This winter has had more than “teachable moments”—it’s been a teachable season (at least on those days when school was in session). No matter what winter looks like in your neck of the woods, it’s an interesting time for science activities.
It’s been a meteorology paradise this winter. In SciLinks, the key word Snowflakes has many resources on the science of snow. I really like the All About Snow site from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. If the forecast includes the dreaded “wintry mix,” the precipitation section of the Weather World 2010 site has diagrams that differentiate between rain, freezing rain, sleet, hail, and snow. For more on the science of snow (and beautiful pictures), check out Snow Crystals, created by a physics professor at CalTech. The official Snowflake Bentley site describes the work of this snowflake photographer.

Deciduous trees get all the press in the fall when the leaves are changing colors and in the spring when they start to bud. But evergreen trees maintain their dignity throughout the winter. My students used to use the generic term “pine” for any conifer until we learned how to distinguish pines (needles in packets), spruces (short, single, sharp needles), hemlocks, and cedars. Or challenge your “budding” botanists to identify trees by their bark. (SciLinks: Identifying trees)
Speaking of trees, in some parts of the country, it’s maple sugaring time. If your students are familiar only with corn-syrup pancake toppings, they might be interested in learning how real maple syrup is produced. Tap My Trees has step-by-step directions with illustrations to show students this process. The University of Maine has an informative handout. There are also quite a few YouTube videos of the process, including From Trees to Pancakes narrated by a 4th-grader.
Two dreaded words in inclement weather: indoor recess. Of course, students need time to use up some energy and take a break. But try some alternatives to coloring pages or find-a-word handouts. Check out the Snacks and After-School Activities from the Exploratorium. These simple activities provide students with additional hands-on explorations in a variety of science-related topics.
Mark your calendars (February 18-21) for the Great Backyard Bird Count. Visit the project website to learn how you and your students can contribute data. Other animals leave tracks in the snow or mud. Learn how to identify them with Follow That Footprint and the Tracks and Signs Guide. (A recent Early Years blog has suggestions for using this project with young scientists.)
I saw a great map the other day, showing how 49 of the 50 states had snow somewhere. What are the weather trends this year? Is this really the worst winter ever? You and your students can access searchable data from NOAA by state or region to look at the patterns from longitudinally.
And it’s not too early to plan outdoor activities for the spring, such as Schoolyard Geology. Stay warm for now!

Once again, a late evening was spent on earth science worksheets. This time, however, it was not memorizing terms that presented the challenge, but rather something that caused great consternation in science in general leading up to a discovery that happened in my lifetime. (reference: http://scign.jpl.nasa.gov/learn/plate2.htm )

My daughter was trying to stuff the mechanics of the mid-Atlantic ridge and subduction zones into her sixth-grade head. Piece of cake, I thought. I was wrong. Briefly.
A few probing questions yielded that not much was making conceptual sense. I tried to use the images in the textbook, but didn’t pump that dry well for very long. Instead I used my favorite tool for such things…Google Earth. I do have some physical globes around the house (you know, the real spherical ones), but I needed the sea floor, and video links, and metadata, and 3-D ocean feature views, and ocean labels, and photo databases, and…and…and. …in order to learn with the fearlessness my daughter needed to explore the topic in her way.
Mere minutes later she could explain the process of plate tectonics reasonably well, show features on the earth that demonstrate the process, predict outcomes, make inferences, and best of all, show real excitement for the topic.

Then I remembered that I had an actual sample of the mid-Atlantic ridge. I won a piece of sea floor basalt at a conference a few years ago. It was brought up from the floor of the Atlantic right after it solidified. And what brought it up? Why Alvin of course. I said she could take the specimen to school and could remember the name of the submersible by thinking of Alvin and the Chipmunks.  But low and behold, a few pages into the next chapter in her textbook, there was a picture of Alvin (the sub, not the rodent). The circles were closing beautifully.
After a few short BBC videos on the subject, I think we went from a skeptical 1950s view of continental movement to a 21^st century view complete with powerful evidence and explanations.
While were on the topic, if Google Earth is on your list of teaching tools, may I suggest the SpaceNavigator. It makes the moving around as effortless as flying a stick-and-rudder plane. And a SpaceNavigator in the hands of students generates more questions per second than any other computer peripheral I can think of. In fact, it makes plate tectonics seem like just a simplistic explanation for a wildly complex set of inescapable processes.
For more information on GeoEverything, see our Science 2.0 column in the September 2010 issue of The Science Teacher.

What makes nutmeg and cloves smell like Christmas, while polyurethane-based adhesive smells like, well, glue?

As we enter week four of the weekly, online, video series “Chemistry Now,” we find that placement of a double bond in the hydrocarbon side chain makes all the difference in how eugenol, found in cloves,  and isoeugenol, found in nutmeg, taste and smell.

Subtle differences in bonds can also make or break efforts to create a stronger, more useful adhesive, as well as give it that pungent, acrid smell.

Finally, subtle changes in how teachers introduce scientific concepts to their students can bind those ideas in richer, more complex ways, leading to greater understanding. As has become our habit, please view the video, try the lessons, and let us know what you think.

Through the Chemistry Now series, NSTA and NBC Learn have teamed up with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to create lessons related to common, physical objects in our world and the changes they undergo every day. The series also looks at the lives and work of scientists on the frontiers of 21st century chemistry.

Spices: Maureen Shaughnessy

Close-up of glue: Sam Catch

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Video: “The Chemical Bond Between Cloves and Nutmeg” focuses on the variety, strengths — and placement — of chemical bonds in the structures of molecules. In a “bonding” story of another kind, NBC Learn profiles Purdue materials chemist Jon Wilker, who’s making synthetic adhesives based on the glues mussels produce underwater.

Middle school lesson: To give students a better understanding of molecular interactions through experimentation with adhesives. In this experiment, students will test three different types of tapes to see how well they hold squares made of three different materials (cardboard, plastic, magazine covers) together. This lesson encourages inquiry, understanding of the scientific process, and study of materials.

High school lesson: To demonstrate van der Waals (intermolecular) forces, viscosity, adhesion, and cohesion and their relationship to adhesives by having students conduct an experiment to test the effectiveness of three different types of glue on three different materials at room temperature and at refrigerator temperature.

You can use the following form to e-mail us edited versions of the lesson plans:

[contact-form 2 “ChemNow]

Dear Early Childhood Teacher (of science and everything else) and teacher educators:
We invite you to join NSTA!  The National Science Teachers Association has lowered new membership dues to $65 for a limited time only, until February 15th, 2011. So for $65 you get:

• A one-year subscription to your choice of one of the four the grade-specific journals.
• Free journal article downloads from all other current and archived journal issues—Members have unlimited access and may download any journal article from the NSTA Learning Center – FREE. You can download all the Early Years columns since its beginning in September 2005!
• 20% savings on books in the NSTA Science Store.
• Up to 44% savings on your NSTA Conference registration—national and regional.
• And much, much more, including the online NSTA lists where teachers exchange tips, conversation, and occasionally debate in a supportive, nonjudgmental atmosphere.

Even before I began writing for Science and Children, the NSTA elementary (and early childhood) journal, I read it for the lesson plans and discussion on teaching science, something that wasn’t covered often in my other professional association journals. Then I went to my first NSTA conference and signed up for the online discussions and found a community of support for teaching science in early childhood programs. To take advantage of this online membership application and to get $10 off regular membership, simply click here to join NSTA before February 15th to save! Use the discount code: NBMSPR2011.
Are there other early childhood communities supportive of science teaching that you can tell us about in a comment?
Peggy

I’m a new teacher at a new school. I’m applying for a spot on the principal’s cabinet. One of the questions he’s asking is “What data should we review when we are planning and checking in on existing plans?” I can think of test scores and attendance, but can you suggest other data sources?
—Anar, Jamaica, NY
Schools already have a wealth of data, but the challenge is how schools can use these data to inform and guide the decision-making and planning processes. As a science teacher, your skills with problem solving strategies and the role of evidence (data) would be very valuable to the cabinet.
From the notes accompanying your question, it appears two of your school’s goals are related to project-based learning and improving student reading skills. I assume your principal will want to focus on data regarding your school’s attempt to meet these goals. I’ve often used Deb Wahlstrom’s four-step process:

1.     Collect. The data you use should come from a variety of sources in order to get a more complete picture of what it happening at your school. I’d recommend using four types of data (suggested by the work of Victoria Bernhardt):

• Student learning. In addition to standardized tests, measures of student learning could include report card grades, common assessments (e.g., unit tests or semester exams used in all sections of a subject), project scores based on a rubric, and examples of student work such as notebooks or portfolios. If you have access to data from the middle schools your students attended, this could be helpful as baseline data, especially in reading and math.

• Demographics. The demographics of the students and teachers include characteristics such as gender, race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, special education status, English language learner (ELL) status, feeder schools attended, neighborhood characteristics, years of experience (for teachers).

• Perceptions. Some researchers might consider attitudes and beliefs as “soft” data. But sometimes these perceptions become part of a school’s reality. Surveys, questionnaires, and interviews can tell you what students, teachers, administrators, and parents believe about the school and each other. (Bernhardt’s books have examples of surveys and questionnaires on attitudes toward learning and the school.)

• School processes. The day-to-day activities and school climate can also have an impact on student learning. This data would include class schedules, enrollment in remedial and advanced courses, instructional strategies being used, extracurricular opportunities, availability of tutoring (and which students take advantage of it), discipline records, attendance, school facilities, class size, professional development opportunities. These data, along with observations from walkthroughs, provide a glimpse into what happens in the school.

The real value of considering multiple kinds of data is in looking at how the data sets intersect. As a result of NCLB, you get student achievement data disaggregated by several demographic characteristics. You can also look at differences in project quality or reading achievement by gender, the quality of projects in various subject areas, the attitude of students in remedial classes, the types of reading instruction that take place in different content area classes, or the relationship between attendance and learning.

2.     Organize. Looking at spreadsheets, printouts, and surveys can be daunting. Organizing the data into consistent formats and using graphic displays can help people make sense of the data. Spreadsheets or other electronic tools are essential to this process, especially if you’re aggregating data from a variety of sources.
3.     Analyze. In a smaller school, you can learn a lot simply by looking at the data and highlighting trends, patterns, or anomalies. Some numeric data can also be analyzed statistically. It’s helpful if the data team can produce summaries and displays to communicate with the rest of the faculty.
4.     Use. The next step is to use the results of the data analysis for identifying needs, decision-making, planning, monitoring your progress toward the goals, and celebrating your success.
There is no “last step” in the process, because you’ll use the results to revise your goals and identify additional needs. In addition to answering questions, you’ll find that your data analysis leads to more questions.
It’s easy to focus on the tables, charts, statistics, and summaries. But behind the numbers and descriptions, there are real people—students, teachers, parents, and administrators—with variables and stories that make data-informed processes challenging (and fascinating).
You mentioned your school currently has ninth grade and will add a grade each year. You have a wonderful opportunity to study your ninth graders longitudinally. As additional grades are added, you’ll have teachers new to your school also. It would be important for the cabinet to develop a way to bring them up to speed with your processes.
Decision-making can be stressful, especially if the decisions result in changing the status quo. You’re fortunate that, as a new school, you don’t have an entrenched status quo. Your school is evolving, and data-informed processes can become an accepted part of the school culture.
For more information:
Deb Wahlstrom: Using Data to Improve Student Achievement
Victoria Bernhardt: Data Analysis for Continuous School Improvement
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenmaiser/2171791257/

The 2009 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) Science scores were released last week, and NSTA was fortunate to have a number of journalists calling and asking our thoughts about the results. We sent a statement that began:

The National Science Teachers Association is concerned with the low student scores in science reflected in the 2009 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). Far too many of the students tested fell below the proficiency level. This is completely unacceptable. Our nation can not afford to have a scientifically illiterate workforce.

We were not the only ones to react this way to the NAEP results. After talking about U.S students and international scores, George Will states: “Annual federal funding of research in mathematics, engineering and the physical sciences is equal to the increase in America’s health-care costs every nine weeks.” He also discusses education and what national standards might do to help.
What is clear to us, and fortunately for many but not all on Capitol Hill, is that if the US wants jobs for the future we must invest in our future and that means realizing that investing in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education as one of the nation’s largest economic drivers must become a priority this year. The President believes we need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. Science education is the foundation for that to occur.
Our teachers tell us that in many schools over the past nine years—thanks to NCLB—science education has seen a dramatic reduction in funding and in support from administrators who focus only on mathematics and English language arts (ELA). This was my message during several interviews I did on NAEP, and I also said, many times, that science teachers are trying very hard, but without this support they are not seeing the results they want.
We are hopeful that science will be on a level playing field with ELA and mathematics during the reauthorization of ESEA, and I hope we can carry this message to our representatives in Congress.  If we agree that Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics is important to this country’s future, then let’s act that way and make it a priority. Is this being too political for science educators? What do you think?

There is an old physics joke about a professor who gave a test that included a question that required to the student to explain how to measure the height of a tall building using a barometer. In essence, the punch line is found in a humorous exchange where a divergent thinking student butts heads with a convergent thinking professor.

A recent technological development got me thinking about that joke again. When Galileo’s student Torricelli invented the barometer in 1643 (a year after Galileo’s death), he used an upside-down glass tube filled with mercury. Two hundred and one years later, aneroid barometers, or those without liquid, gained popularity. Now, almost two hundred years after that, there is the “Android” barometer, a digital sensor that is including inside some new smartphones, and Google’s Android operating system is opening access to the data stream from the barometer so software developers can use it. But the question is, “Use it for what?”
Barometers don’t usually make spirited discussion topics, however recently the question has circulated in tech and science circles of what to do with thousands or possibly even millions of mobile barometric data points. Although the initial reason to include a barometric sensor in a smartphone was not to predict the weather, but instead to speed up the phones ability to “know” where it is, as well as to add elevation information to determine the phone’s location beyond a flat map projection.
Now personally, I’ve always wanted a Geiger counter on my cell phone, but that might still be a few years off since presumably consumer-level focus groups don’t rank their need for such a device very high. But what I find interesting about the new barometer sensor is that it will be fun to see how creative software developers exploit it.
Other smartphone sensors have included accelerometers, light sensors (including cameras), gyroscopes, and GPS receivers. Beyond their initial, and often obvious intended use, each of the sensors has provided a fertile playground for application developers leading to a plethora of fascinating games, simulations, data mashing, and communication options.
Consider the lowly digital camera. Since light is the camera’s medium, and barcodes are just a combination of lights and darks, cameras can easily read barcodes as long as the appropriate software is available to decode the sensor’s signal. Now that basic camera is a powerful conduit to an unlimited array of specific pieces of information. And no doubt the pedestrian use of such a technology (the concept for bar codes was conceived in the 1940s and the ubiquitous UPC (universal product code)  was publicly conceptualized in 1966) has barely scratched the surface of this sensor’s potential.
As a mental exercise, it might be a fun “what if” brainstorming discussion or class project where students consider possible uses for smartphone barometric data, and even predict future outcomes from such knowledge.
For me as a teacher, I find these kinds of “wild science” intriguing, because something will happen in the future, and it is exciting to have considered the future much like Jules Verne or H. G. Wells might have. And although we don’t have a time machine, if we just wait a year we can compare our predictions to the future, when it arrives of course.

This is an exceptional collection of resources illustrating the parts of the inquiry process related to collecting, organizing, and displaying data. What’s even more remarkable is that all of the activities here were used with some of our youngest students!
I must admit I was intrigued by the title of No Duck Left Behind. Students and teachers partnered with wildlife biologists to study patterns and trends in the migration of ducks found in local wetlands. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every classroom had a mentor from the “real world” to share their experiences and expertise! You may not have access to similar projects where you live, so I’ll put in a plug for the Citizen Science projects sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, where people from all over North America contribute their observations. These observations are used by scientists, but they can also be queried by the participants. The projects include suggestions for classrooms. The guest editorial Helping Young Learners MakeSense of Data: A 21st-Century Capability refers to collecting data from bird feeders – similar to Cornell Lab’s Project Feederwatch and Birdsleuth.

In the problem-based learning activity Where Does Our Food Come From?, the students (with guidance from the teacher) collected data to investigate their own question. The article includes a rubric that could be adapted for other projects I suspect that older students could learn from this activity, too. (Related SciLinks: Food Chains, Plants as Food)
I’ve done a lot of workshops with teachers on the topic of data analysis, so when I saw the title What’s the Best Way to Represent Data?, my initial thought as I waited for the article to download was—it depends. And that’s the point that Bill Robertson makes in this month’s Science 101 column, by showing how the same data can be graphed appropriately and inappropriately. I’m adding a copy to the resources I share with teachers! Another resource I like to share is Create-a-graph from National Center for Educational Statistics.  But what can be learned from a graph depends on the quality of the data. Measure Lines>describes an inquiry project that incorporates measure lines to help students represent and interpret their data.
Wild About Data has two basic activities to introduce students to graphing, with references to relevant trade books. Recording Data With Young Children has a lesson idea to introduce the concept to our youngest students. From “Bell Work” to Learning is another article on graphing. The author illustrates how she carved out extra learning time each day by switching from busywork to a question-survey-graph-discuss activity each morning. Her suggestions for implementation are very helpful, and this idea could be used as a bell-ringer at any grade level.
Our school bell schedules sometimes reinforce the idea that science happens in neat, 40-minute events. Using an ongoing investigation shows students how some questions need to be studied over a longer period of time. Shadows That Enlighten is an example of an ongoing study (and I like the photo of the groundhog, too) that integrates measurement, seasonal changes, journaling, and graphing. (Related SciLinks: Seasons) NSTA’s Astronomy with a Stick is a set of activities related to studying changes in daylight hours and the position of the sun.
A colleague of mine once said that her ninth-grade students weren’t mature enough for inquiry-based activities. I wish she would read Invasion Scientists, which describes a project in which first-graders studied invasive species of plants near their school in Alaska. The examples of student work show that even these young students can understand concepts related to collecting and graphing data, given the appropriate scaffolding and guidance.  (Related SciLinks: Invasive Species)
Once again, I’m blown away by how creative teachers work with younger students to introduce them to inquiry processes. I hope that the students have the opportunity to expand and refine  their skills!
And check out more Connections for this issue. Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, there are ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, and other resources.