JoinSpace exploration—more relevant than ever!
By Teshia Birts, CAE
Posted on 2011-10-28
Space. The Final Frontier.
Well, not really according to James Garvin, Chief Scientist for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He insists, “Our exploration has just begun.”
Dr. Garvin was the keynote speaking during yesterday’s general session at the 2011 NSTA Hartford Area Conference. He guided attendees through the evolution of the space program—through words and images—explaining the importance of blending science, space, engineering and IT.
The Apollo 11 voyage was ahead of its time, much like most space exploration. Something as inconsequential as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin “planting” the United States flag involved awesome science and engineering to create the billowing effect of the flag.
Fast forward to more recent missions with Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiters and we see more examples of science, engineering and technology coming together. These types of missions have allowed NASA to develop a record book of cosmic collisions to study for years to come.
Dr. Garvin also led us through past exploration of other planets.
- Mercury: so close to the sun and so many different facets and signatures discovered, but the story still isn’t finished.
- Venus: so imperfectly unexplored because of the atmosphere.
- Earth: we’re poised to learn so much more about our planet; to use the data we have to more accurately predict catastrophic events like Katrina.
- Mars: massive canyons, collapsing oceanic volcanoes and more ice than we thought existed on the planet.
What does all this mean—we need science teachers! To prepare our students for STEM careers so they can explore microgravity and asteroids or as Dr. Garvin pointed out so brilliantly, “To look into the dark space of our galaxy to see what’s going on” (because we look at the light places all of the time).
“The next chapter hasn’t been written yet,” said Dr. Garvin. “Inspire your students so we can continue the work.”
Space. The Final Frontier.
Well, not really according to James Garvin, Chief Scientist for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He insists, “Our exploration has just begun.”
Dr. Garvin was the keynote speaking during yesterday’s general session at the 2011 NSTA Hartford Area Conference. He guided attendees through the evolution of the space program—through words and images—explaining the importance of blending science, space, engineering and IT.
Outstanding Science Trade Books 2012 Awards Reception
By Peggy Ashbrook
Posted on 2011-10-27
Trade books are an important way for young children to learn about the wonders of the natural world outside of their neighborhood, and the details of the natural world at their doorstep. From giant squids to the day’s weather, from craters on the Moon to craters made by ant lions in the backyard dust, trade books both whet and satiate children’s appetite for information through words and illustrations. Teachers rely on the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the Children’s Book Council (CBC) to guide book choices. NSTA and CBC will announce the Outstanding Science Trade Books 2012 Awards at a reception on Friday November 11, 2011 at 3:30-4:30pm at the area conference in New Orleans at the New Orleans Marriott, 555 Canal Street, Suite 4022, New Orleans, LA. (Please RSVP by October 31 to ebrady@nsta.org ) The books are chosen by a book review panel appointed by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and assembled in cooperation with the Children’s Book Council (CBC). The criteria are listed on a NSTA website products and publications page (scroll down). Thank you to the book selection panel–it’s a tough job but someone has to do it.
Some of my favorites among last year award winners are:
How to Clean a Hippopotamus by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. 2010. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Just One Bite by Lola M. Schaefer. 2010. Chronicle Books.
S is for Scientists by Larry Verstraete. 2010. Sleeping Bear Press
These award winners are listed in the NSTA Recommends data base along with other fine trade books. Do you have any personal or award-winning favorite books that you would like to recommend?
Peggy
Trade books are an important way for young children to learn about the wonders of the natural world outside of their neighborhood, and the details of the natural world at their doorstep.
21st century tools
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2011-10-26
Click here for the Table of Contents
Will we ever get to the point where we can sit back and say “Our students have these skills. We’re set until the 22nd century?”
A great benefit for NSTA members is electronic access to all of the journals. After you read the print version that is part of your membership, you can read the articles in all of the others. Even though they might be oriented to a different grade level, there are always ideas that can be kicked up a notch or simplified. And this topic certainly relates to all grade levels.
It makes sense that I’m reading a digital version of this TST issue on 21st century tools. On the other hand, in the year 2011 (well into the 21st century), we’re still talking about tools for the century. Just think about tools that have come and gone already (the original iPod or PDAs for example–even the computer mouse). What hasn’t gone away, as the editor suggests, are skills such as adaptability, critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, self-direction, and systems thinking.
Back in the 1990s, when I was a technology director, a school board member asked what tech skills students needed to get good jobs. I suggested that the technology our students would use routinely in their jobs hadn’t been invented yet and that the students would be doing jobs that didn’t exist at the time (such as the Visualization Scientist described in the Career of the Month—which dovetails with the October Science Scope theme of Art and Science). So the best thing we can do is prepare students in the skills mentioned above. The articles in this issue address these in a variety of science classroom contexts.
The authors of Science in the 21st Century: More Than Just the Facts show how these skills are integrated into the Urban EcoLab project. They describe (with a graphic and summary chart) a framework for Four Ways of Knowing Science (understanding, doing, talking, and acting on science) and how these four ways of knowing were incorporated into an environmental science course with a local context. As the conclusion states “Ecology, and indeed science, doesn’t just happen in exotic rain forests or desolate polar ice caps—it happens in students’ neighborhoods and city blocks.”
Science, Technology, and YA Lit includes a list of young adult reading titles and how teachers can promote critical thinking and connections with technology [SciLinks: Reading and writing in science]. And in Getting Up to Speed, students integrate the content and process skills in real-life scenarios related to walking (e.g., How much do I walk in school?) [SciLinks: Speed]
The teacher-author of Customizing Curriculum with Digital Resources describes the Curriculum Customization Service, an online curriculum management tool he used to integrate classroom resources, such as lesson plans, with digital and traditional resources. I wonder when districts will replace the “textbook selection” committees with “resource selection” committees, tasked with using tools such as this to tap into the continually updated resources that are available digitally.
When a scientist participated in a PD project I was involved with, the teachers were amazed at the percentage of time he spent in communications—grant writing, presentations at meetings, and writing about his research. The 21st Century Oral Presentation Tool Bag has resources to help your students improve their oral communications and information-literacy skills. The article includes a rubric and self-assessment guide. Secret in the Margins illustrates how teachers can incorporate nature-of-science understandings into existing lessons (rather than create new ones). The 5E lesson format was used in a unit on atomic structure. [SciLinks: Atomic structure]
In the earlier decades of the 20th century, pregnant teachers were dismissed and pregnant teenagers dropped out of school. Pregnancy in the Laboratory looks at potential hazards for teachers and for students (not just at the collegiate level but also at the secondary level).
TST also includes the column Headline Science with brief articles on current research and background information for teachers and students. [SciLinks: Virus, Sunspots, Carbon Cycle, Neurons/Nerve cells, Nanotechnology, Asteroids, Fungi, Cells]
Don’t forget to look at the Connections for this issue (October 2011). Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, this resource has ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, etc.
Click here for the Table of Contents
Is the computer mouse dead? Or dying anyway?
By Martin Horejsi
Posted on 2011-10-25
The computer mouse has been a stable since 1984 when it was popularized on the Macintosh computer. And has gone relatively unquestioned since. However, the mouse also prevents us from doing many things. Like what, you might ask? Well, doing those things that we now commonly do with touch-screen tablets and phones.
A computer mouse, regardless of its number of buttons is still a mouse. That means it operates one cursor at one spot on one display. While UIs (user interfaces) have gotten creative with the ever-growing number of mouse buttons, wheels, and clicks, I view the device as going from one to two to three to five to absurd numbers of actionable pressure sensitive spots on a deck-of-cards sized forever-horizontally limited symbolic object trying desperately to mimic a vertically imprisoned arrowhead. Mostly the additional buttons on a mouse operate other features in a faster pathway, but still there are only so many buttons one can keep track of, program, and install updated drivers.
But today, we are learning to love a faster, simpler, and arguably more natural interface using gestures with one or more fingers. While four fingers seems to be the limit right now, possibly because we only have four fingers, the combination of swiping in four directions (up, down, left, right) with one, two, three, or four fingers give sixteen obvious possible combinations. But wait there’s more! Gestures include pinching, stretching, tapping (single, double, triple), and two and three finger rotation (left and right). While not all combinations work together right now, it is clear that the number of possible communications signals that can be sent to the computer from a few activations of a couple muscles operating one hand can be turned into hundreds of possible meanings.
And that’s just one motion going one way. If the computer could respond with submenus (which it can) or pressure sensitivity (which is possible in some programs) or even acceleration which proportions the speed of the gesture with its active effect or duration which are common preferences, the level of control is truly infinite. And all that with just one hand…and without a thumb! I can easily imagine a dual surface vertically positioned pinch interface system giving the opposable digit we are so proud of as a species (well Order anyway) a useful computing purpose beyond punching squares on a tiny keyboard, or sharing a oversized space bar with yet another thumb.
So what does all this mean to science education? Well, I would like to posit that much of the imagination behind our science education teaching with technology is mouse-driven and therefore suffers from two-dimensional thinking. If we could free ourselves from the excruciatingly limited choices of the computer mouse, we might open an entirely new world of rich, interactive content. Imagine navigating the periodic table like you can Google Earth! Imagine moving thorough a complex spreadsheet of data as if you were diving in and out and around a high-resolution photography.
What is the gain? Three things come to mind. First, it will allow a customized presentation (or perspective) of information for the user. Second, it will present the data in ways that will likely allow new discoveries from the same information set. And third, it will spur new, more powerful ways to present, share and manage information.
While the visual computing of Hollywood with the immersion of Minority Report and puppeteer speed of Iron Man coming to mind, it might seem like the wild and visionary techniques for engineering and statistics are a long way off. But as gesture-controlled computing gains traction in school environments, I’d bet the objects of science fiction dreams might be closer than they appear.
The computer mouse has been a stable since 1984 when it was popularized on the Macintosh computer. And has gone relatively unquestioned since. However, the mouse also prevents us from doing many things. Like what, you might ask? Well, doing those things that we now commonly do with touch-screen tablets and phones.
How's the weather at your science museum?
By Debra Shapiro
Posted on 2011-10-25
photo courtesy of the Franklin Institute
Teachers and students are heading to science museums around the country to learn about weather events such as hurricanes, tsunamis, and tornadoes. In the photo, for example, these young visitors to Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute are using a shake table to learn about earthquakes and their effects on various structures.
Besides educating students about severe weather, these exhibits offer a look at weather forecasting and the instruments forecasters use, as described in a recent NSTA Reports story. If your school isn’t located near a science museum, not to worry: Many exhibits have online components, such as videos your students can watch.
Have you taken your students to a science museum to explore the weather? Tell us how your trip went and what they learned.
photo courtesy of the Franklin Institute
Getting ready for college chemistry
By Debra Shapiro
Posted on 2011-10-21
photo by Bret Brookshire
Why are these Texas high school students from the ChemBridge Program smiling?
Perhaps it’s because they’re taking a course that lets them earn college chemistry credit and high school science credit. Perhaps it’s also because they’re visiting Freshman Research Initiative science labs at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin. UT developed ChemBridge for students in high schools that are underrepresented in postsecondary institutions, to acquaint them with its college chemistry program.
Find out how ChemBridge is helping both students and their teachers succeed in chemistry in this NSTA Reports story.
photo by Bret Brookshire
A New Reason to Visit the Library
By Debra Shapiro
Posted on 2011-10-20
photo by Michelle Sixta
They say “everything old is new again”: The time-honored practice of seed saving is taking a new twist, with seed-lending libraries springing up around the country. California middle school teacher Rebecca Newburn started one at her public library–and helped her students start a seed-lending library at her school. She’ll tell you how seed saving can help you integrate science in your curriculum in this NSTA Reports story.
photo by Michelle Sixta
Catch sessions on Framework and Science Standards in Hartford
By Cindy Workosky
Posted on 2011-10-20
Greetings … Interested in learning more about NRC’s Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards now in development, catch one of the many sessions slated for the Hartford Regional Conference.
Featured Panel: Stephen Pruitt, Achieve, and Francis Eberle, NSTA
Thursday, October 27
12:30–1:30 PM
Connecticut Convention Center, Ballroom A
A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Helen Quinn, NRC Study Director
Friday, October 28
12:30–1:30 PM
Connecticut Convention Center, Ballroom A
Exploring the Science Framework; Harold Pratt and Francis Eberle, NSTA
FRIDAY, October 28 (CORRECTION)
2:00–3:00 PM
Connecticut Convention Center, Ballroom A
If you need more information on the conference, click here.
Greetings … Interested in learning more about NRC’s Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards now in development, catch one of the many sessions slated for the Hartford Regional Conference.
Featured Panel: Stephen Pruitt, Achieve, and Francis Eberle, NSTA
Thursday, October 27
12:30–1:30 PM
Connecticut Convention Center, Ballroom A
Effective meetings
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2011-10-19
I recently became the science department chairperson. My meetings are a disaster! People arrive late and complain when I try to discuss issues. I don’t think we accomplish anything. What can I do to make meetings more productive?
—Irene from Wisconsin
As a new chairperson, you may run into some resistance from teachers used to an existing format (or lack of one) for faculty meetings. Their resistance often results in off-task behaviors that interfere with your goals. We teachers complain there’s little opportunity to collaborate, yet without any structure, faculty meetings often become gripe and gossip sessions. If meetings in previous years were seen as a waste of time, you may have to be persistent to let people know that things are going to be different—and then make sure they are different.
Send out an agenda a few days in advance and send a copy to the principal. Use e-mail or an attachment to the agenda to communicate information items so the meeting time can be spent more productively. Rather than a bulleted list of agenda items, phrase them in the form of a question for your colleagues to consider. For example, instead of “Safety,” ask, “What do you do to ensure that students work safely in your lab?”
Be respectful of people’s time. For afterschool meetings, give your colleagues a few minutes to tidy up their classrooms, but start and end the meeting at the designated times. Follow the agenda (unless the discussion becomes really interesting or productive). Set aside a few minutes to recognize new issues or other concerns but use the “parking lot” idea for those that could or should be addressed at another time. Celebrate any of your colleague’s successes or accomplishments, too. (One of my principals would give out posters, tote bags, or other goodies he picked up at conferences as door prizes at meetings. Some thought it was trivial, but most of us appreciated his efforts). Some treats at the end of a long day may sweeten the meeting atmosphere.
Rather than giving advice or mandates as the department chair, ask questions to start discussions: “What happens when…? Have you ever tried…? Did you notice that…?” Get to know the curriculum and standards for areas of science in addition to your own so you can ask meaningful questions and help others make connections among subjects. The cooperative learning strategies you use in class (e.g., jigsaw or think-pair-share) could be modified for small-group discussions at your meetings. And listen to your colleagues. Sometimes they just need to think out loud. However, if someone tries to sidetrack the meeting, return to the agenda.
It may be helpful if the meetings have a theme or purpose. Perhaps the teachers would be willing to use meeting time for tasks such as developing a safety contract, creating rubrics for student work, or establishing guidelines for notebooks or science projects. These activities may take more than one meeting to accomplish and can be standing items on the agenda. Introducing new technology or applications and providing time for teachers to work together with them can also be productive. But you don’t have to do this all yourself. Are any of your colleagues willing to demonstrate technology or share instructional strategies with the rest of the group.
At the end of the meeting, ask each participant to submit an exit slip with any comments, commendations, or recommendations. Send meeting minutes to all members of the department and to the principal to keep him/her in the loop.
It may take a while for teachers to adapt to a new format outside of their comfort zone, so give yourself (and them) some time.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecogh/3479000511/sizes/s/in/photostream/
I recently became the science department chairperson. My meetings are a disaster! People arrive late and complain when I try to discuss issues. I don’t think we accomplish anything. What can I do to make meetings more productive?
—Irene from Wisconsin