NGSS and teaching science

Wow...five years between posts! In that time, 'A Framework for K-12 Science Education' was commissioned and published. I was very excited to read the draft in 2011, see the revisions in 2012 and the book finally being published by National Academies Press. One of the most significant milestones was the recognition that a coherent elementary science progression was essential to progress in overall science education. Just this moth, NSTA adopted an early childhood science education statement. This is what I've been hoping for since first writing this blog. Coupled with this commonsense realization was the recognition of the need for design ad engineering to integrated in all aspects of K-12 science education. My excitement knew no bounds until the excellent 'Framework' book was set to the NGSS folks for 'unpacking' into curricular gobbledygook. As a consultant, I'm spending time repacking and restating the excellent work done by the original study group. NGSS notoriously downplays the D/E piece of the puzzle and overplays the upcoming 'Smarter Balance' testing regime. In the 31 years I have been teaching science,l I've found my colleagues to be very proactive in what they do because they believe in what they do. We know when kids miss the boat, and if the administration leaves us alone, we fix what is broken! I'm refraining from drinking the NGSS cool aid for the time being, reserving my right to teach in the best manner possible. I will rejoice, though, if students with a stronger foundation begin to percolate up with some sense of why science is important!

Hands On Science

What does 'hands on' mean?

The drive for more 'hands on' activities in science has been a largely misunderstood cliché for decades.
The notion may come from the old saying 'idle hands, idle minds', but really isn't reflective of
the processes of much of science. Is there a 'hands on' cosmology, DNA strand or bacteria? Much of what we know is from models of what we can't see or encompass and from extrapolations based on inferential experiments. At the least, very elaborate instruments are needed to enhance our senses so we can observe the micro and macro scale. So, what is the bridge between the obscure realities of hard science and the most basic introductions to understanding the world that we face in elementary science? My sense, after many years experimenting on students, is that a person needs a real solid grounding in the skills of sensing, observing, and measuring at the most basic level so that one can make the leap to the inferential and abstract world of science models. I would prefer to refer to my lessons as 'directed multi-sensory engagements' (a bit cumbersome) rather than 'hands on' . I've always tried to engage my students with projects, challenges, and unusual experiences. Some of them may have accidentally qualified as 'hands on'. On reflection, the best experiences have been the closest to
a real world situation, condition or scenario. Challenging students in this way provides a lasting
framework for thinking which persists for a long time. Sensory stimulation of this sort involves all of the senses, skills involving design and fabrication, and artistic rendering. Reducing all this to 'hands on'
is akin to teaching math by only using worksheets. How about 'senses on'?

Returning to full time work has kept me from writing until a bit of forced convalescence provided some time!

There are stirrings of real change in the way that science education will proceed in the
next few years. There is a recognition that STEM (science-technology-engineering-math) is crucial to recovering our leadership in the world economy and to solving critical environmental challenges. Restoring funding to primary research will provide an incentive for our students to be on STEM tracks in high school and college. Funding ‘green’ initiatives will provide an economic pull which will hopefully get curricular juices flowing at all levels.

With all this excitement, I’m hoping the K-5 realm will be remembered in the deliberations of where to expend resources. Science is a natural complement to the native exploratory bent of elementary students. Piggybacking literacy, writing, and math on this native interest only helps streamline the complicated curricular challenge of the teacher. Did I mention the natural rhythms of sound, or the skills of drawing and design? There is huge potential in STEM as a focus for what we do with early learners.

In order to achieve some of this potential, K-5 teachers deserve the same intense support that NCLB has engendered. A regional model for supporting teachers is the Maine Math and Science Alliance which as its name implies, provides a wide range of workshops and leadership support to teachers and administrators. The past director of MMSA, Dr. Francis Ebersole, is now the Exec. Director of the NSTA, and another MMSA leader is President of NSTA this year! Bringing experienced STEM educators into the planning, inservicing, and modeling of good teaching practice requires resources
and support from administrative leadership at district, state, and national levels. There is a huge talent pool capable of providing the support K-5 teachers need.

Science can no longer be considered a vestigial appendix - I hope losing mine will be a harbinger of STEM curricula
becoming part of the core of elementary education!

Maine Math and Science Alliance http://www.mmsa.org/index.php

At the national level, the NSTA has begun a campaign to promote ‘Leadership, Learning, and Advocacy’ http://www.nsta.org/involved/cse/learningcenter.aspx

The World is Flat

Thomas Friedman’s book about the convergence of technologies changing the nature of
the world has been revised three times since it was published early in 2005. The ‘flattening’ Friedman refers to is the leveling of the economic ‘playing field’ between the developed west and the growing powers of rapidly developing economies like India and China. ‘Flattening’ is characterized by faster communication worldwide, the development of alternative ways of sourcing and producing goods and services, and the shifting of expertise to a mobile and highly educated cadre of knowledge workers from the second world. During the past eight years, most of the effort in education has been focused on
the tool of literacy as if it were the reason that the United States was falling behind
economically and technically. Friedman points out that the lead the United States had in producing engineers during the post Sputnik years has evaporated and that we are actually not keeping up with the demand for highly trained STEM workers. The average age of practicing engineers in the US is over 50, while India is turning out tens of thousands of highly qualified engineers every year. No Child Left Behind has sucked the air out of any efforts to prioritize science in elementary schools, even though this is a critical period for students becoming excited about career paths. I recommend every STEM educator read The World is Flat (ed 3) and try to get the information in this book disseminated to administrators and colleagues ASAP.

Friedman, Thomas. The World is Flat. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005-7. ISBN 978-0-312-42507-4

Teaching Climate Change

Now that the IPCC has cleared much of the smog from the climate change stage, moving it from debate to issue status, its time for US schools to begin the process of integrating weather and climate change into our curricula. The developmental window for this is upper elementary school, when students are beginning to become interested and aware of the greater world. California has already begun the process of developing materials for elementary teachers, and the UK has one of the best sites for teachers and kids on the topic of climate change (http://www.climatechoices.org.uk/index.htm). The teachable moment for this effort is as early as possible, allowing for later challenges and enhancements in middle and high school curricula. The goal of climate education is not to strike fear in the hearts of our students, but to give them knowledge and tools for understanding the tasks which lie ahead for them as citizens of the world. Learning about climate requires observation, data collection, math analysis, graphical interpretation, and geography to name a few related topics. These are not static skills, but tools which can be used in teaching and learning science throughout the K-12 experience. I call upon the educational leaders in our public and independent institutions to incorporate climate change and weather studies in their science curriculum frameworks.

Full Circle

At the NSTA conference I had the opportunity to hear Barbara Morgan speak about her
flight on STS 118 last summer. She was still full of enthusiasm and awe of the experience
which brought some closure to the tragedy of the Challenger so long ago. One of the things which struck me about her experience was her persistence in achieving her goal of getting to space. Another is how fresh and exciting it was to her after such a long process. The potential for spaceflight to engage our students is still there, and clearly it has some amazing ‘engagement’ potential – it kept Barbara going for 22 years! I encourage teachers to promote what astronomers and space travelers do, especially because it combines so many areas, from engineering design to ecology. Having such a multi-disciplinary magnet is a great advantage to upper elementary and middle school teachers looking for ways to do science while hitting other areas like writing and math. Watch the International Space Station go over your house – check out http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/index.html for the best viewing times. Share the excitement with your students!

Kits are not the best answer...

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” Abraham Maslow

I was interested to observe a vigorous discussion of kits on the NSTA list serve which left me with the impression that using kits was inevitable for many school districts, despite the cost and difficulty of using the kits as they were designed. I see the issue of kits as one which demands that they are tailored to a district’s curriculum, are maintained and stored in a central area, and come with proper inservice time before they go out to teachers. Having custom kits for your curriculum presupposes that a comprehensive and integrated curriculum development process has been undertaken in the recent past. When was the last time that happened in your district or state? I’m concerned that many of the pre-teaching components and vocabulary for science are non-existent in a kit based culture of teaching elementary science. Developing a rich language and culture of science can't wait until the kit comes on the scene. I do give FOSS credit for having a coherent internal curricular flow in their kits, but they are only meant to supplement a comprehensive and pervasive science curriculum. What is the answer? Ideally, science specialists should be as prevalent as art and PE teachers to provide continuity, expertise, and depth to a comprehensive program. Relying on kit based science is akin to solving all of our medical problems with handy pharmaceuticals rather than getting in shape and improving our diet. Why get caught up in the fine points of kit based education when a cadre of science specialists could do the job with expertise, passion, and creative use of real science tools?

Teaching elementary science in Belize

Belize is the size of New Hampshire but is its opposite in many ways. First, its culture is a mix of Maya, Garifuna, Creole, mestizo, middle eastern, Chinese and latin people. While english is usually understood, most people are tri-lingual. The population is less than 300,000, most centered in a few large towns on the coast. Its warm, with a hot, dusty dry season in winter and a humid wet season which parallels the arrival of hurricanes. Many people are quite poor, eking out a subsistence living in a village or working as a laborer in agriculture or shrimp farming. Schools are in every area, combining a small tuition with meagre government subsidies to provide a thin but pervasive educational program. I was in Stann Creek district with the UNH-Belize Teacher Program. New Hampshire teachers are afforded a look at life in the tropics and the challenges of teaching with minimal supplies or central support. In return, they model their own skills to a few Belizean teachers. My second trip with the program had me asking lots of questions about the administration of curriculum in the schools and looking at science in particular. First, with 37+ students in many classrooms, the task is daunting for teachers. Many teachers are young and started to teach the fall after finishing high school. Supplies for teaching elementary science are non-existent and overcoming ESL challenges takes up much of a teacher's time. One of the most obvious problems is the rote pedagogy of mandated science curriculum. In most of the observations I made, the biggest problem was presenting material which children were developmentally unprepared to comprehend. Because of the large differences in between village and town resources, some village children are at a disadvantage in terms of exposure to the world at large. The result is that comprehension of science content is very low and the ability to engage in inquiry style thinking is not modeled. My travels to other Central and South American countries indicates a similar pattern in terms of resource allocation and poor pairing with developmental readiness. For Belize, the science gap is particularly acute, since the country's economy relies heavily on its eco-tourism resources in the cayes and reefs of the coast and the highland jungles of the Maya mountains. In many developing countries, Belize included, resource decisions are made by a few wealthy and educated families with little regard for the overall well being of the majority of citizens. With so much at stake environmentally, science education will be a test of education policy and priority.

Observation: Tool of Science

"You can observe a lot just by watching." Yogi Berra

Elementary age children are just gaining a scaffold for understanding the world. They have a temporary ability to see the world through fairly clear glasses and without the encumbrances of learned biases and tastes. Try remembering the first surprising detail you noticed as a child - its not easy! Our brains are so needy for data that the first observations are snapped up into our personal observational framework almost instantly. This capacity of our students forces a large responsibility on those of who teach to be very careful about what bias we transfer to our charges. A teacher who models good observational skills and an enthusiasm for direct (also called 'hand on') learning will reap the benefits of seeing their students build their observational toolkit very quickly. The opposite will be true for the teacher who dreads science as a hopelessly complex and dead topic. I believe observation skills have amazing transferability to teaching expressive writing since the vocabulary of observation needs to be rich to be effective. Many observational tools have direct transferability to social studies and art curricula as well. The subset of observation which asks for measurement and data analysis is of course complementary to the math curriculum. A few things to try with students: Do a nature walk in the woods where two students travel in teams, one with hands on the shoulders of another. The lead student looks down, and the follower only looks up. After a few minutes of careful walking, the journals come out and the partners share what they have seen. Another good technique is to limit the field of view with a toilet paper tube. By reducing the stimuli coming in, a student can focus on the detail of a few things.

What is that floating in your soup?

Rhino sketch: Albrecht Durer was a German engraver and nature observer .....