Wow — students doing real research! This adds a different dimension to the “labs” that students do. There is certainly a time and place for replication or follow-the-directions activities (for example, to learn how to use various equipment or to practice skills such as observation and data collection). But the research projects described in this month’s issue of The Science Teacher have students designing and conducting their own research on a variety of topics.
The research projects described in this issue were not individual projects for a science fair. These were in-school activities that involved a whole class or teams of students in authentic investigations. What impressed me the most about the projects was the fact that the teachers didn’t simply tell the students to “do some research.” The teachers modeled their own curiosity and thinking about research, they asked questions, and they guided the students through the process.
My high school students used to do a “research paper” in their English classes, but this was basically a collection of information on a particular topic from books, articles, and websites. Scientific research is not a just a collection of facts. It involves processes such as observation, questioning, hypothesizing, measurement, data collection, and analysis. Depending on their prior experiences in elementary and middle schools, the students may need a lot of modeling and guidance at first. But judging from the students in these articles, it’s worth it.
If your students are new to the concept of inquiry and research, I’d suggest looking at the Natural Inquirer site. The articles are written by scientists who conduct various types of research. These aren’t just summaries or digests — the articles describe the methodology and discuss the results, just like an article in a professional science journal. The difference is that these are written in student-friendly language and include resources for the classroom. The articles are downloadable as PDFs, and you don’t need a login. Even though the articles are designed for middle schoolers, they can be appropriate for high school students who have not had a lot of inquiry or research experiences.
You can use SciLinks for background information on virtually any topic. For example in this issue, there are two highlighted topics: TST100801 for Plant Adaptations and TST100802 for Ocean Research.
Many agencies and organizations have made their data available on the Internet. But for students doing research, it’s hard to know where to start. NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has made a wealth of data available for investigations in a project called Data in the Classroom. There are several modules (El Nino, Sea Level, and Water Quality) that guide teachers and students through what they call “levels of scaled interaction.” Each module has five levels of lessons ranging from teacher-presented ones through letting students explore the data to full-blown problem solving and invention. Each module shows the associated data in a variety of formats and guides the students through how to interpret it. There are “checkup” questions throughout, and teachers can download the materials.
A helpful resource from North Carolina State University is LabWrite, which is designed to help students write about their research. Although it’s written for college students, it could be helpful for high school students, too.

In the fall we may begin to see more spiders in our houses and schools. Why is that? Are they moving indoors as the weather cools? The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture dispels this myth with some spider facts. Interesting how children are drawn to the models of spiders on the light table but scream when they encounter a live spider.
As a way to begin a classroom study of, or lesson on, spiders—and other small animals such as beetles—I read a book aloud. Each Living Thing, written by Joanne Ryder and illustrated by Ashley Wolff, (Harcourt, 2000) has page after page of encouragement to look for animals in our landscape, to “be aware of them”, and to “take care of them”. This just sends chills down my back as I think about our interconnected lives, and it is an opening for discussing how to handle the small animals that visit our classroom.
(The book also introduces children to our place as members of the animal kingdom as I point to drawings of the child and ask, “What animal is this?” Many children say “That’s not an animal,” but by the end of the book they can tell me, “It’s a human animal, a person!”)
I don’t apologize for quickly killing roaches or crickets if they try to take over my house. But if we capture animals it is our responsibility to make sure we meet their needs. This month the children looked in a resource book for information on what the beetles eat, talked about letting the spiders go in a few days so they can hunt their own food, and practiced holding the beetles, slugs and roly-polies in open palms (not pinching fingers) so they don’t get broken and die. After each “visit” we all wash our hands as a precaution.
Even casual observation over time will lead to a body of knowledge about the animals. Here’s what the children had to say:

Roly-polies make a ball.
Roly-polies have legs but slugs don’t.
Slugs are sticky.
It closed up!
Beetles have more legs than I do. (Counting may not be accurate until around four years old and even then it’s not easy to count legs on a wiggling beetle!)
Beetle babies do not look like the adults.
Beetle babies look like worms but they have legs.

Children are invited to hold all of them, but I never insist. They are more likely to record their observations by drawing or dictating some words if an interested adult offers the materials. Their drawings reveal the range of development in children who are close in age reminding us that we need to observe our students closely to meet their needs.
Peggy

I’ve been asked to chair a committee to look into using science “kits” for our elementary classes. We’re interested in this, but where do we start?
—Mariana, Manchester, New Hampshire
Science kits are published by many companies and individuals and address a variety of topics. They can be helpful for teachers who do not have a lot of background experience in science topics – either in the content itself or in designing and implementing inquiry-based activities. They can also be expensive. You’ll want to ask several questions:

• What do you hope to accomplish by using the kits? Is your school/district trying to get inquiry into elementary classes, to provide a complete set of materials and resources for studying a topic, or to ensure that all students have common experiences? Kits can provide these, but if you already are implementing a strong, inquiry-based curriculum, the kits may not be necessary.
• How do the kit topics align with your state standards and local curriculum? Using kits should be an integral part of your science program, not an add-on. Many also are designed to be appropriate at specific grade levels (e.g., K-2, 3-5, 6-8).
• What are the credentials of the publisher and the history of the publisher in developing and supporting the kits?
• What research does the publisher have to show the effectiveness of their particular kits?
• Do the kits provide background information and opportunities and resources for the inquiry process? The activities should promote processes such as observing, questioning, hypothesizing, predicting, investigating (including planning, conducting, measuring, gathering data, controlling variables, interpreting, and drawing conclusions), and communicating. Evaluate them carefully; some kits are just a collection of materials for demonstrations and/or replication activities.
• How will you implement the kits? I recommend providing the professional development offered by the publisher, even if it adds to the cost of the kits.
• Will it stifle creativity? I asked a colleague (one of the best elementary science teachers I know) about the kits in his school. He appreciates them for the way they guide teachers through the processes and provide the materials. He noted the ones they used were not tightly scripted so teachers had room to incorporate their own experiences and go beyond the basics if they felt comfortable doing so.
• Will you be able to cover the same amount of material? My colleague noted that the kits take time to implement fully, and therefore teachers may not “cover” as many topics as they did without them. However, he noted the kits provided opportunities for students to develop skills in the processes of science (a focus of many state standards as well as the National Science Education Standards). So you may wind up “covering” more about these processes.

There are some practical considerations, too. Where will the boxes be stored? Will the same kits be used by more than one class during the year? If so, what rotating schedule will you have? Who will be responsible for ensuring that all materials are in place for the next class? How will you budget for replacing consumables? Some kits sell replacement materials, but this can be expensive. Some teachers get funds from the school/district and have fun scouting local discount stores for the materials.
This can be a great opportunity to get inquiry science into your classrooms. Just remember that although inquiry-based science often involves hands-on activities, not all hands-on activities are inquiry-based. Good luck in your efforts and keep us posted!

It was Monday morning and a sharp corner on a large immovable object (left by another group sharing the space used by the preschool…sound familiar?) unexpectedly turned into a chance to assess the understanding of symbols by one three-year-old.
“Ricky” had stepped past the orange cones which surrounded the sharp-cornered plywood platform. I explained that the platform was not ours, the corners were sharp—something to stay away from—and that the orange cones were a symbol for “stop”, that they meant we were not to go past them. “Oh, there should be a sign,” he said, and in a minute he was back with the plastic STOP sign from the bike area.
He recognized that the cone represented another symbol he was familiar with, a STOP sign, and the command to stop. I wonder at what age he will be able to understand that a globe represents the a planet, Earth, and that the Moon is a sphere?

It’s interesting in this issue to see how teachers can incorporate inquiry learning into topics such as Bernoulli’s Principle, bridge design, photosynthesis, a beach clean-up program, rocks, paper airplanes, maple seeds, and ponds. The authors show how you don’t need elaborate materials to create learning experiences for students that go beyond cookbook demonstrations and focus on real inquiry and problem solving. The articles describe these investigations and also have advice for teachers who want to include more inquiry in their classes. The articles have lots of real-life classroom examples, and the author share their resources, rubrics, and diagrams.
I followed up on some of the suggested websites:

• Recognizing Inquiry compares three hands-on teaching techniques: guided activity, challenge activity, and an open exploration activity. The the comparison has activities that are on the same topic and use the same materials, but the student outcomes are different, based on which technique is used. This is a chapter from the book Inquiry: 
Thoughts, Views, and Strategies for the K-5 Classroom, published by the National Science Foundation.
• The Institute for Inquiry from the Exploratorium has ideas for professional development in inquiry and formative assessments. But you can click on Our Philosophy for a description of inquiry, a downloadable book Pathways to Learning, and Inquiry Structure, a graphic organizer that shows a process of inquiry.
• Doing Science: The Process of Scientific Inquiry is a set of lessons from the National Institute of Health. These lessons guide students (and teachers) through an inquiry process.
• A continuum from the National Research Council shows essential features of inquiry and how to vary activities to guide students through the process. Where do your classroom activities “fit”?

Efforts to promote inquiry in science have been around for a long time (I remember the discussion in my methods courses eons ago, and it’s always at hot topic at NSTA conferences). So why are we still talking about it? What is keeping us from using more inquiry in K-12 science classes? The Science Scope article Engendering Inquiry discusses some of the perceived barriers to implementing inquiry instruction. Are there others? What do you think?

As a preschool teacher I try to be aware of how my work might introduce or reinforce misconceptions in my students’ understanding of concepts. In the Perspectives column in the September issue of Science and Children, Michele H. Lee and Deborah L. Hanuscin write about common misconceptions about astronomy, A (Mis)Understanding of Astronomical Proportions? (pg 60-61).
They report on studies that have found that elementary school age children

• often have difficulty interpreting two-dimensional diagrams which represent three-dimensional space
• may become confused by ambiguous terms, such as “round earth” which they may think means disk shaped rather than spherical
• when explaining astronomical phenomena—students who were allowed to manipulate concrete objects produced markedly different student responses from children relying on words alone.

So I will use the word “round” to refer to wheels and plates, and “spherical” to refer to balls and oranges, make 3-D models with playdough instead of drawing diagrams, and provide materials for manipulation when children are asked to tell what they know. It sounds like fun!
Blowing bubbles is an activity where using the word “spherical” comes naturally. The bubble wand opening is a circle and the bubble is a sphere. Children can point to a ball or a flat round disk to show what shape they see when they blow a bubble.
Peggy