academic English (Thomas and Collier 2002), waiting to teach them science is misguided. This month’s Perspectives column provides some effective strategies in helping ELLs to develop the language of school science.
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Practitioner research is an ongoing, reflective process in which inservice teachers (i.e., practitioners) ask questions about their day-to-day teaching practice, develop plans of action to investigate these questions, draw conclusions supported by evidence as they gather, and use what is learned to facilitate changes in their pedagogy. Collaboration can be an integral component of the process as teachers participate in critical reflection within a supportive framework (Anderson, Herr, and Nihlen 2007). This article discusses one teachers’ experience as she used practitioner research to explore the use of science notebooks in her third-grade classroom.
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Faced with the prospect of giving fifth graders a state science test, teachers often review previous grade-level science content or use test-review booklets as a method of preparation. While this may allow students to understand testing rules, such teaching practice takes away from sound science instruction where students talk about, write about, and reflect on science. Therefore, the author, a district science coach, partnered with a fifth-grade teacher to provide students with some thinking tools with which to approach standardized tests. They designed a small-group literacy lesson that uses science experiments as a background for learning and helps students learn how to read test questions for science-process skills.
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A theory doesn’t become a law. End of story, end of this issue of Science 101. Just kidding—it’s all about the how and why, and that hasn’t been answered. See if this sounds familiar: Scientists begin with a hypothesis, which is sort of a guess of what might happen. When the scientists investigate the hypothesis, they follow a line of reasoning and eventually formulate a theory. Once a theory has been tested thoroughly and is accepted, it becomes a scientific law. Nice progression, and not what happens. To understand how scientists proceed in their investigations, it will help to understand each term individually. What’s a hypothesis, what’s a theory, and what’s a law?
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Often in schools, children collect weather data as part of their morning meeting or calendar time. These common primary level activities lend themselves nicely to introducing the importance of organizing data. In this lesson, children and teacher work together to find a structure for recording precipitation, temperature, and other weather information. Older children compare how using different types of graphs changes what is communicated about their weather data.
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From the earliest civilizations, humans have used drawings and pictures as a form of communication and to convey information—whether it was the seasons or location of good hunting grounds. In this month’s column, simple alphabet picture books show students how pictures can be used to communicate information about a topic. In the first activity, students create their own picture books. In the second lesson, older students try to describe an image with precision and accuracy.
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What do feathers have to do with flying? How is a feather like a hair? Do all feathers look the same or serve the same purpose? What does a feather look like inside? These are the type of open-ended questions to explore with your students as they handle feathers, wool, and hair. In addition, children can classify birds by many characteristics, including color, shape, size, and adaptation, such as webbed feet. Classifying objects such as feathers supports children’s learning about the objects as well as how scientists order the information they gather and is part of the National Science Education Content Standards A: Science as Inquiry and C: Life Science.
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