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ss      Last year, my colleague Joe and I developed this amazing beginning of the year science observation lesson.  It was so much fun and the kids loved it!  What's not to love when you get to see a giant explosion? We also teach the children how to observe, how to record in their new science journal, variable /constants and how to plan their very first experiment for the year!      This year we will start off again...with a blast!  I am offering this unit for FREE for 5 days.  Then I will be charging $5 per purchase.  If you are at all curious...I suggest you download it now!  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Kicking-Off-the-Year-with-a-Mentos-Investigation Feedback is very much appreciated... Gotta Run!

Are Republicans at war—on science? The relationship between the GOP and the scientific community is in the news, and certain aspects of the coverage will be of interest to those working on the history of science in America. Rick Perry (on the "Stump") Rick Perry's recent entry into the race has raised a number of questions about his party's (and the American people's) relationship to science. Over the past few weeks, Perry has revealed—nay, reveled in—skepticism about both evolution and climate change. Responding to a question from a New Hampshire child about whether or not he believed in evolution, Perry told the boy that evolution is "a theory that’s out there" that's "got some gaps in it," and that "In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution." On climate change, Perry went even further. Asked, the previous day, to defend a claim (from his book Fed Up! ) that climate science is "all one contrived phony mess"

     I just sat through an excellent overview of Junior Great Books - a reading curriculum that uses the shared inquiry approach.   I absolutely loved it because it follows my philosophy towards teaching.  In other words, it teaches kids how to think!  Inquiry is all about asking questions and finding answers/solutions in many different ways.  Finally - a reading resource that works like my math/science resources.  One of the components is to find your evidence from the story to back up your thinking.  Wow - that's simply claims and evidence.        In the FOSS Notebook folio  (page 27) the authors write a little about this idea: "A claim is an assertion about how the natural world works.  A student might claim that metals stick to magnets.  For the claim to be accurate, it must be supported by evidence - statements that are directly correlated with data.Evidence can refer to specific observations, relationships that are displayed in graphs, table of data, dates and measur

     Just a quick post to let you know that we are safe and sound here in Virginia.  Hurricane Irene was much tamer than we thought - never lost power even!  I am curious to see how our home on the river fared...I think my dock is probably gone.       Any way...big news in blog land!  I was fortunate to get hooked up with a new blog spot called " The Lesson Cloud".   This is a site where bloggers like me can post freebies, blogs ideas, reflections...whatever.  It is great place to find new blogs and simple ideas. Come visit it today!      Also, I have added an easier link to get to my Beach Artifacts FREE item on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Just click on this link to take you there right away... http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Beach-Artifacts-Science-Spot Gotta run! Last day of vacation...back to work tomorrow!

     The other day I posted the beginning version of my science spot and vocabulary charts.  Since I have been reading Writing in Science in Action by Betsy Fulwiler I have really been thinking about how to make science vocabulary more visible.   She suggested having a pocket chart with the science content words as well as the science process words.  This allows you to pick out the card when the student is using it or needs to use it in discussions as a visual reminder.  I really love that idea! I can imagine myself picking out the word variable when the children discuss what they changed...and holding it up for all to see. What a great strategy!       I also love the idea of using sentence starter or frames to help students scaffold their writing.  For example, since I start out the year with observations...I will post these sentence frames on the green chart. I observed... I noticed.... I think this because.... I will also quickly introduce frames such as these: For example... T

     I actually found something positive and interesting in the newspaper today!  There was a report about how the zookeepers at the National Zoo in Washington DC recorded animal reactions prior to, during and after the earthquake we felt on Tuesday.  Hmmmm...sounds like a science notebook to me! I have always had an affinity for zoologists starting as a small girl curled up on my couch watching the many programs on TV staring Jane Goodall and her ground breaking research spent observing chimpanzees.       Do you know how she recorded information? Much like these modern scientists/zookeepers did - anecdotal records... No formal scientific method lock step cookbook recipe.  No, she took notes on what the animals were doing and made conclusions later.     So what did the zookeepers notice on Tuesday?  The flamingos grouped together in a herd, the gorilla grabbed her baby and went to a high tree, the komodo dragon sought shelter, the lemurs called out a warning cry 15 minutes prior to

    I am excited to say that my first item is up for FREE at the Teacher Pay Teacher website.  It will only be FREE for a short time, so make sure you down load it now!          http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Beach-Artifacts-Science-Spot Also...here are some pictures to accompany the Science Spot...  You will notice I have a tray with several artifacts, tools (ruler, measuring tape and hand held magnifying glass) as well as two spots for index cards.  One holds the new index cards and one will hold the finished ones...not labeled yet.   There are the two posters I have in the Free File as well as some words to describe how to make your diagram - accurate, big, colorful and detailed.       Next, on the cabinets above the science spot I have two pocket charts.  They will house science vocabulary and sentence frames to get students thinking.  I bought these last summer at the $1 spot at Target and use clothespins to hold them up.  The clothespins have double sided 3M tape that

    Well today was supposed to be a last ditch effort to work in my room before official workdays begin next week.  It wasn't very productive...but it was interesting!  As I was eating lunch with my son, my buddy Stephanie and several teacher kids we heard a loud booming and the ground shook.  Now, we live near the Marine Base of Quantico where we often feel shaking from bombing or helicopters...but this was something WAY different.  I knew it was an earthquake right away.  Stephanie grabbed the kids and her chickfila sandwich and herded us out to the hallway.  The quake lasted about 2 minutes.  We were all sort of in shock and then the girls started crying.  Luckily it was over very fast...and we gathered with the others outside.        We soon found out it was a 5.9 leveled Earthquake - epicenter about 45 minutes from our house.  I have lived here all my life and NEVER felt one before...it was something I won't soon forget!  I have to say that I was glad no one got hurt, and

     So....one of my favorite tools that I learned from FOSS is the Line of Learning.   This is another strategy that can cross curricular units and be used in math, social studies and even reading.  The idea behind this strategy is to let students add to their notebooks AFTER discussions, readings, investigations, etc...  It is often used after brainstorming sessions, KWL chars, characteristics of objects or sharing observations.  How does this work?   After students have written their personal ideas in their notebooks for the day, they will draw a line of learning.  It is simply that...a line! ________________________________ Then you will have a discussion time - either whole class, partner or group time.  During this time you will share what you learned, add content piece to a class chart or vocabulary words in a word bank.  The line of learning gives students time to add what they have learned from listening to peers, teachers or readings.     Students who struggle with memory o

Child Looking at Brontosaurus , American Museum of Natural History, 1937. HANK's posts ( here and here ) on research methods have got me thinking about the craft aspect of what we do. But I'd like to take the discussion in a slightly different direction and ask what happens if we stop assuming that we historians ought to be primarily in the business or writing texts. In my research, I think a lot about the different effects that various media have on us as consumers of culture. For example, I have found that fully articulated, free-standing displays of mounted dinosaurs in the late 19th and early 20th century are best thought of as mixed media installations. In addition to fossilized bones, lots of other materials were required to mount a dinosaur, including shellac, gum acacia, paint, plater of Paris, and iron or steel. Moreover, mounted dinosaurs were almost always paired with other ways of representing prehistory, including three dimensional models and paintings of these

        I just got back from a wonderful trip to the Northern Neck of Virginia where I was able to read, rest and relax as well as watch my two crazy boys jump off the dock and kayak for hours!  Peek into my paradise....     While I was there I was able to view a lot of wildlife that lives near the Chesapeake Bay...Eagles, Ospreys, crabs, fish, stingrays, and our first river otter.  Today on a boat ride we watched a family of 9 ducks swim in front of us...I just love getting back to nature!       I also spent some time reading a new and wonderful book called "Writing in Science...In Action" by Betsy Rupp Fulwiler .  It was just released on Amazon this week and is published through Heinemann.  Man...is it good!  Not only does the book have a ton of good strategies, but it comes with a DVD that shows exemplary science teachers in action.  I truly recommend that anyone who loves the idea of writing in science RUN to your computer and order it.  No, I am not getting any kickback

After last week's post on the tools of the trade, I got a lot of feedback (mostly offline). I think Lukas is right that there's probably enough helpful material in our collective experience to justify a few more posts on methods. Most feedback centered on Scrivener , the "content-generation tool" I've switched over to for my first chapter. Some readers had already been using it and chimed in with their favorite features, others picked it up for the first time and are now using it for dissertations. The web is full of Scrivener reviews – a "Blogs" search on Google yields a dozen in the last couple days. Most reviewers that I've seen are (aspiring) novelists, concerned with character profiles and writer's block. As historians, we share those issues and have a few of our own. What I thought I'd do in this post is just post a few screen-shots of my own set-up in Scrivener, and use those to suggest a few of the ways it's been most helpful to

     I know so many of us are at that point where we are counting down the minutes to the time school begins.  We have been shopping, thinking, and working in our rooms to make the classroom the most engaging and welcoming space imaginable.  Some things to consider when setting up you year in relation to science instruction: Do you have a space dedicated to housing ongoing science projects?  I call my place - The Science Spot!   Right now I have a title, a tray housing several shells and beach items, a magnifying glass and a small basket holding index cards.  This is the sign that is there lists the routines and procedures in very clear, detailed steps.   The students love it...it is part of our morning routine and the projects stay up all year.  Sometimes they are my ideas, but usually as the year goes on...they become inquiry stations set up by the children. Mine is housed on the counter by my sink for two reasons.  One (obvious reason) is for easy clean up.  The second is because it

     I love a good way to peek into the minds of my students.  One way to do this is with a " Quick Write".  I got these pointers from FOSS and would like to share them with you.         Quick Writes are usually short and to the point...designed to get to the heart of the topic at hand.  I like to use them as a preassessment to show what the students have for background knowledge on a new topic and to reveal misconceptions that they bring with them in the classroom.  This is crucial so that you can catch them early and work to correct these misunderstandings as you teach (not at the end of the unit!)      When designing a quick write, you need to start with a topic in mind .  Think of a main concept, big idea or standard that you will be addressing and develop a prompt or question for the students to write a response to.  Jot down 3 or 4 concepts that you feel are common for your students to have as background knowledge ahead of time.  This will help you assess the prompt t

Another great strategy from Seeds of Science today....  This one is on how to teach our students to take notes based on observation.  There seems to be a lot of misinformation out there about whether or not we should be using the scientific method.  The truth is... real scientists use a variety of methods to record information.  One way is to make detailed notes simply by observing.  This is what Jane Goodall did in her famous research of chimpanzees...she observed using her five senses and she took detailed notes....  So how does this transfer into our classroom?   Choose an object from nature such as a rock, a shell, a piece of wood, a pine cone as well as a non-fiction text with good photographs, captions and information.  Explain that " observing means paying attention carefully and using all your senses to focus on details ." (from the Seeds strategy guide - full link in my documents page).   The Students should follow these few steps. 1.  Focus your attention on what y

I was struck by Hank's conclusion a few posts back: To put it another way: instead of answering history-of-science questions with American-history answers, we're increasingly answering American-history questions with history-of-science answers. For those of us at the boundary–especially those on a market with more jobs in one than the other–this is a promising path. Those ideas were floating in the back of my head while I was re-reading Alain Desrosieres' _The Politics of Large Numbers_ . In his first chapter, Desrosieres does for France what Hank talks about us doing for the United States. An earlier generation of social historians, he explained, had been frustrated in their attempts to construct statistical models from the data left in departmental prefects' statistical memoirs, instituted and published in post-revolutionary France up to 1830. Desrosieres' gloss: "Historians long considered them to be heteroclitic, incomplete documents, unserviceable as

Rob Martienssen studies the strange genetics and sex lives of plants—and his garden-variety discoveries have rocked the scientific world. Until recently plant breeders used trial-and-error methods to create newer, more beautiful, and more useful hybrids. Now Dr. Martienssen and his colleagues at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory are unlocking the molecular mechanisms at the heart of plant evolution . They hope to use their new knowledge to unravel the stories behind some of the world’s most successful breeds and to create the future’s most awesome new cultivars. Dr. Martienssen asks: --Can we breed better biofuels ? Could duckweed —a plant growing in NYC’s ponds and parklands— be supercharged to become an efficient source of energy? --What’s the story behind King Corn? How exactly was maize —the most widely grown crop in the U.S.—created in Ancient Mesoamerica from a native grass that looks almost nothing like corn? --What does biotechnology have to do with food security and climate

    Today I spent the day with teachers from my county doing a training using the FOSS Magnetism and Electricity Kit for Fourth Grade.   I always love spending the day with educators as they become engaged, curious and meaning seeking students once again.  We laughed, we played and we learned something!  We made new friends, we asked questions and we wondered...isn't that what a quality learning experience should look like  in our own classrooms?     So that made me think...what gets you re-energized when it comes to education?  Is it a new curriculum, a new tool, a new book or is it simply the kids and the people you work with?        For me...it's all of those things.  I love to laugh....and my team mates and I laugh all the time.  We play pranks on each other, share stories and jokes...we genuinely like each other.  Without that support...teaching can be draining!   I also love a new book - I doubt I will ever switch over to Kindle or Nook because I simply love the feel of

Inspired by the recent trend of adding the phrase “and zombies” to great works of literature, I want to use this post as an experiment in pedagogy. For a while now I’ve been thinking about the potential examine changes in 20 th century ideas about political economy, technical knowledge, and the body through the concept of the zombie. I imagine an undergraduate course in science and popular culture that draws upon shifting depictions of the undead in American life. We would think about how the figure of the zombie has been mobilized to express anxieties about technoscience and describe the loss of personhood in our late capitalist -- increasingly interconnected -- society. Here is an initial take on the trajectory of the course with a few choice selections. I’m interested to see what people think and if we can flesh this out (pun intended) together. I.  Theorizing the Zombie Let's start with some theory: - Marx & Engels, “The Communist Manifesto” - Sarah Lauro and