When most of us think about how we learned science, we generally remember it as a textbook-based affair, with experiments set-up in advance by a teacher. We tend to think of science as a body of facts to be memorized and of inquiry as a set of teacher-prescribed procedures to be followed. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was first confronted by my misconceptions about the nature of science when I realized my young students could tell me many science facts but were unable to apply them. Even after this insight, however, it took a long time for me to ask the critical question: Is science a set of facts or a process? An inquiry institute sparks one teacher to try —and succeed —in using inquiry with her young students.
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Student interest in science has been amplified at one elementary school. During a recent unit on sound, students in a fourth-grade class participated in a series of dynamic sound learning centers followed by a dramatic capstone event— an exploration of the amazing Trashcan Whoosh Waves. It’s a notoriously difficult subject to teach, but this hands-on, exploratory approach ignited student interest in sound, promoted language acquisition, and built comprehension of key science concepts. These successful experiences with fourth-grade students are shared here.
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Effective instruction requires continual assessment of student understanding to identify and redirect misconceptions. This is particularly important when dealing with topics that seem straightforward to the teacher but may go beyond the personal experience of many students, such as the life cycle of flowering plants. Life cycles are a core topic in the K–4 national science education standards and are included in many state science standards. This article demonstrates a quick and fun assessment teachers can use to check student understanding before and after studying plant life cycles.
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Understanding cyclic patterns and distinguishing them from other patterns is critical to understanding the Earth and beyond. Whether you are discussing star cycles, rock cycles, life cycles, or carbon cycles, this is the stuff of science. It is a fundamental way to understand and describe the universe. These descriptions require skills of measurement and graphing usually learned in elementary schools. The ideas are powerful—both to reach and teach the youngest students and to teach through a unifying idea.
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This monthly feature contains facts and challenges for the science explorer.
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Each year, first graders at Kensington Parkwood Elementary School in Kensington, Maryland, look forward to Fabulous Weather Day. After studying weather for three months, we celebrate what we have learned and stretch our thinking further into the weather world around us! Students learn how meteorologists collect data about the weather, how they study wind, temperature, precipitation, basic types/characteristics of clouds, and how they forecast. The project helps the students grow in their understanding of how the weather works and how it can affect their lives. Our unit focused on guiding students to formulate explanations about animals based on scientific evidence.
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The purpose of many animal studies at early grades is to build observation skills, develop a knowledge base, and practice age-appropriate science skills like comparing, describing, and drawing. While these are important learning experiences, the National Science Education Standards also recommend that students engage in scientific inquiry (NRC 2000). Our team of educators, curriculum developers, district administrators, and scientists believe that it is possible and beneficial for even the youngest students to participate in a rigorous scientific inquiry that builds a conceptual understanding of animals and the nature of studying animals. To test this idea, we created an inquiry-based unit on animals, implemented it in kindergarten classrooms, and observed the students’ responses. Our unit focused on guiding students to formulate explanations about animals based on scientific evidence.
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One warm spring day, a group of 18 young children sat in a classroom discussing their ideas about plants. This was one of several discussions in a multi-age, grades 1–3 classroom in which the children were talking about living things. The plant discussion began with a question from the teacher, “What is a seed?” Guiding students through open-ended discussions can help students’ develop their understanding of the nature of science.
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Cognitive scientists tell us that students need to relate new ideas to their experience and place new ideas into a framework for understanding (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking 2001). Thus exploring phenomena before explaining them is critical for learning. Researchers have found that students benefit when all three phases of the learning cycle are present (Renner, Abraham, and Birnie 1988).
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In this article, we learn about the relationship between the Earth and the sun at certain times of the year. Certain myths are broken, and we get a real lesson on what causes the seasons.
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Children do not have to live near the coast to experience effects of water waves. They can throw stones into a pond and see the waves ripple outward, bob up and down while floating in a swimming pool, and splash water about while in a bathtub. As students discover how waves form and move, they can apply this understanding to other types of waves such as sound waves, light waves, and microwaves.
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“What type of rock is this?” is a common question spoken by all children at some point in their young lives. Many students have rocks of all shapes and sizes in their “collections.” In this column, young students will have the opportunity to explore more in depth as they make observations of the three types of rocks—igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary. Upper-grade students who have some previous study of rocks can use these books to review what they know of the rock cycle.
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The day-and-night cycle forms the basis for understanding many other natural cycles in plants, animals, and Earth processes, as well as later learning about the solar system, and it is part of the National Science Education Content Standard D, Earth and Space Science, for grades K–4. Learning about light is part of Content Standard B: Physical Science Light, Heat, Electricity, and Magnetism. When studying this topic in early childhood, it is appropriate to focus children’s attention on the Sun and its movement across the sky through discussion and observation (AAAS 1993). The observations are indirect evidence of the Earth’s movement, a concept the children will become ready to understand in later years.
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