al-mofhariz

In a post last month for the "Southern Roundtable" blog, Jay Malone (HSS executive director) makes a few noteworthy claims. For instance: historians of science and southern historians share peculiar senses of isolation in most history departments. Or:someone like William Dunbar (a Scot who came to North America in 1772 and became a planter) matters most to the history of science because he welcomed and supported visiting naturalists, like William Bartram or Alexander Wilson. (Also: tell me more about these visits. What they bring to mind most readily are the stops that Darwin made and recounted with Spanish officials on the Beagle voyage.) But the most striking claim came in the title of the post. (And I know, I'm probably just showing my ignorance here.) What does "Southern Science" look like? Please, internet community, tell me more. (And, I know, you had the same question about "American Science." My question is: does a literature on "Southern...

We teach about the contributions of many famous scientists in Virginia.  The third scientist who makes contributions in electricity is Michael Faraday. We used the book from FOSS Science Stories to introduce his contribution of creating the electromagnet. He, like so many of our great scientists, was one who did not have a good experience in school.  This story tells how he struggled the first 13 years of his life, until he consciously made the decision to change.  What did he do?  He studied successful people and decided to act the way they did.  Guess what?  He became successful too! After we read and discuss his life and contributions, we reflect with the  sheet below....                                 Grab your freebie here! Enjoy! 

Yesterday I talked about how we practiced writing up an investigation.  Today I am going to tell you how we did it for "real." I started by telling the children that today's work was something I was going to count for a grade.  I explained to them that we have been working on guided investigations for a while and now was the time for them to create their own investigation.  I posted the rules on the whiteboard: You will need to have 1. a question to test 2.  a prediction 3. a plan 4. some written data 5. a conclusion such as "Today I learned...."        I told the students that they would be working in their science groups on this task.  Each child would be expected to work together, but each notebook would be graded individually.  They are pretty familiar with the Science Notebook Rubric that I have and so they were well aware of my expectations. Before we started I helped them brainstorm some ideas to test with their electro...

Practice... I just finished watching my son play in a championship basketball game for his U9 team at the YMCA.  As I watched, I thought we never could have gotten here without the specific and targeted practices each week.  The coach watched each player and would have them practice what they needed.  Some may practice free throws, some layups, and some defense.  But put it all together, and we won many basketball games.  Not bad for a child who had never played before! Now, why am I telling you this? So often I think we expect kids to perform to high expectations without the practice it takes to get there.  In my classroom we have been working on building electromagnets and we were ready to move to the next step - designing your own investigation.  I wanted them to be able to think of the question, make a prediction, record their data and write a conclusion on their own.  But before we could do this, we needed to practice.  I set up the...

In case you missed it, HSS president Lynn Nyhart used her column in the last newsletter to ask the history of science community of scholars to think expansively about the profession: Here's a thought: we could become "them." Instead of noticing (and complaining about) science writers who take our best material and get it not-quite right, we could sometimes choose–and then learn–to write the way they do. Instead of sighing over science textbooks that compress history into brief sidebars, we could work with their writers to show why history of science deserves not only more space but integration into the overall presentation of science. We could further encourage history of science students to become K–12 teachers, museum professionals, and film-makers, and seek out active means to funnel people headed for these futures into history of science courses. Instead of bemoaning the lack of science-cultural literacy among our politicians and government bureaucrats,...

Thomas Edison is another famous scientist that we teach about in Fourth Grade.  I like him, too...for different reasons than Ben Franklin. For one, did you know he was probably either ADHD or on the Autism Spectrum? He also had a hearing disabililty. He did not speak until age 4 and was not liked by his teachers.  Why?  All he wanted to do was ask questions and take things apart!   He would fit in nicely with today's children.  Luckily, Thomas Edison had good parents who supported him at home.  They helped him get plenty of books to read and he was allowed to take things apart. When I teach about him, I make sure that I mention his less than perfect start.  All kids need to see role models, and he has some great qualities to introduce to our kids. The other thing I like about him is his spirit of invention!  I usually use a picture book to introduce Thomas Edison. However, this year I am using a new source that I love!  De...

A fascinating CFP for a conference on "Color, Commerce, and Consumption in Global Historical Perspective" went up a while back. The due date has passed, so that is old news. But I finally got around to looking over this 2007 Chemical Heritage Foundation piece by the conference's convener --- on the history of DuPont's work with car colors. I expected it to be all about chemical dye production, so I was surprised and fascinated by this: In January 1925 two DuPont managers discussed the company’s need for practical advice on the psychology of colors as a means to anticipate major color fads. DuPont took a chromatic leap in October 1925 when it hired Towle and created the Duco Color Advisory Service to design the latest and most desirable color combinations for the auto industry. Born in Brooklyn, Towle had studied painting at the Pratt Institute and the Art Students League. During World War I he put his art training to good use as a member of the U.S. Army’s celebrat...

How do you teach about Famous Scientists ?   In Virginia we are asked to teach the students about the contributions of Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison and Michael Faraday as it relates to electricity. I will start today with Ben Franklin...he is my favorite afterall! Resources to hook the students: Favorite Video:   Animated History - story of Benjamin Franklin Favorite Books:   I love to connect children's literature to my science lessons.  Now and Ben is all about how the inventions of Ben Franklin have been modernized and are used today. Some of my other favorites include the National Geographic version (full of beautiful illustrations), the Step into Reading one (is really about a math puzzle he created) and Ben and Me is just a sweet novel told from his pet mouse's point of view.                So besides these hooks that I use at other times in my day...what do I do? Our standards require that ...

Who would have thought that my turtle would go into hiberation??? It happened shortly after we got him. He stopped eating and started gaining fat pockets around his legs. He became inactive and I got worried....So, I took him to Pet Smart and spoke with the reptile specialist who had helped me purchase him. Sure enough...he had gone into hibernation! Why? Well it is cold in my classroom! Our county decided to regulate our temperatures in the classroom at a cooler temperature. They turn the heat off on the weekends, too! My students are always chilly and I guess it was too cold for Squirtle. Some observations we have made....he doesn't completely sleep. He does move around a tiny bit, but not much. He likes to stay in the water more often now. More updates will follow... By the way, Pets in the Classroom have put my blog post on thier website.  Super excited - go and see it!  http://www.petsintheclassroom.org/2012/02/pets-in-the-classroom-grant-process-from-a-teachers...

When I was in graduate school at Lesley University (online program in science education rocks!) we spent a lot of time focussing on questioning.  These are some of my favorite question prompts that came from an article that we read within Wynne Harlen's book.  By the way, if you haven't read this book - I highly recommend it!  I use these questions in all areas of my classroom.  They fit into math, reading, and social studies.  Just yesterday we had a great discussion about the revolutionary war based on a painting and questioning was the key to it all.  Questioning Strategies from “ The Right Question at the Right Time” by Jos Elstgeest   in Primary Science: Taking the Plunge by Wynne Harlen 1.   Attention Focusing questions:             'What is it?' 'What does it do?' 'What does it show about itself?'           'What happens?' 'What do I find inside ...

There are things known, and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception . . .  Our sensory organs are what  connect us to our environment, allowing for our survival, relationships, and experiences. But how is all this sensory data  — light, shadow, the motion of molecules — interpreted? Do your eyes ever deceive you? Is your mind playing tricks? Neuroscientist David Carmel of NYU’s Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science uses brain imaging and behavioral experiments to explore how the brain constructs our perception of the world and how those perceptions can be manipulated. He also addresses the latest scientific research on consciousness , which attempts to answer the question, “How does brain activity make humans self-aware?” Before & After --Groove to wet-wired tunes --Stick around for the sensational   Q&A --Try our synapse-stimulating cocktail of the night, the Gray Matter This brain-boggling edition of th...

This past weekend saw an interesting anniversary: the double birthday of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, who were born across the Atlantic from one another on 12 February 1809. When I thought about how to mark it here on the blog, my mind turned where it so often does: to pragmatism. Why? These two figures (in the form of their involvement with evolutionary theory and the Civil War) buttress what is now perhaps the most famous account of pragmatism and its origins: Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club , which won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2002. It's a captivating quadruple-biography and a compelling synthesis of lively philosophical ideas, in which Menand frames the development of "classical pragmatism" in the Cambridge of the 1870s as stemming from the joint impact of Darwin's theory of natural selection and various figures' relationship to the Civil War. Certain reviewers questioned the strength of this Civil War connection, since only Menand...

FOSS Magnetism and Electricity Kit We have had a blast finding insulators and conductors, lighting light bulbs and powering motors through circuits, and lately learning the difference between parallel and series circuits.  Take peak into my classroom to see the many kinesthetic and visual components provided by FOSS...  We have made electromagnets using the wonderful circuit board provided by FOSS.  Our challenge was to see how many washers we could pick up with the electromagnet.  We found that the more winds we used the more strength it had.  We also found out that if we used two batteries, we were able to pick up even more!          This is part of a PowerPoint I made to help focus our thinking and show some examples to create the best electromagnet.  I also supplemented the power point with a video of electromagnets that I found on United Streaming.  This visual element helped them understand the process...

Margaret Humphreys will give a talk on the history of Civil War medicine on Feb. 29 at 6pm at the New York Academy of Medicine (details below). My favorite part of her talk description is this: In the northern hospitals men shot rats as a target practice game; in the south they roasted them for lunch. Important aspects of the best care were nutritious food, medicines such as chloroform, quinine, and opium, and sufficient staff to ensure cleanliness and care of the weakened or wounded body. Humphreys posits that the differences in medical care might have played a role in the war's outcome. I just love any framing that makes Civil War hospitals look good. Of course, I love to point to the Civil War as a good moment for American statistics too: draft and volunteer medical examinations created a data-set that was unprecedented at its time for its inclusion of so many normal or average Americans. Plus the Civil War made political space for the creation of the Land Grant Colleges, and th...

As midyear assessments roll around, we have been talking a lot about math and reading.  Are we making growth? Yes!  Will they all pass the state assessment?  Hmmmm....In Virginia we are up to needed 90% of our students to pass the state assessments in math and reading in order to make AYP.  My school just had our annual review of our School Improvement Team and we realized that we need more time for intervention groups.  Should we take time away from social studies and science to ensure that they are ready to pass the tests??? This is a BIG QUESTION on a lot of teacher's minds.  No one wants to do this...but let's face it, many are. I want to share some knowledge that I have about why it is important NOT to take away science education.  Research at the Lawrence Hall of Science has shown an increase in reading scores for students using effective science programs - such as FOSS, Seeds of Science, or STC.  But my own research shows the same re...