Official Washington has slowed to a crawl with the midterm election just weeks away and the possible power shift in the U.S. Senate. This Ed Week blog has a great take on what’s ahead for education if the Republicans take control of the Senate.

In the House, the message that many parents and educators are tired of over-testing students has been received. Lawmakers recently introduced a bill that speaks to a growing bipartisan consensus around reducing federal testing requirements.  The Tackling Excessive Standardized Testing (TEST) Act, introduced last week and supported by the American Federation of Teachers, would allow states to choose an alternative testing regimen for students in grades 3 through 8.  The bill focuses only on math and reading and does not include science testing.  Read more.

Meanwhile last week, Vice President Joe Biden announced $450 million would be going to over 270 community colleges nationwide for CTE training grants, many focusing on STEM.

And finally, a new report from the Education Commission of the States captures a snapshot of where states currently stand in regard to the Common Core State Standards (CSSS). Read more.

Jodi Peterson is the Assistant Executive Director, Communications, Legislative, and Public Affairs at the National Science Teachers Association; and the Chair of the STEM Education Coalition

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

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Patterns,  arguing from evidence, and ecosystem ecology—these are the themes of the October 2014 science education journals published by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). Each issue is filled with articles written by science educators who’ve tested their ideas in the classroom. So take some time to enjoy the fall weather, and cozy up to the inspired ideas below. Explore conservation of matter in life sciences, learn how to find your school’s analemma, put new life in an old lesson, and more!

Science and Children

Establishing an understanding of patterns is important in childhood development. This issue of S&C is filled with ideas and resources you can use to help students make connections and understand the relationships that cause patterns.

Featured articles (please note, only those marked “free” are available to nonmembers without a fee):

• A Pattern in the Sky
• A SeQRet Treasure Hunt
• Free – Art and the Cosmic Connection
• Free – Editor’s Note: Crosscutting Concepts: Patterns
• Find Your School’s Analemma
• Modeling Water Filtration
• Full Table of Contents

Science Scope

Knowing how to argue from evidence when attributing an observed phenomenon to a specific cause is an essential skill for any scientist. We hope the articles found in this issue will help teach your students to accurately identify and explain cause-and-effect relationships, both inside and outside the classroom.

Featured articles (please note, only those marked “free” are available to nonmembers without a fee):

• Conservation of Matter in the Life Sciences
• Free – Editor’s Roundtable: Cause and Effect
• Generating, Evaluating, and Modifying Scientific Models Using Projected Computer Simulations
• Free – Lakes Alive!
• Model Synergy: Combining Classic Modeling Practices and Digital Simulations to Augment Deeper Conceptual Understanding
• Students Modeling Molecule Movement Through Science Theater
• Teaching Electromagnetic Waves Used in Communication Technologies
• Full Table of Contents

The Science Teacher

There can be no argument about the importance of ecosystem ecology to the modern science curriculum. Interdisciplinary by nature, the field involves chemistry, physics, biology, and Earth science and core ideas like energy, matter and its interactions, biodiversity, Earth’s systems and their related human impacts, and engineering solutions. The intricate interactions involved in even the simplest ecosystems can help students understand the messiness of science and the complex functioning of natural systems, fluxes, and reservoirs. Furthermore, the future of our planet depends on understanding and protecting vulnerable ecosystems.

Featured articles (please note, only those marked “free” are available to nonmembers without a fee):

• Adapting to the Environment
• Free – Calculating Biodiversity in the Real World
• Free – Editor’s Corner: Ecosystems on the Brink
• Next Generation Botany
• Putting New Life in an Old Lesson
• Scientists at Work
• Full Table of Contents

Get these journals in your mailbox as well as your inbox—become an NSTA member!

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

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I’ve been reading the literature on the value of play in learning. I do give my students unstructured activity time in science class, but I’m not sure they’re getting anything out of it. For example, I gave each group of students a board and several toy cars. They began playing with them, and when I later asked what they learned or discovered about motion, the silence was deafening! I know they had fun “playing” with the cars, but I wanted them to learn something, too. How can I make this a better experience?

—D., Idaho

Unfortunately, some students (and adults) look at fun and learning as mutually exclusive: If we’re learning, it can’t be fun, and if we’re having fun, we can’t be learning.

This dichotomy was illustrated in an action research study conducted by a colleague. He asked his students to list the most fun things they did in class. The fifth-graders mentioned science activities, role-playing, word games, drawing, working with their peers, computer simulations, and more. He then asked what class activities best helped them learn. He assumed the answers would be the same, although ranked in a different order depending on the student. He was surprised when most of the students said worksheets and tests. When he discussed these results with his students, they mentioned that the worksheets and tests were graded and they had to stay in at recess if they missed one. They concluded that these were more important than the “fun” activities since they were used to calculate their grades as a summary of their “learning.” Reflecting on the results, the teacher concluded he needed to be more explicit in describing the learning goals of the activities and debrief more with the students on what they learned or discovered.

Exploration (I prefer this term to “playing”) is an important part of science, regardless of the age of the students. It provides open-ended opportunities without the concern of finding a single correct answer. It provides students with common experiences and helps the teacher identify misconceptions. During the rest of the lesson, students can build on these experiences, although the teacher may have to remind students of what they did. For students who are used to being told exactly what to do and how to do it, this can be a new and perhaps frustrating experience as they wonder, “But what are we supposed to do?”

During the activity, circulate through the class, observe their explorations and ask questions about what they are thinking. (You’ll also want to be sure they’re focused and working safely). Encourage students to describe what happens in their notebooks. Afterward, instead of asking generically what they learned, use more focused discussion-starters such as What happened when…? What was different? Did that happen to everyone? What surprised you? What else could we explore? I wonder what would happen if…? If you had more time, what else would you do?

I encourage you to look at the BSCS 5E Instructional Model, in which Exploration is one of the phases, along with Engagement, Explanation, Elaboration, and Evaluation.  Within the context of this model, exploration becomes an integral and essential part of the lesson.

NSTA’s K-12 journals have many examples of lessons that follow this model.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fontplaydotcom/504443770/