My kindergarten students recently became citizen scientists as they investigated their big questions about the natural world around them. The snow finally melted, the critters have made their appearance, and the plants are beginning to bloom. It’s early May, and Spring has finally arrived—not a moment too soon. Our class has been out walking on our school trails, observing the signs of life that finally have appeared!

After reading aloud Salamander Sky, a new book by Katy Farber; The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry; What Matters by Allison Hughes and Holly Hatam; Sandy’s Incredible Shrinking Footprint by Femida Handy and Carole Carpenter; and Take Care of The Earth Every Day by Tammy Gagne, students wondered about our natural world and how we can care for our plants, critters, and everything around us. Some questions they asked were these: How can we ensure clean water for amphibians and fish? How do we keep the air and land clean? How can we protect forests, which many creatures call home? How can we protect the food supply of the creatures in our environment? 

Students brainstormed to create a list of the many comforts and conveniences we humans enjoy, such as disposable containers and wrappers, paper and canned goods, gas for cars, goods produced in factories, and trees that are transformed into things we use. They discussed the many ways our comforts and conveniences can affect the land, air, water, and other life in our environment. They shared their concerns that trash is accumulating in landfills or is left where it can harm animals and the land, that emissions from cars and factories cause air and water pollution, and that cutting down trees can leave animals without homes and food.

Students were eager and excited to identify many ways we can all help. They believe we should use less, reuse when possible, and recycle items; drive less, ride bikes, drive electric cars, or carpool; make better filters, ask companies to “please stop releasing harmful chemicals into the environment”; write letters to the governor and president requesting change; and cut down fewer trees or plant more in their place to save the homes of creatures and to create more clean air. My students’ ideas are their own, and they are brilliant!

In response to our daily read-alouds and discussions, students wrote nonfiction books titled All About What Citizen Scientists Do that detailed the many great ways they chose to take action. Students agreed to create signs to remind others about caring for the environment; build birdhouses and bird feeders; use recycled materials to create art; start a compost bucket at home and school; write a letter to the governor about ways to save the environment; and ride their bikes more often instead of traveling in cars.

Students also enjoyed participating in an all-school Green Up Day event to clean up our school and community, as shown in the pictures featuring the cross-grade collaborative greening up they did with fifth and sixth graders. Finally, our class shared their stories and finished products with other students and teachers in the school to inspire others to become citizen scientists. My students are busy saving the planet, and we hope you will do so, too!

I would enjoy hearing your feedback on this science investigation or if you had similar investigations to share. Comment below and I’ll be sure to respond.

Standards Addressed Through These Activities

K-ESS3-3.3: Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, air, water, and/or other living things in the local environment.

• Core Idea: K-ESS3.C: Human Impacts on Earth Systems: Things that people do to live comfortably can affect the world around them. But they can make choices that reduce their impacts on the land, water, air, and other living things.
• Core Idea: ETS1.B: Developing Possible Solutions: Designs can be conveyed through sketches, drawings, or physical models. These representations are useful in communicating ideas for a problem’s solutions to other people.
  • Crosscutting Concept: Events have causes that generate observable patterns.

W.K.2: Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply information about the topic.

Transferable Skill: Engaged Citizenship—Participate in and contribute to our local and global communities.

Kelly MacMartin is a passionate kindergarten teacher at Calais Elementary School in the Washington Central Supervisory Union in Vermont. She has taught for 12 years at the primary level. She is passionate about connecting with students in all instructional areas, but especially loves helping students explore their own topics of inquiry related to the natural world. MacMartin is studying in the School Leadership program at Saint Michael’s College and enjoys sharing and learning great practice with and from colleagues.

This article was featured in the May issue of Next Gen Navigator, a monthly e-newsletter from NSTA delivering information, insights, resources, and professional learning opportunities for science educators by science educators on the Next Generation Science Standards and three-dimensional instruction.  Click here to sign up to receive the Navigator every month.

Visit NSTA’s NGSS@NSTA Hub for hundreds of vetted classroom resources, professional learning opportunities, publications, ebooks and more; connect with your teacher colleagues on the NGSS listservs (members can sign up here); and join us for discussions around NGSS at an upcoming conference.

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

Future NSTA Conferences

2018 STEM Forum & Expo

• Philadelphia July 11–13

Dive into Three-Dimensional Instruction Workshop

• Philadelphia, July 14–15

2018 Area Conferences

• Reno, October 11–13
• National Harbor (MD), November 15–17
• Charlotte, Nov. 29-Dec. 1

2019 National Conference

• St. Louis, April 11-14, 2019

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I am a student teacher in a kindergarten class and I have been struggling with focusing on laying the foundation for my students. But how much is too little? How much is too much for students at such an emergent level? —Y., Arizona

This is something teachers in all grades grapple with! The first person I would go to is your cooperating teacher and other kindergarten teachers. They have taught this curriculum and should have a good idea of the expectations and will likely fill your repertoire with all kinds of strategies they have used. Next, look at the curriculum support documents. There should be activities, lessons, and assessment strategies that have been identified or created by the department of education to help you out. Check out your state’s science teachers’ association for their resources. Develop a professional development plan in which you attend and participate in as many opportunities to learn, network, and share ideas about your curriculum.

Your students probably have diverse backgrounds and abilities. Don’t be too afraid to over-estimate your students. It is probably better to back track to simpler stuff than underestimate your students’ comprehension of the content.

Foremost, reflect on everything you do and make self-assessments by asking yourself: Are my students getting this? How do I know? And, regardless of whether the lesson worked well or not, How can I teach this differently? From your reflections, you can create informal and formal assessments that will help guide you and determine your students’ understanding.

Hope this helps!

This week in education news, should STEM evolve in STEAM; North Carolina teacher rally for increased teacher pay and education spending; Chicago will invest $75 million to renovate the high school science labs; new middle school genetics and genealogy curriculum will be featured in the National Science Foundation’s STEM for All Video Showcase; and Artificial Intelligence’s progression has been evolving at unbelievable speeds.

Science Educators Raise Alarms About Revised K-12 Standards

The standards for teaching Science, and History, to Arizona school kids are undergoing their first revisions in more than a decade. A committee of 100 educators, parents and community members hammered out the Science document in a year-long process. But the Department of Education made unexpected last-minute changes, shifting from big ideas to vocabulary words and watering down the concept of evolution. Read the article featured on KNAU.org.

Is STEM Better Off As STEAM?

Should STEM evolve into STEAM? Bringing up the STEM versus STEAM debate to 100 people might elicit 30 different reactions. Supplementing the hard sciences with art may seem like a simple matter, but there are several well-reasoned arguments for and against STEAM. Read the article featured in Engineering 360.

Thousands Of NC Teachers Rally In Raleigh For More Education Funding

Downtown Raleigh filled Wednesday with thousands of teachers who marched in the morning and rallied in the afternoon rain as they demanded that lawmakers do more to raise teacher pay and education spending in North Carolina. The “March for Students and Rally for Respect” — the largest act of organized teacher political action in state history — was organized by the North Carolina Association of Educators. Read the article featured in The News & Observer.

Chicago High School Science Labs To Get $75 Million Upgrades

Chicago officials say $75 million will be spent over three years to renovate science laboratories in 82 public high schools. In announcing the plan Tuesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel acknowledged significant disparities in the quality of school facilities. Read the article by the Associated Press.

AP Physics As Force For Civil Rights?

The College Board’s Advanced Placement courses prepare high school students for college rigor, enhance admission prospects, and, in many cases, reduce college costs by enabling students to earn college credit prior to matriculation. AP classes increasingly are a standard component of a college preparatory curriculum — students took about 5 million AP tests in 2017, more than quintuple the total 20 years earlier. However, many schools have failed to keep up. Demand for AP classes, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, vastly outpaces the supply of qualified teachers, exacerbating educational disparities. Read the article featured in The Hechinger Report.

Genealogy Curriculum Sparks Students’ Interest In STEM (and History, Too)

A new middle school genetics and genealogy curriculum will be featured in the National Science Foundation’s STEM for All Video Showcase. The genetics and genealogy curriculum was inspired by the PBS series “Finding Your Roots,” where celebrities like former Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter and actress Angela Bassett discover their ancestral histories. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., the show’s host, and Nina Jablonski, a professor of anthropology at Penn State University, dreamed up the curriculum, inviting historians, artists, biologists, geneticists, anthropologists, genealogists and educators to weigh in. Their goal is to engage students in science using a more personal approach. Read the article featured in Education Week.

Artificial Intelligence Is No Longer Science Fiction, Bust Science Fact

Technology has been evolving at unbelievable speeds predicted by Moore’s Law for years now, but AI’s progression has been unfathomable. Our current form of AI, machine learning, gives researchers the ability to not only train computers to correctly solve problems, but to learn from its mistakes and then teach other computers the same tasks. Read the article featured in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Training And Education Beyond The Obsession With STEM

Trade can help alleviate the pressures of this country’s aging demographic by allowing the economy to source labor-intensive products from abroad. It can only work, however, if the United States has something else to sell the world in return. Right now, the country has huge comparative and absolute advantages in producing high-value products. Its workforce is better educated and better trained than those of the emerging economies, where the United States would source its purchases of labor-intensive products. That workforce also has much more capital and technology at its disposal. To carry on this way, the economy will need to sustain these advantages, and that will involve an ever-greater emphasis on training and innovation. Read the article featured in Forbes.

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 can we do to better support our teachers in ways such as development to help decrease the burnout rate?
—I., Connecticut

Teacher burnout is a world-wide phenomenon. My predecessor, Mary Bigelow, addressed this issue a couple of years ago (https://goo.gl/PS4HWJ) but it merits continued discussion. I’ve maintained that strategies for avoiding or mitigating burnout should be part of teacher education, but most educators don’t receive any formal training in these strategies.

I tried to focus on the things in my control and kept my highest priority—the happiness of my family and myself— in mind. I wouldn’t have been any good to my family, or my students, had I burnt out.

You are not alone
Confide in friends, family and colleagues about what you’re facing. Teachers associations will likely have phone lines and councillors for you to contact. There is no stigma to admitting you need help. Also watch your colleagues for signs of burnout.

Work hard, but not stupid
Look at how you work and set some realistic goals. Modify your assessment strategies to reduce grading. Drop some voluntary committees, coaching or supervision no matter how much you like it. Try arriving a little earlier or staying later on some days to prepare and grade while preserving other evenings and weekends for you and your family.

Incorporate wellness into your life
Is your diet (reasonably) healthy? Do you have any exercise routines? Don’t dwell on things you can’t control and look at positive things you are accomplishing. Take up or revisit a hobby. You are no good to anyone if you are sick so take time off to address your health.

Take care of yourselves, people!

Photo Credit:  Firesam! via Flickr

How much do you know about the Next Generation Science Standards and what they mean for your classroom? NSTA knows it can be challenging to learn the complex ins and outs of the NGSS on your own. That’s why we developed a four-week Online Book Study around Discover the NGSS: Primer and Unit Planner to provide science teachers with a comprehensive introduction to the NGSS.

Participating in a book study offers you a unique professional learning opportunity. Book studies are designed to extend learning far beyond simply reading a book. They supplement knowledge with discussions with colleagues, stories from the classrooms, and live webinars led by top experts in the field. Designed with convenience in mind, book studies provide intensive learning without the hassle of conference travel. You’ll have access to hours of personalized professional learning, webinar archives, and your own private forum to learn at your own pace.

“Hearing what other teachers had to say and their input helped me realize that it takes time, and with a little bit more practice, I can develop and grow my lessons.”

–Past book study participant

The NGSS book study is no different in its array of benefits. The study provides the expert guidance and resources you need in order to learn and implement the NGSS in your own classrooms. During the NGSS book study, you’ll deepen your understanding of the NGSS with four live webinars led by experts Tricia Shelton and Jessica Holman. The webinars will feature examples and stories from the classroom to illustrate how to translate the NGSS into classroom teaching and learning. During the webinars, you’ll have the chance to learn from:

• Tricia Shelton: Tricia is a science teacher and leader with a BS in Biology and Masters in Teaching with 22 years of experience in Kentucky. She is driven by a passion to help students develop critical and creative thinking skills necessary for success in a 21st century world. She is also a member of the NSTA staff.
• Jessica Holman: Jessica is a special education teacher at Boone County High School with eight years of experience. She is active in her role as a science teacher leader in her school district, collaborates with peers, and integrates instruction into her blended learning classroom.
• Other K-12 science teachers and leaders

Throughout the book study, you’ll also have access to a personalized forum, additional resources, and webinar archives in order to maximize your learning through collaboration and classroom lessons. After over six hours of live exchange with experts and 40 hours of personalized learning, you’ll know how to communicate your understanding of the three-dimensions of the NGSS, how to design your own NGSS lessons within a unit of study, and how to identify phenomena that can drive your students’ learning even further. After each webinar, you’ll also receive a certificate as evidence of your participation and attendance. 

Interested in participating? Register at http://learningcenter.nsta.org/bookstudy. The program runs this fall on four consecutive Tuesdays on October 2, 9, 16, and 23. You can sign up as an individual ($63 member/$79 non-member) or a district cohort (25 individuals at $1,250 flat fee). Please note that the e-book is not included and can be purchased separately here. Reach out to Flavio Mendez (fmendez@nsta.org) with any additional questions.

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

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Understanding the complex lives and lifecycles of plants is a lifetime’s worth of work that can begin in early childhood as children feel the texture of seeds dotting a strawberry, watch a maple seed twirling down, or open a sugar snap pea pod to count the seeds inside. In John McCutcheon’s song, “Kindergarten Wall,” a seed-planting activity is included in a list of important things to remember from our kindergarten year.

As children notice seeds teachers may talk with them, asking children to describe or draw what they notice, and giving some information, such as the word “seed” and the name of the parent plant and fruit. If this is followed by seed sprouting or planting opportunities, the experience may confirm what children have been told about seeds: if you plant a seed it will grow. But what if it doesn’t grow? 

This spring I planted two kinds of zinnias, a smaller and a larger variety. For some reason only a few of the larger variety sprouted while almost all of the smaller variety grew well. I used the same potting soil, the same newspapers as pots, watered them from the same container, and put them in the same windowsill to sprout. Since I had seeds of the larger variety left in the packet I did a simple germination test, taught to me by a college roommate who was an agriculture major, by putting the seeds in a fold of a damp paper towel in a plastic bag. During the week I checked on the seeds and kept the paper towel damp. Only 20% of the seeds sprouted. Sprouting seeds in a damp paper towel rather than in soil keeps the process visible for children to see. After a period of time you can plant only those seeds that sprouted into soil. Be aware that early plant structures may break easily so don’t count on all sprouting seeds surviving children’s handling.

When children are very interested in caring for sprouting seeds you may decide to help each child plant a container and label it with their name so they can take it home. If there is a chance that some seeds won’t sprout, or will receive uneven care and not survive well, consider having children take turns planting seeds in a large tray of soil so everyone can jointly care for the plants, surviving or not. Those seedlings that thrive can be transplanted into individual containers or the ground.

Video on “Science Talks” about plants, from Peep and the Big Wide World.

Exploring seeds introduces the diversity of plants (so many different sizes and shapes of seeds!) and the variety within a plant genus (consider the shapes of seeds from plants that grow pumpkins and those that grow other squash).  See the “Teaching strategies” section at Peep and the Big Wide World with videos of both family child care and center-based educators  talking with the children in their care. One idea is to create a “seed museum.”  Children can do this with seeds they find in their food or bring from home. 

Learning about the needs of plants (and animals) is part of the Next Generation Science Standards, assessed in  performance expectation K-LS1-1, “Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive,” and the Disciplinary Core Idea, LS1.C, “Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms, All animals need food in order to live and grow. They obtain their food from plants or from other animals. Plants need water and light to live and grow.”

As the weather warmed I transplanted all the zinnia seedlings out into the garden where I hope their nectar and seeds will provide food for insects and birds. Relationships between plants and animals can be part of an exploration of seeds. Making observations of animals interacting with plants takes time, over many occasions, some planned and others by chance, but all made possible by teacher preparation.

 The question, “What seeds do we eat?” is examined in children’s books. There are many wonderful books about children spending time in gardens but not as many focused on the seeds we eat. Stories such as The Little Red Hen include information about the seeds we eat (wheat). Both fiction and non-fiction books help children make sense of their explorations. 

Green Bean! Green Bean! by Patricia Thomas, illustrated by Trina L. Hunner (2016 Dawn Publications)

How a Seed Grows by Helene J. Jordan (1992 HarperCollins Children’s Books)

In the Garden with Dr. Carver by Susan Grigsby, illustrated by Nicole Tadgell (2010 Albert Whitman & Company)

Plant a Little Seed by Bonnie Christensen (2012 Roaring Brook)

Seed, Soil, Sun: Earth’s Recipe for Food by Cris Peterson with photos by David R. Lundquist (2012 Boyds Mills Press) 

Seeds by Vijaya Khisty Bodach (2007 Capstone Press)

Seeds by Ken Robbins (2005 Theneum Books for Young Readers)

Seeds and Seedlings: Nature Close-Up Photographs by Dwight Kuhn, text by Elaine Pascoe (1996 Blackbirch Press)

What’s in the Garden? by Marianne Berkes, illustrated by Cris Arbo (2013 Dawn Publications) 

Page Keeley’s formative assessment probes help educators determine what children think about a topic before they explore it.  Asking the questions and discussing the images of the probes helps to reveal the ideas students have about objects, organisms, or phenomena. Although they are designed for elementary and older students, preschool teachers can use them for group discussions and smaller conversations. Children’s initial claims and reasons for their ideas provide direction for exploration and instruction. See Keeley’s Formative Assessment Probe columns: 

Needs of Seeds in the February 2011 Science and Children 48(6) 

Seeds in a Bag November 2014 Science and Children 52(3)

Big and Small Seeds, July 2016 Science and Children 53(9)

“Students’ Ideas About Plants: Results from a National Study” by Charles R. Barman, Mary Stein, Natalie S. Barman, and Shannan McNair (September 2003 issue of Science and Children) reports on research by teachers about elementary and middle school students’ often limited ideas about plants.  With additional first-hand experiences and later experiments, children can revise their early ideas, such as “Sunlight helps plants grow by keeping them warm,” and “Trees and grass are not plants.”

Early childhood educators can provide many first hand-hand experiences, and help children investigate seeds, the lives of plants, and their lifecycles so in upper elementary and middle school children will “…remember the seed in the little paper cup, First the root goes down and then the plant grows up! (©1988 by John McCutcheon. Published by Appalsongs).

Do you have some suggestions for how to modify a science experiment for students with physical disabilities that prevent them from doing the activities? – A., Arkansas

There are many ways you can modify the experience for students with disabilities. Specific labs may have special modifications, but here are some general ideas:

In general, you should team the student up with classmates to perform experiments. Developing collaborative team skills is an important skill for everyone. There are usually many steps to an experiment. If there are physical disabilities that prevent the student from, say, pouring liquids they could still help out with brainstorming, identifying variables, reading meters, recording data, calling time intervals, double-checking data and measurements. Use phones or tripod-mounted cameras to photograph or video record experiments for later observations or writing up lab reports.

Safety comes first! A person with limited mobility may have to take more precautions to ensure they can do the work properly or move away from danger quickly.

Keep in mind that the object of an experiment is to answer a question by deriving meaningful, objective data in a controlled environment. The skill of using lab equipment is secondary in my opinion. However, phone apps, infrared thermometers or computer-based probes could be easier to use and read when measuring physical data.

Hope this helps!

Graphic credit: Ltljltlj via Wikimedia Commons

This week in education news, science and technology have the power to do good; STEAM instruction from a well-trained educator can boost science achievement scores among students in high-poverty elementary schools; science is a front-burner issue for California students; S.C. districts are taking unusual steps to fill teaching vacancies — recruiting in other parts of the country; new study finds people who understand evolution are more likely to accept it; industry and government should work together to encourage more people to consider jobs in software development, computer programming and cybersecurity; and though remedial math was intended to help students succeed in college, research has demonstrated that the courses don’t enhance students’ chances of completing college and can even worsen them.

Why U.S. Students Are Bad At Math

Earlier this spring the U.S. Department of Education released the results from the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and only 33 percent of eighth-graders tested proficient in math at grade level. This is unfortunate, and not at all surprising. In 2013, only 36 percent of eighth-graders were proficient in math, and in 2015 (the test is given only in odd-numbered years), only 33 percent were proficient. The silver-ish lining to the dark cloud of our schoolchildren’s poor math skills is that we’ve stopped getting worse. We’re not yet horrendous; we’re still just terrible. Read the article featured in U.S. News & World Report.

She’s A Champion Science Student. But She Loves History. What Should She Do?

Natalia Orlovsky had a hard time deciding where to go to college. Her options — Princeton University in New Jersey or the University of Oxford in England — reflected her internal struggle over competing interests: STEM vs. the humanities. It’s a debate roiling the education world, too. If Orlovsky chose Oxford, she would study history. If she chose Princeton, she would study science, a subject in which she recently displayed award-winning proficiency. Read the article featured in The Washington Post.

Bring More Girls Into STEM Workforce

Science and technology have the power to do good, by helping solve many of the great challenges of our day. They can mitigate global warming, hold the promise to cure cancer and help keep our national assets resilient to cyberattack. But we need more girls to unlock the potential of these next-generation innovations. Read the article featured in U.S. News & World Report.

STEAM Approach Increases Elementary Students’ Scores In Science

STEAM instruction from a well-trained educator can boost science achievement scores among students in high-poverty elementary schools, according to a study recently highlighted by the Arts Education Partnership. Conducted in California, the quasi-experimental study shows that students in 3rd-5th grade who received the nine one-hour blocks of STEAM instruction — focusing on the visual and performing arts — went from the 50th to the 63rd percentile on their district’s science assessment. Read the brief featured in Education DIVE.

New Science Test Must Be Part Of California’s School Accountability System

Science is a front-burner issue for California students, especially for those who are marginalized and disadvantaged. To ensure they receive the education they deserve and need, it is essential for the State Board of Education to add a placeholder for the California Science Test (CAST) to the California School Dashboard. Although the science test is still being field tested, and no test results will be available for accountability purposes for a couple more years, the State Board can still make its commitment to science clear to all stakeholders by stating that the science test results, when ready, will be part of the dashboard and listing it there now as one of the state performance indicators. Read the article featured in EdSource.

Teach Here, They’ll Rent You A Home. S.C. Schools Take Desperate Steps To Find Teachers

With about 25 vacancies to fill next school year, Lexington 2 School District recruiters flew to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this spring to get in front of hundreds of teachers looking for work. It was a success. The district, which covers West Columbia and Cayce, made three job offers at the job fair. Next up: fairs in Ohio and Michigan to find more teachers. Welcome to South Carolina’s new way of filling classrooms. Read the article featured in The State.

People Who Understand Evolution Are More Likely To Accept It

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and their colleagues measured participants’ knowledge of evolutionary theory, as well as their acceptance of evolution as fact. They found a significant link between understanding the fine points of the theory and believing in it, regardless of religious or political identity. Read the article featured in the Scientific American.

It’s Time To Prepare The Workforce Of The Future

The software industry talks a lot about the software skills gap and the need for more coders. That’s because it’s a real concern – the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there will 1.4 million open computing jobs by 2020, but only 400,000 computer science graduates with the skills to fill them. Industry and government should work together to encourage more people to consider jobs in software development, computer programming and cybersecurity. But the skills gap is much bigger than the Bureau’s 1.4 million estimate. We don’t just need computer science graduates to fill computing jobs; we need people with technical abilities to fill jobs in almost every industry. Read the article featured in The Hill.

Classroom Science Experiment in TN Goes Awry

More than a dozen students at a high school in a Nashville suburb were injured along with their teacher when a science experiment turned into a chemical fire, sending nine people to the hospital. Read articles featured in The Washington Post and on WKRN-TV in Nashville, which includes information on the  NSTA safety alert issued last year recommending teachers not use methanol-based flame tests on an open laboratory desk.

Fewer Students Have To Take College Remedial Math, Data Show

At first, they were isolated experiments. Community colleges were rolling back their remedial math requirements. Students who would have been required to take anywhere from one to four remedial courses were being placed into shorter sequences of remedial courses — or directly into college-level math courses. The trend toward dismantling traditional remedial education is unambiguous. Even before California became the latest state to adopt policies limiting remedial enrollments, community college remedial math course-taking had dropped dramatically, falling 30 percent over a five-year period, from 1.1 million to around 780,000. That decline, recently documented in a survey of math and statistics departments by the Conference Board for Mathematical Sciences (CBMS), is great news for students. Read the article featured in The Hechinger Report.

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

One of my biggest questions is how to get the younger elementary students involved in science. Should we do more hands-on activities, having them participate in the environment or should we watch videos? —F., Texas

“Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.” ― Carl Sagan

We were all born with curiosity, a willingness to experiment and wanting to figure out how the world works. Science should be the easiest subject to teach – we just need to let human nature take its course! I think adults do a good job of stopping young people from exploring and asking simple, but tough, questions. Hands-on activities that encourage manipulation and experimentation along with exploring the real world is where students really learn science. Have them make their own videos. You may be surprised at how involved they will get in their projects!

The role of the teacher, in my opinion, is to provide opportunities to explore and inquire. Teach some basic things like: how to conduct a fair test; use observation not conjecture; record data accurately; how to reach a conclusion based on evidence and how to present data. In essence, teach children the nature of science – not just arbitrary facts. Let them see that science is an active pursuit of knowledge.

Hope this helps!

Photo Credit: Cblack95 via Wikimedia Commons

Six-time NSTA author Rodger Bybee’s deep subject-matter expertise draws on 50 years of working in the science education field as well as keeping up with relevant STEM education-related publications, meetings, and projects. In the last few years, Bybee began noticing that far too many STEM initiatives seemed to suffer from the same shortcoming: They used the STEM acronym in broad, ambiguous ways.

STEM, Bybee said, had become just another slogan and lacked a clear definition and plan for policies, programs, and teaching practices.

Bybee’s latest book, STEM Education Now More Than Ever, presents ideas to counteract the weaknesses that the author sees in STEM education, an urgent call to action during a critical time in American history when the integrity of core STEM disciplines is under assault. He wants students to better understand the important place STEM education occupies across cultural, political, and ethical areas of their lives, especially as they prepare to become citizens of our democracy as well as the global community.

The book is organized into four thought-provoking sections that cover a wide range of issues:

The chapters organized under Part 1 (Innovations for STEM Education) make the new and urgent case for STEM education in light of the recent and seemingly growing challenges to science’s validity from the highest levels of government; discuss what STEM means for state policies, school curriculum, and classroom practices; cover how to connect STEM education with new state standards and the Next Generation Science Standards; and provide a plan of action to move STEM education from a collection of initiatives to a lasting component of American education.

“We need citizens who can entertain different, if not contradictory, ideas; understand different judgements; make decisions based on facts; and recognize the role of scientific evidence that supports that facts,” says Bybee. “Yes, civics education may address these aims, but STEM-related issues certainly could be the context for civil dialogue based on evidence and the recognition that scientific evidence is fundamentally different from personal opinions.”

Part 2 (Our Cultural Heritage: STEM and Society) canvasses America’s foundational ideas and values—the U.S. Constitution, democracy, citizenship—and connects them to each of the STEM disciplines. The chapters in this section help identify the components of a cultural foundation; how to establish a cultural foundation; and how to build on a cultural foundation via democracy, schooling, and STEM education.

“One of the unique goals of education is to aid the individual’s search for a personal freedom that results from the choices one makes and the values one develops as a citizen,” Bybee writes. “STEM education must contribute to the development of literacy and the priorities of this period in American history.”

Part 3 (Advancing STEM Education: Priorities, Perspectives, and Plans) focuses on the important purposes of STEM education and gives recommendations for how to translate those purposes into practical improvement—across STEM programs, STEM units, and professional learning and development. Teachers will appreciate Bybee’s suggestions for newer, faster ways to develop the most relevant STEM classroom learning.

“If we need STEM education now more than ever, what must be done?” Bybee asks. “The answer begins with designing and developing STEM units that will be implemented in current classrooms. Furthermore, it is essential that units are developed by classroom teachers with the provision of professional learning experiences.”

Part 4, the book’s concluding section, answers questions raised in previous chapters, such as: “How does STEM education represent an innovation?”; What is STEM trying to achieve?”; and “How long will it take to implement STEM programs?” This section also stresses the critical need for STEM educators to step up and be strong leaders during a time when far too many policy initiatives disregard rational, evidence-based information.

“Providing a vison for America’s future requires continued efforts to develop and apply the best that science, technology, engineering and mathematics have to offer,” Bybee says. “The health of our oceans, pollutants in the atmosphere, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, and environmental hazards are STEM problems that citizens must be able to recognize and use scientific information—instead of political and economic ideas—to solve.” 

Read the free sample chapter, “Designing Innovative STEM Units,” to learn about the strategy that state and local leaders can use to design, develop and implement STEM units as well as the critical connection between the development of instructional materials and the professional learning of STEM teachers.

This book is also available as an e-book.

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

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