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 .....

Curiosity, Sir Edmund, Mr. Wizard and Kids

Why did Ed Hillary climb Mt. Everest? Sir John Hunt, who organized the successful 1953 expedition, said “it was the possibility of entering the unknown… to solve a problem which has long resisted the skill and persistence of others”. They were, in a word, curious. The death of Sir Edmund at age 88 reminded me of why I owned Sir John Hunt’s 1954 book: Everest and its conquest stimulated my curiosity and later my own interest in outdoor activities and the natural world. Now, as a teacher who is passionate about science, I am reminded of the power of one person to stimulate curiosity, a career, or even a theory. Another curious person was Don Hebert, aka Mr. Wizard, who enthralled families in the early days of television with his inquiry based, kid friendly demonstrations and demystifications of the physical and natural world. Like me, Dr. Frank Wilczek, MIT physicist, watched hundreds of Mr. Wizards. His thanks to the great stimulators of curiosity can be found on page 8 of the January, 2008 ‘Physics Today’. Curiosity may have killed a few cats, but think of all the lucky ones who got a meal!

Finding An Education President

New Year's resolution: decide on a presidential candidate who will make education a priority, particularly STEM education.

The end of 2007 brought a terrible holiday present to the science community in the United States. Almost all research venues were handed budgets which will reduce the ability to fund primary research across the board. Living in a college town and working with many graduate students as a volunteer has made me aware of the tenuous nature of life as a professional student. Years of low pay and long hours devoted to a very small slice of the science question may lead to a poorly paid job in a grant funded project. This treatment of our STEM elite is not a good model to present to children who will inherit the responsibilities and challenges of the competitive future. My choice for president will have the following as fundamental tenets:

1. Eliminate NCLB and its 'lower the bar' mentality. Replace it with targeted support for failing schools and increased support for magnet schools in science and the arts.
2. Make research in the sciences a national priority. Innovation is our greatest asset!
3. Provide incentives for our best and brightest to become and remain teachers.
4. Reduce the burden of higher education for the middle class. Provide incentives for students selecting STEM majors.
5. Include elementary educators in efforts to integrate STEM topics into the curriculum. If the soil is not prepared, the seeds will not grow!
6. Connect an emphasis on education to solutions for Global Climate change and promoting sustainable practices.

I recommend reading Bill Richardson's white paper 'Making America's Schools Work'. If you agree with anything I've said so far, you will find many points I agree with.

One resolution done!