Which branch of science seems to attract lifelong learners? You can make a strong case for the life or physical sciences, but my vote would go to the earth sciences! We spend time stargazing at night, watching the weather channel, learning about geologic features at national and state parks, reading about topics such as climate change and prehistoric events, and wondering when the next earthquake, tsunami, or volcanic eruption will occur.
And yet, for many students, their experiences in elementary and middle school are the capstone of any formal classes in the earth sciences. In high schools, earth science is often an elective (if it’s on the schedule at all). So hats off to all teachers who spark an interest in lifelong learning in this branch of science.
This issue of Science Scope has lots of suggestions for teaching fundamental concepts, taking students out into the natural world, bringing the world (such as the Antarctic) to them via the Internet, simulating a geology conference (an authentic learning experience), and discovering what can be learned from dinosaur fossils.
Check out a selection of related resources on the topic of Investigating Earth Science in the SciLinks database. You’ll find more than 60 websites on a variety of topics to whet your appetite. Or go to the SciLinks site and enter keywords related to what you’re studying: volcano, tectonics, oceanography, galaxy, rock cycle, weather, dinosaur, weather. (Note: if you can’t find a topic in SciLinks, add a comment to this post, and we’ll work on adding the topic and related sites to the database.)
Some sites recently added in the area of earth science were suggested by FREE (Federal Resources for Excellence in Education):

• The Paleontology Portal where students can learn about prehistoric life in the U.S. by state or time period and search fossil images and paleontology collections from several museums.
• DLESE Teaching Boxes help teachers create activities on earth science topics with digital resources, education standards, and lesson plans.
• Enduring Resources for Earth Sciences Education has a collection of maps, documents, and other resources for teaching about the earth and earth’s processes.

Don’t forget to check out NSTA’s other recent publications, even if you teach at different grade levels: the January 2008 issue of The Science Teacher Our Changing Earth, and the September 2008 issue of Science and Children Astronomy.
Beyond our school experiences, most of us rely on informal science institutions such as museums, observatories, and national/state parks to continue learning. Last month, I had the opportunity to visit northern Arizona. Visiting the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, Canyon De Chelly, and the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff was a dream adventure for a science teacher!
In an NSTA listserve, a question was raised as to what were the best places in the U.S. to study geology. Most of the suggestions were National Parks in the western U.S. (similar to my adventure). But one response noted that the best place to study geology is in your own neighborhood!

I’m looking forward to the NSTA Regional Conference in Portland, Oregon, in November,  a cornucopia of a conference so full of interesting presentations that each of my time slots is double (sometimes triple) booked with workshops and fieldtrips. Being over-scheduled assures me that I have an alternative session if one is canceled or looks like it will cover familiar material. Here’s a sample of where I hope to be on Thursday, Friday and Saturday….
Thursday November 20, 12:30–1:30 PM, Family Science Day Session: Starting Them Early: Science Learning in PreK and Early Elementary
Discover innovative resources and best practices designed to lay the foundation for lifelong science learning. Appropriate for educators of pre-K to early elementary school.
Presenters: Anne Gurnee (Southwest Charter School: Portland, OR); Mia Jackson (David Heil & Associates, Inc: Portland, OR)
And then from 2:00-3:00 PM I’ll be presenting a workshop session with Marie Faust Evitt (writer and teacher at Mountain View Parent Nursery School in Mountain View, CA) on
Winter Observations—Birds, Wind, and Melting
Discover hands-on, standards-based preK–2 activities that incorporate observing animal behavior, counting, exploring the nature of materials, and using children’s literature. Work through (and take home) three lessons that include making bird-shape rubbings, playing games with air, and trying to melt chocolate, beeswax, ice, and rock.
Please introduce yourself if you stop by. Mention this blog and I’ll give you extra chocolate!
Friday November 21, 8-9 AM, The Science of Children’s Literature
Browse the many learning centers that WSU preservice teachers have developed using science-themed children’s literature, and try out the hands-on activities.
Presenter: James R. Williamson of Washington State University
Saturday November 22, 11:00 AM-12:00 PM, Fight Bac! Integrating Food Safety into Your Elementary Classroom
Explore the free FDA hands-on curriculum that integrates science and health standards while teaching students about the importance of hand washing and food safety.
Presenters: Laurie A. Hayes (Center for Advanced Research and Technology: Clovis, CA); Susan E. Hartley (Navarro High School: Geronimo, TX)
As an East Coast gal I find it stimulating to visit a different geographic region, much as children’s knowledge about how the land looks expands while on a local fieldtrip. On a 15-minute bus ride across the Potomac River from Virginia to Washington, D. C. I was given an education in how important fieldtrips are, both the travel and the destination. As we crossed the bridge I said to my 5-year-old seatmate, “Look out the window Joseph”, and he said, “Cool! It’s a big swimming pool!” Thinking he would understand that it was a continuous river of water if he saw the water on the other side of the bridge I said, “Look out the other window,” and Joseph said, “There’s two of them!”
Visiting Portland will develop my thinking about how children relate to new landscape and how they incorporate new knowledge into their existing framework—about waterfalls for example. Here in Virginia at the boundary between two physiographic provinces, the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain, a waterfall is significant because it marks the Fall Zone, that boundary where the harder rocks of the Piedmont end and the sediments of the Coastal Plain begin. Few of my students have seen waterfalls. I’ve heard that the Columbia River has many waterfalls where tributaries join it, as a result of the hardness of the volcanic basalt flows, the manner in which the basalt fractures, and erosion by the Columbia River over much time. I wonder if the waterfalls are the fieldtrip destination of students from the City of Portland and what children think when they see them?
Hope to see you in Portland,
Peggy

Little children love to ask questions such as Why? How come? But it seems that in school, it’s the teacher who asks most of the questions. This issue provides some suggestions and examples for helping students to apply their curiosity to science investigations.
Investigating with Charles Darwin describes how a class uses Darwin’s work with worms as the basis for their own investigations. The author mentions the Darwin exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. Even though the exhibit is now closed, the virtual one is still active. For more information on Darwin and his works, use the keyword Darwin in SciLinks. Worms also are the basis for investigations in Worms Out of This World. You can check out other activities and background information by entering worm as a keyword in SciLinks.
There are several articles on models, but not the Styrofoam or craft stick kind. The Benefits of Scientific Modeling shows how to go beyond a diagram or physical representation and use models to explore, predict, and explain. There is a chart that show how even simple diagrams can be used a models. The Many Levels of Inquiry article shows a progression of activities, from demonstrations to independent investigations. Take a look at the September issue of Science Scope for more on inquiry lessons.
Investigation starts with asking questions. Two articles Methods and Strategies: The Crucial Role of the Teacher question stems and The Art (and Science) of Asking Questions deal with questions and wait time. The original research was published in the 1970s (by the late Mary Budd Rowe, who was also an NSTA president). This research noted that when teachers paused (for 3-5 seconds) after asking a higher-order question and before calling on a student, the student’s response was likely to be more detailed and that more students volunteered to answer. Students also achieved higher on measures of complex thinking. It’s a tried and true strategy, and if you need to review the concept, here are three resources:

• Using “Think-Time” and “Wait-Time” Skillfully in the Classroom also describes variations of wait time in terms of teacher and student conversations.
• For a primary source, here is an article by Rowe that revisits the concept and its effects on students (and teachers).
• Wait Time from the University of Akron includes a video clip of what wait time looks like and sounds like in a classroom.

Do you have any suggestions for a brand-new science department chairperson?
—Derek, Chillicothe, Ohio
First of all, congratulations on assuming a leadership role in your school! This is a wonderful opportunity to share your expertise and to learn from others.
One of your more visible tasks will be to facilitate meetings. We teachers complain that there’s no opportunity to collaborate, yet without any leadership these meetings often degenerate into gripe and gossip sessions. Send out an agenda prior to the meeting (and cc: the principal). Use e-mail or an attachment to the agenda to communicate information items so that the meeting time can be spent productively. Have non-negotiable agenda items that reflect your department’s goals (in areas such as curriculum, instructional strategies, grading policies, data analysis, safety, technology applications, parent communications) and stick to the agenda-unless a really great discussion is happening. Set aside a few minutes to recognize new issues or other concerns. Celebrate any successes or accomplishments, too, and some munchies might be appreciated at the end of a long day. Be respectful of time. Give people a few minutes to tidy up their classrooms, but start and end the meeting at the designated times. Send meeting minutes to all members of the department and to the principal to keep him/her in the loop. 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.
Does your role include supervising teachers? Observing your colleagues in the classroom and offering suggestions add a different dimension to the role. If your state requires an administrative certificate to do formal observations, be sure your credentials are in order. Even if you don’t formally supervise teachers, make yourself available to assist and answer questions. Rather than giving advice or mandates, ask questions to start discussions: What happens when…? Have you ever tried…? Did you notice that.…? Get to know the curriculum and state standards for areas of science in addition to your own so that you can ask meaningful questions. And listen to your colleagues. Sometimes they just need to think out loud.
Your responsibilities may also include ordering and organizing textbooks and other instructional materials for your department. But in science, this responsibility also includes laboratory equipment and materials. Maintaining expensive equipment, securing potentially harmful materials, keeping current MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets), and promoting laboratory safety are all part of your domain. NSTA has some great resources on safety and science facilities that should be part of your professional library.
Some department chairs do this as a labor of love, but don’t be afraid to ask about compensation. Many districts have stipends or supplemental contracts for department chairs. Others may give department chairs a reduced teaching load or fewer duties.
Don’t let the job overwhelm you or take excessive time away from your own classes. Work with your department to develop a prioritized list of goals, but don’t try to do everything at once. Keep a log or journal of what you do and the time you spend, and reflect on what you’re learning.
As a new chairperson, you may run into some resistance from teachers who are used to the old ways. That was my biggest challenge. I wanted to please everyone, and I was not being successful. My mentor was a very wise principal who told me that some people aren’t happy unless they’re complaining about something. He helped me to realize that my primary responsibility was to the students.
Perhaps our colleagues would like to share comments about their challenges and successes as department chairs. Good luck!
Some resources you may find helpful:

• MSDS – What’s It All About? — an article from the April 2006 Science Scope
• Go to SciLinks and use the keyword safety for a list of websites related to safety in science classes
• Guide to Planning School Science Facilities, Second Edition is available in both electronic and print versions
• Assessment in Science: Practical Experiences and Education Research has some great tips for supervisors and department chairs.

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!