A Must Read

Keeping in mind that I haven't tried this in a classroom yet, I loved reading this. I think it is so important to realize students' misconceptions and provide good information to them. I thi... See More

Keeping in mind that I haven't tried this in a classroom yet, I loved reading this. I think it is so important to realize students' misconceptions and provide good information to them. I think you can do this activity with anything. "Draw a doctor" etc. As an educator, you should keep an eye out for stereotypes against gender, race, socioeconomic status etc. Stereotypes are out there and very strong, so I think it would be so smart to do this with our kids while they are young.

Draw A Scientist/Mystery Boxes

One of my favorite Science & children articles is Draw –a-Scientist/Mystery Boxes. I not only did this with my students,a multiage grade 5/6, I actually used some this in one of the presenta... See More

One of my favorite Science & children articles is Draw –a-Scientist/Mystery Boxes. I not only did this with my students,a multiage grade 5/6, I actually used some this in one of the presentations I did for an NSTA conference. Let me tell you about the content of the article. Cavallo does say these activities were successfully implemented with students of grades 4 – 6. This article is a great one to consider using the first day of school so you can see what students aere really thinking before they have the opportunity to try to figure out what you as the teacher would like to see. The students are asked to draw a scientist on one side of the paper and define science on the back. Discussions follow which help to reveal sterotypes . This discussion and the questions that need to be asked are explained in detail in the article. Cavallo then introduces the students to many scientists of different gender, ethnicities. She next has students describe what they wrote in answering the questio