Teaching Science 2.0

<Cross Posted at Edutopia>

Connecting your students with scientists and engineers is one way to enage them in science. It also provides sudents with mentors and positive role models. National Lab Day is a national inititive and classroom “matchmaker” launched last year to help facilitate these connections. A National Lab Day project can serve as a cornerstone to project-based learning in your classroom.

As you start the new school year, I hope the following interview with Samantha Israel, National Lab Day Coordinator, inspires you and your students to engage in an authentic science project. I would also like to extend a special thanks to NLD’s Lew Esses, Abraham Faham, and Miro Sutton for their assistance with this interview.

EB: Why NLD (and what is it)?

SI: America is falling behind in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education. NLD aims to reverse this downward trend and inspire students in order to increase general science-based literacy, as well as to stay competitive in the global market.

National Lab Day is more than just a day; it is a nationwide initiative to build local communities of support that will foster ongoing collaborations among volunteers, students, and educators. NLD does this primarily through our online platform (www.nationallabday.org) that connects teachers with STEM professionals, community volunteers, and a variety of other resources - all there to support and help teachers strengthen their STEM programs.

National Lab Day is not just about “labs” as we normally think of them – cookie cutter labs are a major part of the decline in STEM interest. NLD promotes a hands-on learning approach to STEM learning. It is about kids building robots and bridges and learning physics and engineering in those projects; kids testing the water in their schools and the local streams and learning chemistry and biology in the process. Real life application to STEM subjects is essential in stimulating interest.

We encourage teachers to consider hands-on learning projects for their classrooms, and to use our site to connect these projects with local professionals who would like work with them to see the projects come to fruition.

National Lab Day, the day itself, is a capstone day to celebrate the yearlong efforts and collaborations between students, teachers, STEM professionals and community volunteers - all supporting and pursuing fun hands-on learning. National Lab Day was celebrated this year on May 12th, 2010 (for pictures and video from the first annual NLD please see www.nationallabday.org). We will continue to celebrate NLD each year in May.

EB: How does NLD work?

SI: NLD is the ultimate educational matchmaker - think of it as the e-Harmony of STEM education. Teachers can post projects on our website (www.nationallabday.org) that they think would benefit from the help of a STEM professional or community volunteer. Our site will then automatically provide suggestions of local professionals or volunteers who have created accounts on NLD and may be able to help. Teachers can then message suggested “matches” in order to follow up and make an arrangement to work together. Likewise, our system also presents STEM professionals and community volunteers with suggestions for projects they may be able to help with. They too can then message teachers responsible for projects they are interested in, and offer to assist.

Aside from using the automatically generated match suggestions that our system provides, teachers can manually search for their own matches by keyword, state, and location in the “community” tab at nationallabday.org/scientists. STEM professionals can also browse and search all projects in the “projects” tab at nationallabday.org/projects/live.

NLD also features an organization portal to further help teachers and projects. Organizations can post resources, host events, and adopt projects (to help galvanize activity and strengthen results). These organizations are provided with a customizable “MyNLD” page (including a unique co-branded URL) that allows them to showcase all of the work their organization has done to strengthen STEM learning. For a great example of an organization MyNLD page please visit http://my.nationallabday.org/OSLN.

Lastly, teachers can also request financial support for their projects on NLD. This is enabled by our partnership with Donors Choose (www.donorschoose.org).

EB: What is the difference between the “NLD event” in May and what happens during the rest of the year?

SI: As mentioned above, the National Lab Day “Event” simply celebrates all of the work that is ongoing throughout the year, and it also encourages future involvement in our initiative. However, at any time during the year a teacher can post and complete a project through our website.

EB: NLD has been in place for 7-8 months now, what would you say are some of your biggest successes?

SI: In the few months since President Obama launched NLD, thousands of teachers have joined the NLD community and have posted over 1,800 projects. More than 3,500 STEM-based professionals and volunteers have joined the NLD community to date. These individuals are ready to support teachers as well as students in their communities. For example, in the Fort Bend Independent School District 70,000+ students participated in National Lab Day. There are over 200 professional organizations, companies, and foundations that have joined the NLD effort, with a combined membership of over 6 million.

To view some of the press we have received please visit: www.nationallabday.org/press.

EB: What do you hope to see during the 2010-2011 school year?

SI: In the upcoming year, National Lab Day will build on our current success. We want to see the same activity we witnessed last year, but on a larger scale. Our goal is for NLD to continue to expand and become an everyday learning resource. We will also be working on a series of improvements internally on our website to make it an increasingly useful tool for our users.

EB: One of Edutopia’s “core concepts” is to promote project-based learning opportunities. How do you see NLD supporting this approach to teaching?

SI: Project based learning is the heart of the NLD program. In the U.S., STEM education is very textbook-centric. This is problematic in that it can lead to significant disconnect between STEM subjects and real world application. Teachers often want to teach these subjects more dynamically, but many lack the tools or experience to do so.

There are numerous STEM professionals out there who are ready and willing to help spread their knowledge and expertise - all that is needed is a network. The core of the NLD program focuses on bringing together professionals that want to help teachers and serve as a resource that can strengthen their various STEM programs.

In April 2009, President Obama made a nationwide request to STEM professionals: “I want to persuade you to spend time in the classroom, talking and showing young people what it is that your work can mean, and what it means to you … [to] encourage young people to be makers of things, not just consumers of things.” NLD’s primary goal is to meet the president’s challenge.

EB: I heard that there was a goal of forging 10,000 scientist - teacher partnerships last year. Can you give a few examples of what some of these partnerships looked like?

SI: For every completed project on the NLD site, at least one scientist-teacher partnership was created. Each scientist-teacher partnership formed through NLD looked different, simply because the NLD program is designed to match the unique and specific needs of teachers and their classrooms. For example, some of the partnerships were in the form of weekly phone calls to provide advice on science fair projects, while others were class visits to help teachers and students learn how to adapt solar energy in their classrooms.

Here is an expanded example of one particular partnership:

From the “Adopt a Class” project, the teacher writes:

“I posted my sophomore physics Alternative Energy Project on National Lab Day in the fall. I was contacted by a mechanical engineer, Mr. G., who lives in the area. He contributed to our project in several ways. He began by giving a presentation to our students about engineering as a career, which was great exposure for those interested in pursuing engineering. His presentation was extremely engaging for the students, and emphasized many different applications of engineering from bridges to energy efficiency to music video production. He left quite a few very helpful alternative energy books and engineering magazines in our library for the duration of the project which students used in their research. He met with student teams to check in about their research and help to identify areas to work on. He also collaborated with the students in an ongoing way on our class blog. Alternative energy is an area I’m just beginning to learn more about, so it was very helpful for all of us to have Mr. G. as a resource. The students presented their research all this week in class, and Mr. G attended all their presentations, gave feedback, and asked questions about their work. He then gave a presentation of his own for the class about energy efficiency and left us with resources we can use to make our school more energy efficient.”

EB: Many current scientists and engineers cite the Apollo program as their inspiration for pursuing STEM careers. What do you think will be the inspiration for the next generation?

SI: Inspiration is what is missing in the science classroom today. Our hope is that the STEM professionals who have been lucky enough to develop a passion for their subject area will become increasingly driven to share this enthusiasm with the next generation. Therefore we seek to encourage scientists and other STEM professionals everywhere to become the inspiration for future generations.

EB: How can one get involved in NLD?

SI: Getting involved is easy. Simply go to www.nationallabday.org and click “Join now!” you will be led through a quick sign-up process and have the option to choose your role (teacher, STEM professional, volunteer . . .).

Once an account has been created, users have full access to the site. Teachers are encouraged to post as my projects as they would like, and to use the NLD site to connect with local professionals and community volunteers. The site can also be used to find financial support. STEM professionals and volunteers are encouraged to browse current projects and find teachers looking for help. We encourage our users to actively use our platform, and take advantage of this powerful resource.

As a final note, throughout this interview I have differentiated between STEM professionals and community volunteers. The reason for this is that we encourage community members who do not necessarily feel confident referring to themselves as STEM professionals, but still have an interest in supporting STEM learning, to play a role in our initiative. Community volunteers can provide an extra set of hands on a fieldtrip, or help judge a science fair, and much more.

The bottom line: NLD encourages collaboration and excitement towards STEM learning – regardless of your role. If you want to help revive STEM subjects for future generations, join the movement!

On July 12th, the National Academies of Science released a draft of the Framework for New Science Education Standards. The framework consists of seven chapters and almost 200 pages.  It clearly identifies three “dimensions” of science education that must be woven together into standards, instruction and assessment: 1) Disciplinary core ideas in life science, earth and space sciences, physical sciences, and engineering; 2) Cross Cutting Elements including cross-cutting scientific concepts and topics in science, engineering, technology, and society; and 3) scientific and engineering practices.

Learning progressions are central to the framework.  Learning progressions provide a coherent description of how core ideas in science and engineering build throughout K-12.

The framework embraces the mantra, less is more, and states, “Reduction of the sheer sum of details to be mastered give time for students to engage in scientific investigations and argumentation and to achieve depth of understanding of the material that is included.”

For more details on the development of the framework, click here.

I have provided a summary of the framework in three parts.  The first part explores the premises and guiding principles of the framework document.  The second part explores an example learning progression and the core disciplinary ideas presented in “Dimension 1.”  The final part explores dimensions 2 and 3 and includes an example of a performance expectation for one sub-question of a core idea.

Please add your thoughts to these VoiceThreads!

Part One: Foundations (Make it Big!)

Part Two: Dimension 1 - Disciplinary Core Ideas (Make it Big!)

Part Three: Dimensions 2&3 - Cross-Cutting Elements & Science and Engineering Practices. (Make it Big!)

NOTE: The National Academies of Science has a survey here -available July 14- to submit official feedback

[cross posted at Edutopia.com]

What story do these images tell?  What questions could your students generate about these images?  Could these questions pave the way for independent (or small group) research projects?

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Edutopia’s PBL Bootcamp starts on Monday, and I thought that I would provide some resources to get you thinking…

MESSING ABOUT

Good projects revolve around important questions. However, good questions are not always easy to generate…especially in a vacuum. How many times have students drawn a blank when confronted with the “freedom” to study anything they want for a school project? Often, it is helpful to have students “mess about” with information before you ask them to brainstorm questions.

(Yes, I know that middle school students have their own definition for messing about.)

Many of the resources below can provide a great starting point for short and long term projects.

Infographics

The old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” has a lot of merit.  A good picture can often tell a story, provoke emotions, or generate questions.  The use of images and visual representations is critically important in science. Visual representations can also quickly convey very complicated information.  We are constantly bombarded by inforgraphics that describe scientific information.  How often do we ask our students to analyze or create an infographic?

What could our students do with these complicated infographic?

• http://www.fastcompany.com/1657758/infographic-of-the-day-the-gulf-oil-spill-isnt-the-biggest-but-itll-be-the-costliest-by-far
• http://www.infographicworld.com/system/photos/10/medium/DeepwaterRig_pf_full.jpg
• http://www.infographicworld.com/static/i/DeepwaterRig_full.jpg
• http://www.vizworld.com/2010/05/infographic-biggest-oil-spills/

Other Oil Spill Resources

How Big is the Oil Spill?
The current estimate is 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day (1 barrel = 42 gallons).

• http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/05/how-much-oil-has-spilled-in-the-gulf-of-mexico.html
• http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/05/newshour-oil-widget-2-including-spillcam.html

Other Oil Spill news:

Where will the Oil go?  [exploring ocean currents]

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/16/cuba-braces-bp-oil-spill
• http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/06/oil-spill-in-atlantic-by-october/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

Oil Spill Mapping

• http://www.paulrademacher.com/oilspill/

Long-term impact (includes ecosystem / food web)

• http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/gulf-tipping/

Oil Spill News (Methane)

• http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill

Here are the slides for the presentation that Elizabeth Alderton and I will be giving at the 2010 WiscNet Future Technology Conference on May 10, 2010.  The presentation focuses on three research projects.  The first two projects are involve incorporating online discussions into traditional face to face courses - a high school biology course and an undergraduate elementary science methods course.  The third research project explores how classroom teachers are using Twitter for professional learning.

Science makes the assumption that the natural world can be understood by using evidence from the natural world.  Scientists create explanations for natural phenomena by interpreting evidence.  The stronger the supporting evidence, the better the explanation!

According to the U.S. National Research Council, the following five features are at the core of teaching through science inquiry:

1. Learners are engaged by scientifically oriented questions.
2. Learners give priority to evidence, which allows them to develop and evaluate explanations that address scientifically oriented questions.
3. Learners formulate explanations from evidence to address scientifically oriented questions.
4. Learners evaluate their explanations in light of alternative explanations, particularly those reflecting scientific understanding.
5. Learners communicate and justify their proposed explanations.

At the core of this, is the creation of evidence-based explanations. These explanations should go beyond a simple conclusion that reports data. Students need to be given frequent opportunities to create evidence-based explanations and evaluate explanations to determine if they are supported by evidence.

The following mini case study is an example of how you can focus students on creating evidence-based explanations.  The case study is Inspired by the Student Self-Test for Chapter 1 of Oxford Big Ideas Science  (ISBN 978 0 19 556715 1, Oxford University Press Australia).

Explanations, Evidence, and Cane Toads

An average cane toad can grow to the size of a softball. Adults have poison glands located behind their eyes and tadpoles are highly poisonous to most animals. Females will lay thousands of eggs. Cane toads have a huge appetite and, unlike most toads, will eat both living and dead matter. Cane toads can recognize their food by smell, but most often identifies prey through motion.  Cane toads’ main diets consists of insects, but they also eat small rodents, amphibians, reptiles, small birds, plants, dog food, and household trash.

The cane toad gets its name because it was commonly used to eliminate pests in sugar cane fields.  Although it is originally from Central America and northern parts of South America, the toad was used in the 1800’s and early 1900’s throughout the Carribean and Australia as a way to control beetles and other pests ravaging farmers’ fields.  Since the skin of adult toads are poisonous to many predators in these areas, they are now considered invasive species.

A Sydney University professor and his student, studying captive cane toads, noticed that they exhibited cannibalistic tendencies.  They observed adults wiggling their toes when around young toads. When the young toads hopped towards them, the adults would eat the youth!  Based on these observations, the scientists developed a laboratory investigation. Adult and young toads were separated by clear glass so they could not eat each other (ethical investigation). They observed that the young toads only approached adult toads that wiggled the middle toe on their hind feet.

Task: There is a lot of information (data) in these three paragraphs.  Scientists go beyond simply reporting observations by creating evidence-based explanations for what they are seeing.

1. Summarize the important data from the text.
2. Write an explanation that explains they scientists’ observations.  Make sure you support your explanation with evidence from your data in #1.  Go beyond a simple reporting!

The Edublogger has a great list of example classroom blogs.  Here are a few to get you started.  See the whole list here.

• Marvelous Math with Mrs. Rose - Math Specialist for elementary schools in our district in Connecticut, USA
• 6th Grade Science and Social Studies - 6th grade science and social studies, Texas USA
• Maths Space - Early Years students during maths centres time as an independent work stationd
• Mr. Borges and the Blog Squad - Gr. 7/8 Special Ed. Class (math and English), ON Canada
• Mr. Jorgensen’s Blog - Grade 8 (ages 13/14) Primarily a science blog but also used for a class of language arts
• Ms. Martino’s Algebra Class Blog - Grade 8, NV USA
• JRO Physics - Physics Classes Year 7-12 UK?
• Mr. Macs Class - Arkansas, USA
• Reflections from our classroom - Biology/Science, Grade 9/10, USA

Tinkering as a Mode of Knowledge Production in a Digital Age: John Seely Brown from carnegie commons on Vimeo.

http://commons.carnegiefoundation.org/views/?p=3

From Crappy Graphs:

Effective instruction should introduce new science concepts using an “activity before content” approach.  After actively exploring ideas, reading comprehension strategies can be used to help students connect these ideas to scientific concepts. The January 2009 issue of NSTA’s Science Scope magazine has a great article about using reading comprehension strategies to promote science learning.  Wardrip and Tobey describe how to use a variety of strategies to help students understand mechanical weathering of rocks.  Here are brief descriptions of a few of the strategies that they used.

Pre-reading: Before reading, students should identify (activate) their prior knowledge.  The teacher should also use discussion to preview the reading so that students know the purpose of the text and what they are expected to learn from the text.

Annotation: The authors state that reading with questions in mind, especially their own question, gives a sense of purpose for reading.  This can be facilitated in textbook style readings by identifying section headings.  Students change the heading into a question (Using who, what, where, when, why, or how as question starters). Next, students underline details from the text that help them answer the questions.  Ideally, students should then record the question and their answer in their notes. Students can also circle new words (vocabulary) and construct definitions in the margins or their notes.

EXAMPLE
Header: Mechanical weathering produces physical changes in rocks.
Question: How does weathering change rocks?

T-charts / double entry journals: A T-chart is a type of graphic organizer.  In this article, the teachers had students create a T-chart that included the causes of mechanical weathering (ie: ice wedging, pressure release, plant root growth, abrasion), a description of each type of weathering, and a drawing to illustrate each type.

Summaries: After reading, it is important for students to summarize the text in their own words.  If you use the questioning technique described above, students can write a summary paragraph(s) as answers to their questions.  Alternatively, students can write a summary based on teacher supplied questions or write a “minute paper” on the topic.  In addition to helping students synthesize the information from the text, this summary can be used as an assessment of student understanding.

Here are two additional strategies that I like-

Two Words, Two Sentences: This strategy requires that either the teacher or student sections the text into “chunks” of a paragraph or two.  After reading, the student creates a two word title and writes a two sentence summary for each chunk.

3-2-1: This is a flexible strategy that can easily be used with chunks of text.  In general, students identify 3 things they learned, 2 things they found particularly interesting, and 1 question they have after reading the text.  The 3-2-1 strategy can be modified based on the purpose of reading the text.  For example, if students are reading to learn about plant and animal cells, you could ask students to identify 3 similarities between plant and animal cells, 2 differences, and 1 question that they have.

Additional Resources:

• Reading Strategies: Scaffolding Students Interactions with Text
• The Clarifying Routine: Elaborating Vocabulary Instruction

Exposing students to high quality non-fiction is critical to fostering a love of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The journal, Science Books & Films, reviews print and non-print materials in science for all age groups.  Additionally, each year they award SB&F prize for Excellence in Science Books.  This prize is given in four categories (Children’s Picture Books, Middle Grades Science Book, Young Adult Science Book, and Hands-On Science Book) that are very useful for K-12 educators.

Last spring, I worked with Tim Gerber (UWL Department of Biology) to expose K-8 preservice teachers to many of these books through a Mock SB&F Prize project.  During this project, preservice teachers read and evaluated each book in a category (either Children’s Picture Book or Middle Grades Science Book).  Small groups of preservice teachers then came to consensus on the book that they felt was the best.  This same model can be used to engage middle school students in reading high-quality “STEM” non-fiction while improving reading comprehension skills..  Modifications to the evaluation rubric could also allow this model to be used with elementary students.  An overview of the Mock SB&F Prize model was published in the September / October 2008 issue of Science Books & Films.

“Discourse in science, mathematics, and technology calls for the ability to communicate ideas and share information with fidelity and clarity and to read and listen with understanding.” This quote taken from Science For All Americans (p. 192), which contains a series of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education recommendations produced by Project 2061 (http://www.project2061.org/publications/sfaa/online/sfaatoc.htm), succinctly identifies the importance of communication in the STEM disciplines. The development of these communication skills should begin early in the elementary years and progress throughout life. To assist students in developing these skills, K-12 teachers should be able to effectively evaluate quality STEM trade books and educational materials. This article describes the development of a Mock Science Books and Films (SB&F) Election project as a mechanism for improving elementary / middle level pre-service teacher’s abilities to evaluate STEM non-fiction.

• Read the entire article
• Get rubrics and details for the Mock SB&F Prize project.
• See previous winners and finalists for the SB&F Prize.