Did you know that there is an August issue of Science and Children? Yes!!!! (fist pump, happy dance, big smile). Getting the next issue in August before planning the first month of school rather than during the first week will help me do what I had planned to do at the end of the school year—reflect on the past year of teaching. I wanted to go over what worked well, how eagerly the children engaged with some explorations, and the times when I messed up by forgetting materials or asking children for too prolonged attention. The fresh material in the August 2018 issue will give me new ideas but also inspire me to prepare for the coming school year using the bones of my previous year of teaching, kind of like a good chicken soup begins with the bones of the chicken we had last night. 

Beginning with the Editor’s note, the new Editor, Elizabeth Barrett-Zahn, reaffirms for me why writing, mentoring, and attending conferences makes me a better educator for children and adults: “We can learn from each other, whether down the hallway or across the globe. The journal serves as a way to widen our common collaboration pathways both vertically and horizontally.” This issue is rich in pathways for early childhood educators, including the few I discuss here.

Will your children be investigating their senses? Do you want to learn more about the 5E model for writing lesson plans? See “Waves Sound Great! First graders explore what makes sound through a 7E learning cycle.”

In “Using the Understanding By Design Model and NGSS in Concert to Plan and Instruct in Science,” written for educators who teach early elementary grades, we get support for “starting at the end rather than at the beginning of the planning process.” This “Understanding by Design (UBD)” planning process helps educators avoid the struggle of matching an activity to a specific standard because the process begins with knowing where you want your students’ understanding of science concepts or knowledge to conclude upon lesson or unit completion.

“We Are Engineers! Engineering design activities for preschoolers introduce practices and encourage scientific habits of mind” describes a series of building and engineering design projects that can be adapted for older children too. 

The “Guest Editorial: Addressing Common Questions About 21st-Century Science Teaching” by Cindy Hoisington addresses very important questions for early childhood educators to consider, beginning with “What are the practices, and do children need to practice them?” Hoisington notes, “[The] term practices is gradually replacing more familiar terms such as inquiry and science process skills and the term scientific method has essentially disappeared.” Does your program teach The Scientific Method? Read the Guest Editorial to learn why such a linear process is not a good fit for early childhood science. 

As I reflect on what I want to change for the upcoming school year I am cheered by Hoisington’s assurance that “Changing our own science-teaching practices takes time and lots of practice!” And given direction by her statement that “It requires us to evaluate our current approaches to teaching science and find the supports and resources we need to educate ourselves about current approaches—as required by the Framework and addressed in the NGSS.” 

August is a good time for me to look for supportive collaboration with nearby colleagues and those in print so I’ll be taking notes as I read the rest of the articles and columns in the August 2018 issue of Science and Children.

Camp has a culture that is different from school, partly due to the season and partly due to the temporary relationships as campers and teachers are together for shorter lengths of time. As the teacher of an “Art Lab” camp class for children in Kindergarten through 3rd grade I had the pleasure of introducing the children to art-making processes using a variety of media where interactions between the media take place. Having two adult assistant teachers made the preparation and clean up easy. I wanted children to have experiences involving exploring the properties of matter that will help them choose media to express themselves artistically. Paint with dirt? With soap? Freeze paint? Paint on foil? The children engaged with every combination of media without hesitation. But since we only had about 2.5 hours together each of 5 days, we didn’t explore deeply into the mechanisms of those interactions, an omission that my science teacher side regretfully accepts. At ages 5 to 8 these children are building a foundation of experiences that I hope will keep their curiosity sparked, prompting them to ask, “What is happening?” and trying to find out. Looking at and talking about what they saw in Tana Hoban’s wordless books gave them practice making and verbalizing their observations. 

Water color resist

We began with making name tags (all the children were new to me) and name place cards which helped me remember who made which creation and also allowed me to select seating when needed. While painting with liquid water color on top of white crayon drawings on white paper the children experienced the  phenomenon of resist. 

Salt and water color

Feeling salt crystals and observing their “disappearance” when water was added did not help children understand what was happening on their watercolor painting when they used the “salt technique.” But they saw a phenomenon they can investigate more fully in later years. After painting, they sprinkled table salt onto areas of the wet paper. Salt absorbed some of the  water color paint leaving small “stars” as the paint dried. If we had more time (and patience) we could have made close observations using a magnifier as the paint dried. Another way to observe the relationship between salt and water would be to add water drop-by-drop to a few pinches of salt in a cup. The children would have seen water filling in the spaces between the salt crystal grains, and, when enough water was added, the salt begin to dissolve. Children could taste the solution to affirm that the salt was still in the cup (all materials being clean) even when it has completely dissolved and is no longer visible. 

Invisible ink

Combining materials or applying heat produced changes to children’s “secret” messages, one painted with baking soda, and another with lemon juice they squeezed themselves. After allowing the messages to dry for a day we painted over the baking soda with grape juice, producing a grey color, slightly darker where baking soda was previously applied. The effect wasn’t dramatic and, if the painter vigorously brushed on the grape juice, all prior messages ended up well scrubbed and erased. We briefly talked about how trying a technique or process several times may lead to a better way of doing it. More legible results were revealed the following day by heating the paper painted with lemon juice with an iron (with adult guidance). 

Painting with soil

Multiple experiences mixing soil into water as a pigment and painting with it produced work that does not reveal how it was created over three sessions. This reinforced for me how process is central to the children’s experiences with art media. Many were intent on seeing how the soil paint would apply to the paper, or on top of the previous coating of soil paint rather than making an image using each different color of soil paint.

Creating and painting with foam

The group also mixed up foam from dish soap and water using spring whisks, added liquid water color, and applied it to fingerpaint paper with their hands. This small class enjoyed conversations with each other during this group paint and every other moment in the morning.

Painting with frozen tempera…on foil and paper

Side-by-side painting with pieces of frozen tempera on aluminum foil and water color paper allowed children to compare the way tempera paint applied to different surfaces. Their reflection on any differences were about the size of the page and the color of the paint rather than the different surfaces. After drying, comments on the following day showed an understanding of how the paper absorbs paint so it doesn’t flake off the way it does from the aluminum foil.

Coloring eggs with onion skins 

Handling the onion skins engaged children in thinking about where we get pigments for artwork. We soaked the red onion skins in hot water in two bowls, one with added salt, and the other with vinegar. Using crayons as a resist the children drew on hard-boiled eggs to identify them later. After 40 minutes in the color bath the children asked, “Why wasn’t the color on the eggs as red as the color of the onion skin water?” With more time and more eggs this question could have developed into a scientific inquiry. 

Slime

Yes, we made the ever popular slime, and even though they had mixed water, white school glue, and a Borax solution together at least several times before in previous camps and classes, they weren’t sure what would happen this time. What could be making this liquid mixture “bunch up” into something “more solid” and “bouncy?” 

Puff paint

Familiarity with this medium did not reduce the children’s enthusiasm for mixing shaving cream and white school glue with a little liquid water color to create a thick paint. They commented on the textures of each material and asked for more pigment when they wanted a darker color. Using magnifiers revealed the tiny bubbles, even smaller than those they had made by whisking the dish soap.

Paint chips and color value

We examined a group of paint color samples and I asked the children what they thought made a single color get lighter and darker, creating a range of color values from almost white to almost black. Referencing a prior experience with crayons, a child said, “They pressed harder” to get the darker colors, and another child remembered adding more liquid water color to the the puff paint mixture.

Color acetate film as a filter

Last day of camp projects should be dry ones to make it easier to take them home. Giving each child a set of red, blue, and blue-green crayons with the instructions to draw from their imaginations set them up to consider how visible each color is when seen through either red or blue colored acetate. Since it was the first day in 10 that it wasn’t raining I thought we could skip the discussion to spend more time outside. They came back in after enacting the Harry Potter books 1, 2, and 3!

Mixing new colors

Last day of camp projects can also be ones without a product to take home. Using up some already-diluted liquid water color paint we gave each child a set of red, yellow, and blue colors and a pipette to mix colors drop by drop in a plastic egg carton with a sheet of newsprint underneath. The conversation slowed as children meditatively moved the colored water, and then exploded as they began to share about the new colors they made. Dropping paint onto the paper documented the colors and a photograph of the filled page allowed children to take the results home without packing up a wet page. It was a perfect activity to end our week of exploration of interactions between art media. 

Next time I will begin by eliciting children’s ideas about the kinds of art materials they are familiar with, and ideas for how we can combine or change those materials. This will set the stage for thinking more about what causes, or happens in, the interactions.

I needed a few more days or weeks to move the class from explore to explain. If we had more time to reflect with the children on how they liked using the various media, and what choices of media they would make in creating more art, they would have elaborated on their understanding by making their own choices of media. I would ask questions such as, “Let’s make a picture of today’s weather—how will you show what it feels like?” and “If you were going to make a great big statue of your favorite Pokemon, what media would you choose?” 

This week in education news, the White House unveiled new initiative, the National Council for the American Worker; Louisiana plans to add an endorsement on high school diplomas for students who complete a certain set of STEM classes; new summer camp for high school girls aims to take fear out of a career in technology; design thinking is both a process and a mindset; science centers play a distinctive role in advancing science literacy and building a pipeline of workers in the fields of STEM; federally funded programs are not enough to increase the numbers of underrepresented minorities pursuing and completing degrees in STEM; Oklahoma State Department of Education has expanded summer externship program for teachers.; and Arkansas governor named chair of the Governors’ Education and Workforce Committee.

Open Education Science And Challenges For Evidence-Based Teaching

With my colleague Tim Van der Zee, I wrote an article called Open Education Science that outlines new pathways and best practices for education researchers—in particular about being more transparent with readers about how we plan our research, what research we actually conducted, and how that reality aligns or not with what we planned. In this post, I try to explain why we wrote it, and what it might mean for educators and policymakers trying to make good use of education research to improve teaching and learning. Read the article featured in Education Week.

Retraining The Workforce Is Not Enough To Meet Labor Demand

This month, the White House unveiled the National Council for the American Worker, a new initiative focused on training and retraining American workers to fill the in-demand jobs of today. As part of this initiative, the administration is asking companies to sign the Pledge to America’s Workers to commit to invest in workforce development. Reskilling American workers is vitally important to the continued productivity of our labor force. Read the article featured in The Hill.

New Diploma Planned For Math, Science And Other Courses

The state plans to add an endorsement on high school diplomas for students who complete a certain set of math, science, engineering and other classes, officials said. The change is part of Louisiana’s push to elevate interest in STEM careers. Read the article featured in The Advocate.

For These High School Girls, Science And Technology Is A Brave New World

The STEM fields have long faced a challenge to attract and retain women and minorities. But a summer camp for high school girls, held for the first time last week in Indianapolis, is working hard to take the fear out of a career in technology. The Brave Initiatives program was a five-day camp held on Monument Circle that sought to influence young women to become involved in developing technology by using solution-oriented design-thinking tools. Read the article featured in the Indianapolis Star.

Design Thinking In Education

Design thinking has been around since the 1960s but reached K12 education only in the last decade. Some call it a revolution in learning, while others see it as just the latest fad, better left to Silicon Valley charter schools. Part of the problem is that design thinking can be hard to define and even harder to use in the classroom in a meaningful way. Read the article featured in District Administration.

Science Centers Play Role In Boosting Children’s Interest In STEM Fields

Change in our everyday lives and the workplace is occurring at a breathtaking pace. The need for citizens engaged in and appreciative of science and technology and for a skilled workforce to fill new and emerging roles has never been greater. Science centers, like the Da Vinci Science Center in Allentown, play a distinctive role in advancing science literacy and building a pipeline of workers in the fields of STEM. A national study (“The contribution of science rich resources to public science interest”) released recently found that visiting science centers was the only experience among those studied that consistently impacted youth and adult interest in science throughout their lives. Read the article featured in The Morning Call.

Federally Funded Programs Are Not Enough To Diversify The STEM Workforce

The Government Accountability Office (GOA) reported that of the 13 federal agencies surveyed that administer STEM education programs, there were 163 STEM programs funded in fiscal year 2016 that were designed to increase the number of historically underrepresented students studying or improve the quality of education in STEM. Of the $2.9 billion spent on these programs, the National Science Foundation received about $1.2 billion that supported 20 programs, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) received about $688 million that funded 54 programs. Read the article featured in Diverse.

Externships Give Oklahoma Teachers New Skills – And Extra Spending Money

Oklahoma teachers are taking advantage of the state education department’s expansion of an externship program that not only increases their skills in STEM subjects, but also puts some extra money in their pockets. Read the brief featured in Education DIVE.

Governor Hutchinson Selected As Chair Of Governors’ Education, Workforce Committee

The National Governors Association named Governor Asa Hutchinson 2018-2019 Chair of the Education and Workforce Committee during its summer meeting last week. The Committee is responsible for ensuring that the views of state leadership are represented in federal policy issues related to early childhood education, K-12 education, higher education, workforce development, and career-technical education. Read the press release.

Stay tuned for next week’s top education news stories.

The Communication, Legislative & Public Affairs (CLPA) team strives to keep NSTA members, teachers, science education leaders, and the general public informed about NSTA programs, products, and services and key science education issues and legislation. In the association’s role as the national voice for science education, its CLPA team actively promotes NSTA’s positions on science education issues and communicates key NSTA messages to essential audiences.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

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What are some of the best practices for teaching science vocabulary?

—D., Florida

Science has a language unto itself; it is not surprising that many students struggle with vocabulary much like English language learners (ELLs). Because of this, I used some ELL best practices to teach science to all my students.

Early in my career, I would give students a list of vocabulary at the beginning of a unit and have them find the definitions in the textbook’s glossary. While this technique introduces words students will encounter, it is out of context and does not really support learning the terms in a meaningful way. Besides, sometimes I had a tough time understanding the glossary definitions!

An ELL specialist suggested a very well-researched lesson framework called Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP). With this differentiated instruction approach you plan language objectives alongside your content objectives. Every lesson incorporates opportunities to practice reading, writing and speaking with the new terms. (I discovered that you should limit new terminology to no more than five terms each lesson.) You find resources using this model in the NSTA Learning Center and elsewhere online.

Many online graphic organizers can help students learn or study vocabulary: word wheels, concept maps, Venn diagrams, and so on. I would use these while reviewing content to help students contextualize terminology.

Students should also learn to speak using new terminology. Several online dictionaries feature recorded pronunciations that include scientific terms.

Hope this helps!

Photo credit: brewbooks via Flickr

Engineering controls can help isolate people from hazards and make the lab safer, according to the OSHA/NIOSH “Hierarchy of Controls.” Laboratories require specific engineering controls to address biological, chemical, and physical hazards. Appropriate and mandated engineering controls include ventilation, fume hoods, fire extinguishers, eyewash stations, and safety showers. The following list describes common engineering controls found in academic laboratories.

1. Electrical safety controls

To minimize the risks associated with electrical equipment (e.g., shock, electrocution), all science laboratories, storerooms, and preparation rooms need to have ground fault circuit interrupters (GFCI) electrical receptacles. Note: Do not touch the metal prongs of a plug when plugging it into an electrical receptacle.

In addition, GFCI switches need to be tested at least once a year, because they can corrode. To test the GFCI receptacle, just press the “TEST” button on the outlet. If the GFCI switches are working, the power will be cut off of the two plug receptacles. To make sure the power is off, plug in an electrical device such as a lamp. The light should go out. You could also use a voltage tester, which would indicate no power when the “TEST” button is pushed. Once you confirm that the GFCI is working, press the “RESET” button on the outlet, and the power should be restored.

2. Eyewash/shower

To neutralize corrosive chemical splash exposure hazards, ANSI/ISEA (ANSI / ISEA Z358.1-2014) requires 10-second access to any eyewash station or safety shower in the laboratory. These devices require exposure to tepid water (60–100°F; 16°–38°C) for 15 minutes minimum.

3. Fire blanket

Flame-retardant wool or similar types of materials can be used to smother small lab fires. Secure fire blankets inside wall-mounted canisters or boxes with appropriate signage.

4. Fire suppression

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) requires labs to carry fire suppression equipment such as fire extinguishers and fire sprinkler heads due to the risk of fire or explosions from flammable lab chemicals. Fire extinguishers should be of the A-B-C type. Type D fire extinguishers are for combustible metals such as magnesium, potassium, and sodium. Employers must train science teachers annually for proper use of extinguishers if employee use of the extinguishers is allowed.

5. Footprint

Emergency evacuation is critical in the event of an explosion, fire, toxins, shock, and more. Laboratory furniture should be placed to facilitate easy movement and fast egress and ensure that there are no trip/fall hazards. Legal occupancy loads per National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and the International Code Council (ICC) are approximately 50 sq. ft. per lab occupant. Academic/professional occupancy loads should be addressed based on a maximum of 24 students per laboratory (within legal occupancy load levels).

6. Fume hood

Fume hoods provide local exhaust ventilation for hazardous gases, particulates, vapors, and more, which present a risk to lab occupants. Hoods should be checked and certified operational approximately one to four times a year, depending on frequency of use.

7. Goggle sanitizer

State goggle statutes and OSHA PPE standards require eye protection to be sanitized. Ultraviolet goggle sanitizer cabinets take approximately 15 minutes to sanitize goggles. Alternatives to sanitizers include disinfectants, alcohol, or dish detergent.

8. Master shut-off controls

Master shut-off devices for utilities such as electricity, gas, and water are also a must, given the risks of electrocution, shock, and explosion.

9. Sensors

Sensors for smoke, heat, and fire are necessary for a safer laboratory, especially during unoccupied times.

10. Safety shields

When there is risk for projectile motion or splashing of chemicals and springs in demonstrations, legal safety practices require use of safety shields, in addition to chemical splash goggles.

11.Ventilation

Both OSHA and NFPA (NFPA 45) require forced air ventilation in science laboratories, preparation rooms, and chemical storerooms. NFPA 45-2015 requires that laboratory units and laboratory hoods in which chemicals are present shall be continuously ventilated under normal operating conditions.

Final thoughts

Academic science labs must have engineering controls in place and effectively operating. The teacher must report to their employer if these controls are not in place or malfunctioning. They also must not do any demonstrations or other lab work until they are installed and functioning correctly.

Submit questions regarding safety to Ken Roy at safesci@sbcglobal.net or leave him a comment below. Follow Ken Roy on Twitter: @drroysafersci.

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This week in education news, new research unveiled that people remember information better if it is presented to them in a virtual environment; to influence the future in the most positive way, we need some of our best minds to pursue STEM; according to a Learning Policy Institute analysis, nearly 25 percent of former teachers said housing incentives might entice them to return to the field; experts address ways to support latest science education standards; Missouri Governor vetoes STEM education bill; Case Western Reserve University plans to replace the usual anatomy labs with a new series of hands-on experiences, including a virtual-reality simulation; and to develop a conservation attitude, it helps to spend time in nature.

Feds Should Create New $10,000 Tax Credit To Boost Teacher Pay, Progressive Group Says

What can the federal government do to help boost lagging teacher pay? The Center for American Progress has an answer: Create a new tax credit that would bolster educators’ salaries by up to $10,000 a year. Read the article featured in Education Week.

Virtual Reality Could Help Students Remember Better, New Research Says

Virtual reality (VR) is exciting and engaging for students, but for the most part, schools have struggled to find ways to incorporate it into the curriculum. Now, new research reveals one possible impetus for more classroom inclusion. University of Maryland researchers found that people remember information better if it is presented to them in a virtual environment. Read the article featured in eSchool News.

How School Choice Is About To Fundamentally Change

The battle lines have long been drawn, but the context in which educators debate school choice is likely to shift in the coming years. As schools catch up with higher education in using new technologies to reshape how and where we learn, hopefully we will see fewer skirmishes depicting opponents of school choice as “flat Earthers” or proponents as enemies of public schools. Instead, educators and policymakers finally will have to address fundamental challenges in giving every student an equal opportunity to reach his or her full potential. Read the article featured in Education Week.

The Future Is Brighter Than You Think

Do you remember the future when you were a kid? The one that couldn’t come soon enough? We looked forward to the next space flight, the next scientific discovery. We heard about meals instantly cooked by sound waves, TV wrist watches, robots that vacuumed the floor, cars that steered themselves — or even flew! Well, we’ve had some disappointments — no flying car just yet — and some major problems: climate change, terrorism, nuclear threats. Read the article featured in The Baltimore Sun.

Can Affordable Housing Ease Teacher Turnover?

Frustrated by stagnant wages and rising health care costs, teachers in five states pushed back with walkouts and strikes in 2018, with more predicted for the coming fall. As a teacher, I recognize the familiar litany of concerns: rising premiums, insufficient salaries, scant resources, and challenging working conditions—deep-seated problems that have pushed many people to quit teaching, and others not to consider it at all. These issues have escalated as the cost of living and health insurance premiums have increased in step with the country’s economic recovery, while teacher compensation has never fully recovered from recession-era cuts. Read the article featured in edutopia.

Gabriela González’s Improbable Journey To Lead Federal STEM Panel

Barely 3 years after arriving in the United States from Mexico at the age of 13, Gabriela González was facing a precarious future. She had moved out of her mother’s house in Bellingham, Washington, and was living on her own while attending high school. Her grades were good and she wanted to continue her education, but college seemed out of reach. Today, she is an executive with Intel in Chandler, Arizona. She’s also writing a doctoral dissertation on the barriers to girls who want to pursue engineering careers. And last week she became chair of a new top-level advisory panel charged with shaping the U.S. government’s $3-billion-a-year investment in STEM education. Read the article featured in Science.

Company Helped Write Missouri’s STEM Education Bill, Leading To Its Veto

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson vetoed a bipartisan bill because the detailed standards for an online STEM curriculum program seemed “narrowly tailored to apply to only one company.” And that company helped create that criteria, according to one of the bill’s handlers. The measure would have offered an online program to Missouri middle-school students so they could prepare for science, technology, math and engineering careers starting in the 2019-2020 school year. Read the article featured on KCUR.org.

Schools And Colleges Try Virtual Reality Science Labs, But Can VR Replace A Cadaver?

When Case Western Reserve University launches a new health education campus with the Cleveland Clinic next year, one feature will be conspicuously absent. There will be no place for cadavers. The school plans to replace the usual anatomy labs with a new series of hands-on experiences, including a virtual-reality simulation. The reason, says Mark Griswold, a professor at the medical school, is that running a cadaver lab is costly and difficult. Read the article featured in EdSurge.

Save The Planet! Do A Citizen Science Project With Your Students

To develop a conservation attitude, it helps to spend time in nature. Yet with so much of the population living in urban areas, there are ever fewer opportunities to climb a tree or take a hike. Citizen science projects might be just the remedy, a new study suggests. Read the article featured in Education Week.

Stay tuned for next week’s top education news stories.

The Communication, Legislative & Public Affairs (CLPA) team strives to keep NSTA members, teachers, science education leaders, and the general public informed about NSTA programs, products, and services and key science education issues and legislation. In the association’s role as the national voice for science education, its CLPA team actively promotes NSTA’s positions on science education issues and communicates key NSTA messages to essential audiences.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

Follow NSTA

Is there a way to engage those who struggle with chemistry and help them do well?
— M., Utah

When asked to name their hardest class in high school, people often list pre-calculus math, physics or English Language Arts, but I always answered chemistry! For most of us, chemistry was taught on a very theoretical level and concentrated on concepts foreign to everyday thinking: enthalpy, stoichiometry, orbitals, and so on.

I believe that the current movement toward using phenomena to teach science, connecting science to big ideas and learning more about the nature of science is a big step toward making chemistry more accessible and enjoyable for students. Science is more meaningful when we link real-life observations to scientific explanations. So, answering a question like, “How does soap work?” leads to a terrific discussion about an everyday (we hope!) event and the knowledge we need to explain it. We can even push that explanation further through the questions and investigations that arise from considering a bar of soap.

To make chemistry more engaging, get students to ask the questions and find the phenomena that they want to explore.

Hope this helps!

Photo credit: Lower Columbia College via Flickr

Regardless of what grade level or subject are you teach, as you skim through the article titles, you may find ideas for lessons that would be interesting your students or the inspiration to adapt/create/share your own.

Special thanks to Linda Froschauer (My Last Editor’s Note)! Under her leadership as editor of Science & Children she has provided all of us with ideas and inspiration! Rather than “retiring,” I suspect she’ll be “retooling” into other ways of contributing to science teaching and learning.

Science & Children – Learning Centers

 Another big change at S&C is the retirement of Bill Robertson, author of Science 101 which appeared in every issue. In his last column, Science 101: How Do We Best Teach and Learn Science Concepts?, he shares a technique he uses as an introduction to how people learn and how to teach for understanding rather than memorization.

The lessons described in the articles include connections with the NGSS.

• The introductory part of Formative Assessment Probes: Using Formative Assessment Probes to Develop Elementary Learning Stations describes learning stations as more than a collection of activities. The article shows how formative assessments can be used when designing learning stations and includes a probe on magnets.
• Explore Early has a rationale and suggestions for three approaches to exploratory science centers for young students. The authors include photographs and stories of children exploring science concepts in multi-disciplinary centers.
• Learning centers can be a way to address the issue of “not enough time” for science. Lighting the Way to Learning Centers suggests ways to determine which standards could be addressed in centers, which activities would be appropriate, how all students can benefit, and how teachers can organize the center concept, within the context of a center on circuits.
• The case study described in Methods & Strategies: Responsive Teaching and High-Stakes Testing shows that “teaching responsively need not compromise students’ test scores. These findings, along with rich opportunities afforded by teaching responsively, suggest that veering from the standards-mandated curriculum to pursue students’ ideas may not be as risky as many fear.”
• Modeling in Learning Centers describes a series of learning centers that focus model-building and testing as students explore and characterize objects as living, nonliving, natural, or human-made. The article includes key questions for each center.
• A Mystery in Motion illustrates a 5E lesson in which students used motion sensors to graph and predict future motions based on what they observed.
• Learning centers are not a new idea. Renovating Our Science Learning Centers discusses how to adapt traditional centers into informal learning centers that support and challenge students to develop and expand their understanding of science concepts. Weather and natural disasters was the focus of the centers described in the article.
• The Early Years: Engaging Children in Multidisciplinary Learning Centers includes an overview of how learning centers support children’s use of manipulatives, their imaginations, exploratory activities, and interdisciplinary connections. The article includes a detailed description of setting up learning centers, using the topic of seeds.
• In addition to recommending trade books, Teaching Through Trade Books: Star Light, Star Bright has two 5E lessons (Pictures in the Stars K-2) and Stellar Science (3-5) that focus on constellations and studying star charts.

These monthly columns continue to provide background knowledge and classroom ideas:

• Teaching Teachers: Breathing New Life Into Elementary Science Preservice Teacher Education
• The Poetry of Science: Force, Motion, and Energy
• Engineering Encounters: STEM-ify Me: It’s Elementary! Designing Butterfly Wings

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Butterflies, Constellations, Electric Current, Energy, Forces and Motion, Life Cycle of a Star, Light, Living Things, Magnets, Natural Disasters, Seed Germination, Simple Machines, Stars, Weather

Continue for The Science Teacher and Science Scope.

The Science Teacher – Investigating STEM Careers

The Editor’s Corner: A Good Day’s Work discusses reasons to encourage students to consider STEM-related careers:

• This comes at a time when the global knowledge-based economy demands increasing participation in STEM fields, and even many non-STEM occupations require a high level of STEM knowledge and technical expertise.
• Scientific knowledge makes everything—a walk in the woods, reading a newspaper, a family visit to a science museum or beach—simply more interesting.
• The skepticism and critical thinking that are part of the scientific worldview are essential for informed civic participation and evidence-based social discourse.

The lessons described in the articles include connections with the NGSS.

• A teacher-researcher describes the View from the Top (and the Bottom) of the World in terms of climate change in the polar regions. The lesson focuses on students comparing the Antarctic region with other places on Earth and includes links to video interviews with scientists who are studying polar climate change.
• Kick up your career preparations with the ideas in On the Job. This project involves a job-shadowing program at a zoo, with suggestions on adapting the strategies for other shadowing/internship opportunities.
• As part of unit on heredity, students explored Decoding Careers in DNA as they took on the role of code-breakers. The article includes a rubric for a Claims-Evidence-Reasoning (CER) framework.
• Who Tagged the Bench? describes five activities in which students collect and analyze data throughout the year, practicing their skills. The authors include a detailed overview of the activities, including a culminating investigation that required students to analyze and interpret data from a new situation.
• Creative Assessments includes a strategy (RAFT) for using writing prompts as a formative assessment. As the example show, students can be both creative and scientifically accurate as they write about what they learned about motion.
• Focus on Physics: Bow Waves to Sonic Booms reviews the characteristics of waves with simple diagrams and examples.
• Recognizing patterns and trends is a NGSS crosscutting concept. Science 2.0: Map My Data illustrates how mapping technology can be used to identify and visualize patterns that exist in a data set.
• Career of the Month: Audio Engineer has suggestions for integrating technology and the arts into a career. (This column features a different STEM career each month. Here is a list from the 2013-2018 TST issues.)
• Perhaps the historic posters in Right to the Source: Encouraging Exploration—The WPA Poster Project would encourage students to create their own.

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Biology Careers, Careers in Chemistry, Careers in Earth Science, Careers in Life Science, Careers in Environmental Science, Careers in Physics, DNA, Doppler Effect, Motion, Nature of Waves, Paper Chromatography, Public Health Careers, Spectra of Elements, Wave Properties, Wavelength, Wildlife Biologists

Science Scope – Matter and Its Interactions

From the Editor’s Desk: The Meaningful World of Matter: The world is made up of matter—everything we come in contact with, see, and touch embodies properties that make that matter unique. Whether it is plastics, medicines, or even automobile paint, we manipulate matter for the purpose of improving our lives. It can be challenging, however, to take something that can be as abstract as matter and make it meaningful for middle school students.

Articles in this issue that describe lessons include a helpful sidebar (“At a Glance”) documenting the big idea, essential pre-knowledge, time, and cost. The lessons also include connections with the NGSS.

• Help students investigate and understand exothermic and endothermic process with an interesting question: How Will We Freeze the Ice Cream? The lesson incorporates knowledge probing, learning stations, measuring, experimental design…and ice cream!
• While Making Mixtures, students use models to explain what happens when materials are mixed with water.
• Where Does a Tree Get Its Mass? addresses student misconceptions about the relationship between plant growth and photosynthesis.
• A teacher demonstration can be adapted into an opportunity for student discussion or an opportunity for formative assessment. Classic Lessons 2.0: The Discovery Demonstration uses an example that incorporates modeling, prediction, observation, and explanation.
• “States of matter” is the focus of the investigation in Disequilibrium: Oobleck: Is It a Solid or Liquid?
• Commentary: “When You Walk Into This Room, You’re Scientists!” promotes developing science-linked identities in students, including those who may not see themselves as scientists. .
• Science for All: Ready, Fire, Aim! has ideas for managing student behavior during class activities.
• Do your students have difficulty identifying variables during an investigation? Teacher to Teacher: Supporting Students With the Four Question Strategy includes suggestions for helping students plan and conduct investigations with their own experimental designs.
• If you live near an ocean, the Great Eggcase Hunt described in Citizen Science: Citizen Science at the Shore could be interesting to your students.

These monthly columns continue to provide background knowledge and classroom ideas:

• Listserv Roundup: A Short Guide to Genius Hour Makerspaces
• Scope on the Skies: Return to Sender (part 1)
• Integrating Technology: Depth of Knowledge and Conceptual Understanding
• Practical Research: Help! I’ve Been Asked to Coach a Robotics Team

For more on the content that provides a context for projects and strategies described in this issue, see the SciLinks topics Catapults, Chemical Reactions, Density, Exothermic and Endothermic Reactions, Mass, Matter, Photosynthesis, Properties of Matter, Robot, Solutions, States of Matter

This week in education news, a modern learning environment could be the key to making any space the right space for innovative thinking; Microsoft invests $2 million in Computer Science Teachers Association; the increased use of industrial robots has enhanced the efficiency of manufacturing, but it has also fueled a skills gap in the field; NGSS could change elementary science education; “Peanuts” and NASA partner again to inspire a passion for space exploration and STEM; survey finds that weaker math students who choose to take calculus in high school actually get the most benefit from the class; new report suggests that many graduate programs do not adequately prepare students to translate their knowledge into impact in multiple careers; and study finds science degree holders more likely to use inquiry-based teaching.

Modern Classrooms Energize Students And Teachers

Flexible workspaces that allow teachers to manipulate the classroom for changing needs can help to keep students engaged and enthusiastic. Read the article featured in Ed Tech Magazine.

Microsoft To Invest $2M In Computer Science Teachers Association

The Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), a 25,000-member professional association dedicated to K-12 computer science education worldwide, will receive $2 million in funding over the next three years from Microsoft Philanthropies, the tech company announced Monday. Read the article featured in edScoop.

Bridging The STEM Skills Gap Involves Both Education And Industry Commitments

While the increased use of industrial robots has enhanced the precision and efficiency of manufacturing, it has also fueled a skills gap in the field. According to a study by Deloitte Consulting LLP and the Manufacturing Institute, there are an estimated 3.4 million jobs to be filled in manufacturing from 2015 to 2025 – and only approximately 1.4 million qualified workers to do so. Schools and industries try to bridge this gap and find ways to best prepare students for workforce requirements – one in which science, technology, engineering and mathematics play a major part. Read the article featured in U.S. News & World Report.

Will New Standards Improve Elementary Science Education?

Science could be considered the perfect elementary school subject. It provides real life applications for reading and math and develops critical thinking skills that help students solve problems in other subjects. Plus, it’s interesting. It helps answer all those “why” questions — Why is the sun hot? Why do fish swim? Why are some people tall and other people short? — that 5- to 8-year-old children are so famous for asking. But science has long been given short shrift in the first few years of school. Most elementary school teachers have little scientific background and many say they feel unprepared to teach the subject well. Read the article featured in The Hechinger Report.

‘Peanuts’ And NASA Are Collaborating Again — Five Decades After Snoopy’s Moon Mission

Even before man had landed on the moon, Snoopy had landed his name on NASA equipment. Now, “Peanuts” and the space agency will launch a new phase of partnership. Peanuts Worldwide and NASA will announce on Tuesday that they have entered into a multiyear Space Act Agreement, executives at Peanuts tell The Washington Post’s Comic Riffs. The partnership is engineered “to inspire a passion for space exploration and STEM” education among students, according to Peanuts Worldwide. Read the article featured in The Washington Post.

Study Finds That Mastering Prerequisites—Not Taking Calculus In High School—Better Predicts Success In College

Contrary to widely-held opinion, taking high school calculus isn’t necessary for success later in college calculus—what’s more important is mastering the prerequisites, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry—that lead to calculus. That’s according to a study of more than 6,000 college freshmen at 133 colleges carried out by the Science Education Department of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. In addition, the survey finds that weaker math students who choose to take calculus in high school actually get the most benefit from the class. Read the article featured on Phys.org.

Why Corporate America Is Recruiting High Schoolers

With more job openings than unemployed workers in the US economy, companies are finding it hard to fill jobs. One solution is for corporations to train high school students with the skills needed in the labor market. Sometimes, they start as young as kindergarten. Since 2011, more than 400 companies have partnered with 79 public high schools across the country to offer a six-year program called P-Tech. Students can enroll for grades 9 to 14 and earn both a high school and an associate’s degree in a science, tech, engineering or math related field. Read the article featured on CNN Money.

What’s The Way Forward To Reform Graduate Training?

A report, issued by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, offers a bracing alternative vision of the student-centered “ideal graduate STEM education” that aspiring scientists should, by rights, experience. It fails, however, to show a path toward producing the reforms that would make the current system provide what students need. It thus presents an implicit warning for anyone currently contemplating or pursuing graduate study that big changes are unlikely anytime soon. Nonetheless, it succeeds in offering an outline of the treatment that students ought to receive—and therefore ought to press for. Read the article featured in Science.

Science Degree Holders More Likely To Use Inquiry-Based Teaching. But There Aren’t Enough Of Them

This is what you want to see in a science classroom: Less memorizing. Fewer ready-made science experiments. Students designing their own hands-on investigations in pursuit of scientific questions. Educators most likely to teach this way hold science degrees, a new study finds. Nationwide, that includes just half of all science teachers. Read the article featured in Education Week.

When Form Follows Function In Classroom Design, The Learning Ramps Up

Studies show that active learning — group work, activities and discussions — increases student performance in STEM. Architects and others who design learning environments can improve student performance by keeping knowledge about student learning — and flexibility — in mind, according to a piece in Building Construction and Design. Read the brief featured in Education DIVE.

Stay tuned for next week’s top education news stories.

The Communication, Legislative & Public Affairs (CLPA) team strives to keep NSTA members, teachers, science education leaders, and the general public informed about NSTA programs, products, and services and key science education issues and legislation. In the association’s role as the national voice for science education, its CLPA team actively promotes NSTA’s positions on science education issues and communicates key NSTA messages to essential audiences.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

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House Appropriations Committee Approves FY2019 Appropriations Bill

After several delays the full House Appropriations Committee approved their Labor, Health and Human Services, Education (LHHS) FY2019 Appropriations bill on Wednesday, July 11 and this year there is again good news for education funding advocates.

Overall the FY2019 bill would fund the Department of Education at nearly $71 billion, which is $43 million above the FY 2018 enacted level.

Congressional lawmakers did not act on the Administration’s priorities this year when determining the FY2019 budget and instead ignored the Administration’s budget request to eliminate large K-12 education programs including professional development (title IIA), Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants (Title IVA) and after-school programs (Title IVB). The FY2019 budget also ignores Secretary DeVos’ requests to expand school choice programs. Here are the numbers:

• ESSA, Title I: a $125 million increase for Title I funding to support economically challenged schools, bringing the total to $15.5 billion.
• ESSA, Title IIA: level funding of $2.1 billion–comparable to FY2018–for teacher training, professional development and class size reduction.
• ESSA, Title IVA: Appropriators increased funding for the ESSA Title IVA Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants by $100 million. The program would be funded at $1.2 billion for FY2019.
• Charter Schools: The bill would increase federal funding for charter schools by $50 million, bringing the total to $450 million.
• Title IVB, 21^st Century Community Learning Centers (After-school programs) would be funded at their current $1.2 billion level.
• CTE programs: 1.9 billion for career, technical and adult education programs, an increase of nearly $115 million over last year’s levels.

In late June the Senate Appropriations Committee approved their bipartisan fiscal 2019 spending bill which also seeks to increase overall funding for the Education Department by $541 million to $71.4 billion.

The Senate bill also requests additional funding for key education programs, including a $125 million increase for the Title IVA Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants program. Title IIA and afterschool programs were level funded in the Senate bill.  Click here for the side-by-side funding chart for selected federal education programs, and stay tuned for more in the coming weeks.

Senate Passes Bipartisan Career and Technical Education Bill

Also last week the Senate HELP Committee unanimously approved a bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Carl D. Perkins Career Technical Education (CTE) program, the first such rewrite of the law in more than a decade.

The bill still has to be passed by the full Senate and then compromised with the House CTE bill passed last year (H.R. 2353 (115)). It has the support of governors, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and most education groups.

The Senate bill would allow states to set their own career and technical education goals and it eliminates an existing negotiation process between states and the Education secretary, who still approves the state plans.

The goals would be built around specific “core indicators” outlined in the bill, such as high school graduation rates and the percentage of CTE students who enroll in post-secondary programs. Schools would also be required to make “meaningful progress toward improving the performance of all career and technical education students.”

Janus v. AFSCME—What’s Next for Teacher Unions?

On Weds, June 27, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that public-sector unions, which include teacher unions, may not charge non-members mandatory fees since it violates their First Amendment rights because it essentially forces them to subsidize unions’ political speech.

This means that unions must operate under “right to work” rules, where unions may not recoup from union non-members their share of the cost of collective bargaining, even though the law requires those same unions to represent all members of a bargaining unit regardless of whether they belong to the union.

Unions have complained that right-to-work creates a “free rider” problem because members can quit the union yet still enjoy its benefits without paying member dues or non-member “fair-share” or “agency” fees.

Plaintiff Mark Janus, an Illinois state worker who declined to join the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, argued that the payments he was compelled to pay AFSCME violated his First Amendment rights. Public employee unions are already barred from spending fair-share fees on political campaigns. Janus’s lawyers argued that because AFSCME represented government workers, any activity it engaged in — even collective bargaining — constituted political speech. The high court agreed.

The Supreme Court ruling also means that teachers who oppose the candidates and policies unions favor — like teacher tenure — are free withdraw their money from unions.

The decision is widely seen to fracture the teacher unions’ ability to recruit and maintain members and a loss of political clout. Both the NEA and AFT anticipate a huge loss to their treasuries and membership rolls. The NEA has publicly estimated it could lose as many as 300,000 members and anticipates $50 million less in expenditures over two years as a result of the ruling.

Conservative groups, worker-freedom advocates education reform groups, and educators who don’t support teachers unions’ political causes welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling, while the teachers unions have said they are preparing for change. Many state teachers’ unions are working now to make sure they are complying with the law.

How will the Educator Spring Play Out this Fall?

In light of the Janus ruling, many pundits are looking at the rising tide of grassroots advocacy and how the recent educator protests this spring in West Virginia, Arizona and Oklahoma over teacher pay and cuts to school funding will affect local and state elections this fall

The American Federation of Teachers reports that nearly 300 union members are running for political office this year, more than double than in 2012 and 2016.

Nearly 800 teacher candidates running in the Oklahoma primaries and more than 200 teachers will run in the Arizona primary, many hoping to unseat conservative candidates.

In Kentucky, high school math teacher Travis Brenda defeated the majority leader of the state House in the Republican primary. In Oklahoma, three Democrats won special elections in solid red legislative districts. In West Virginia, the local teachers union helped defeat one of its main antagonists in the state senate, and voted in a moderate Republican challenger more sympathetic to their cause.

Watch this space for more on teacher advocates later this summer and into the fall election season.

How Do Districts Plan to Use their ESSA Block Grant Money?

Finally, the American Association of School Superintendents Association, in collaboration with Whiteboard Advisors, recently produced a study of how districts plan to use the $1.1 billion currently appropriated to the ESSA Title IV, Part A program. 

STEM education topped the list of priorities that school leaders plan to fund through the “well rounded” portion of these new ESSA funds, which flow to every state and district according to population and need.    Download our Title IVA infographic here and read more about the study here. 

The Education Week webinar How Can Districts make the Most out of Title IV Federal Funding under ESSA is now available on-demand here.

During the webinar speakers (including yours truly) focus on the many different funding possibilities within the ESSA Title IVA Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants. Districts can choose to spend a hefty portion of this flexible block grant on STEM and technology, but can also choose to spend funds on school safety and health, arts education, and college and career readiness.  Funding for this grant program jumped from $400 million during the 2017-18 school year, to $1.1 billion for the 2018-19 school year.

Stay tuned, and watch for more updates in future issues of NSTA Express.

Jodi Peterson is the Assistant Executive Director of Communication, Legislative & Public Affairs for the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and Chair of the STEM Education Coalition. Reach her via e-mail at jpeterson@nsta.org or via Twitter at @stemedadvocate.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

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