Posts Tagged writing

STEM Tuesday– Mixing Science and Poetry/Verse — Special NSTA Conference Edition

By on April 16, 2019   /   Common Core & NGSS, Cross-Curricular, Poetry/Verse, STEM Tuesday  

Yes. It’s April–National Poetry Month. Yes. It’s STEM Tuesday, and our theme this month is STEM in verse. Yes, our book list for the month includes books with poetry in them that are devoted to STEM themes.

But April is also the time when the National Science Teachers Association holds its annual conference, and the usual STEM Tuesday post in line for this week is all about connecting STEM books to the classroom. This year NSTA did something bold and exciting that is begging for recognition on this particular post, so that’s what this week is all about.

With J. Carrie Launius coordinating, NSTA invited a slew of nonfiction authors who write on STEM themes to participate in a 5-hour Linking Literacy event over two days–including 5 panel discussions, an opportunity for science educators and authors to mingle, and a book signing. Wow! As you can imagine, it was an opportunity to revel in creativity, caring, and collegiality. After a kick-off panel discussion featuring Steve Light, Melissa Stewart, Jennifer Swanson, Tracy Nelson Maurer, Shanda McCloskey and presiders Jacqueline Barber and E. Wendy Saul, four break-out panels delved into various themes.

There was a lot happening, often simultaneously. As I was a panelist and mixing-and-mingling author, I’m quite sure I missed a bunch, but still, I hope to share some of the take-aways from the conversations that took place informally and in some of the panels. I’ve tried to stick to the topics that most directly connect to bringing STEM books into the classroom.

STEM-themed biographies and scientist stories are for everyone. Laurie Wallmark, biographer of women in STEM, reminded us that while it is great to share books about women, people of color, or other underrepresented groups in STEM with girls or kids of color only, it’s even better—and vitally important—that we share these stories with all children (and adults). It’s also key to break out of biographies and include stories for middle grade readers of scientists doing science. Need some examples? How about Patricia Newman’s Eavesdropping on Elephants or Mary Kay Carson’s The Tornado Scientist?

Cross-disciplinary content is a natural part of many STEM books, especially those that feature topics that lure children in. Cheryl Bardoe, who writes picture bookCheryl Bardoe speaking with mic in hand biographies, pointed out that individual STEM thinkers are specific to their place, time, and social contexts. Meanwhile, books about technology, including, for example, my Running on Sunshine or Jennifer Swanson’s Super Gear, root conceptual information in strong, motivating contexts. (It was wonderful to chat with teachers who appreciate the connections between their curriculum about “the sun” and solar energy technologies. This is just the type of connection-making that the NGSS emphasizes.)

 

The rich visual imagery in STEM books can help readers connect to content and spark their interest and imagination. Of course, this is true of the illustrations in picture books, such as Steve Light’s Swap! But there’s more to look for. Keep your eyes peeled for  primary source materials in picture books, such as photographs related to a remarkable discovery in Darcy Pattison’s Pollen. Keep in mind–as Jen Swanson pointed out–there’s also powerful imagery in books for middle grade readers.

 

It’s important to consider the whole range of roles that various STEM books can play in education.

E. Wendy Saul and Jacqueline Barber’s thoughtful questions and insightful reflections helped us consider some of these roles. Some books are great at fostering curiosity before a classroom unit on a given topic, while others are perfect resources to bring in after children have had a chance to try to make sense of their first-hand experiences and are looking for factual resources. STEM reading can inspire children to see themselves as competent STEM learners and future STEM professionals. Putting the right book in the  hands of a particular child may be a pivotal moment in that child’s life, honoring and responding to  his or her curiosity, interest, or moment of need.

 

Books and experience go hand-in-hand.

Educators check out simulated canine vision with Jodi Wheeler-Toppen (center). They hold blue viewmasters to their eyes and peer at slides that are mounted on wheels and inserted into the viewmaster.

Educators check out simulated canine vision with Jodi Wheeler-Toppen (center).

Weaving my way through the tables during Linking Literacy’s informal time, I was struck by the many ways we authors link our books to opportunities for readers to experience the world. Of course, we generally provide teachers’ guides, but we also offer dynamic activities and interesting artifacts. I saw evidence of the added value of visiting with an author. For example, I showed visitors how I simulate stars orbiting mystery objects and how that relates to finding black holes. In addition, to extend the content of Dog Science Unleashed, Jodi Wheeler-Toppen provides customized Viewmasters that offer comparisons of human and canine vision. Meanwhile, Heather Montgomery shows off a fox pelt (among other artifacts) that she prepared as part of her research for Something Rotten. Truly, STEM authors can bring their own brand of multi-dimensional learning experiences and inspiration to the NGSS’s emphasis on 3D learning.

 

The STEM stories we share are a powerful aspect of creating a culture that honors STEM literacy. Do you have a story to share—some way in which you have used a STEM book in a middle grade classroom or out-of school setting? Let us know; leave a comment below. And keep your eyes open for NSTA ’20 (in Boston). Hopefully, Linking Literacy will be a recurring and integral component of future conferences!

Six of the STEM Tuesday crew at NSTA19!

 

 

 

 

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STEM Tuesday– Celebrating Women’s History Month– In the Classroom

By on March 12, 2019   /   Cross-Curricular, STEM Tuesday, Women's History Month  

 

This STEM Tuesday, Jodi and Carolyn are teaming up and tackling it all–well, almost! Literacy, science practices and a cross-cutting concept, technology tie-ins, and gender and general equity in STEM. It goes to show you what a couple of great books can do to stimulate learning–our own and, we hope, your students! So let’s get going…

 

Literacy Connection: Writing Prompts!

It’s March, which means that it is Women’s History Month. In schools, March is also the time when teachers of all subjects are especially pressured to give writing assignments that will help prepare students for upcoming writing assessments. You can “celebrate”  both with Women in Science: 50 fearless pioneers who changed the world, by Rachel Ignotofsky.

 

This book contains an excellent collection of 1-page descriptions of female scientists’ lives and careers. Let’s look at how you can use them to quickly pull together writing prompts.

 

Rachel Ignotofsky’s opening pages (p. 6-7) provide an excellent introduction for the prompt:
Next, pivot to the actual prompt:

Finally, add in your question. Here are some suggestions you might consider, based on your area of science:

That’s all there is to it! Strong texts on an important subject, and writing practice for all.

 

STEM Connections: Patterns and Practices

The Girl Who Drew ButteSupport Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgrflies offers wonder-full opportunities to connect kids to NGSS disciplinary core ideas (e.g., heredity). But its value goes beyond DCIs. Together with carefully paired experiences, this inspirational book promises to stimulate learning in the areas of science practices and the cross-cutting concept of patterns.  It also suggests strong connections to technology and engineering, art, and fostering gender (and general) equity in STEM. Doesn’t that paint a powerful picture? (Just like Maria Merian!)

Bring Up “Baby” (Eggs, Instars, etc.) for Pattern Recognition

Of course, the focal points of Merian’s scientific studies–body forms and regular, predictable repetition of life cycles of insects, and these animals’ relationships to specific plants– offer key examples of patterns.

An obvious—and engaging–learning link: Nurture butterflies from eggs (or instars, AKA caterpillars)! Choose painted lady butterflies or monarchs.

Better yet…

Make a Menagerie of Metamorphosis!

Raise multiple species! For example, rear painted ladies, monarchs, and add in “brassica butterfly” eggs , various moths, and the  mealworms (which are neither butterflies nor moths).

 

Add Power and Punch with Plants

Echo Merian’s emphasis on ecological relationships by providing plants that your particular classroom specimens rely on.  For example, raise the “brassica butterfly” on the quick-growing Wisconsin FastPlants® variety of brassica, which allows students to examine a complete plant life cycle. Free lesson and activity guides  are available.  (The plants won high marks with teachers in one of my recent curriculum-based professional development programs.)

 

Outward Bound

For more info on tagging butterflies, visit Monarch Watch.

Are you fiscally and philosophically motivated to follow Maria Merian’s lead and head outdoors for your specimen? Missouri Botanical Garden offers user-friendly suggestions.

Exploring Patterns with Your Classroom Zoo (and a Garden, Too)

Observing the live specimens can foster awareness and understanding of patterns. Explicitly use the term while prompting students to reflect on their daily observations and data.

Exploring Patterns: Questions to Ask

 
  • For each individual species, what is the body pattern (the way the parts look and relate to each other, the basic template or form)? What differences, or variations, do we notice across individuals of the same species?
  • Investigate each species’ development, or life cycle, pattern: How many days do individuals spend in each phase of development? Is there a wide variation or a narrow range of time from one phase to another? (Can we tell without banding or marking individuals)?
  • Over each species’ life stages, what predictable relationships between the animal’s behavior and its stage do you see? Do these patterns make sense? What questions do they raise?
  • Across species: Compare and contrast the life cycle stages in different species. Are there any general patterns of development across species? What variations across different species do we see?
  • How do the animals’ and plants’ life cycles resemble and differ from each other?
  • What are the relationships between the species and the plants they rely on? Are their cycles synced in any way you can see?

Science Practices Make Perfect Connections!

You can foster development and understanding of science practices while interweaving The Girl Who Drew Butterflies and classroom studies of animals (and their plant hosts).

Practice 1: Asking Questions (for science)

While reading about Merian’s habit of hoarding insects for study, ask students to list the questions they think she had in mind; post them. (Although understanding the curiosity that drove her may be straightforward, articulating questions might be challenging.) Ask students which they think are most interesting.

Take students on a walkabout in a suitable outdoor space. Look for butterflies, moths, and other insects at various stages. (Remember to check out water insects if you can!) Begin preparations by encourage students to look with the eyes and questioning mind of Maria:

 

  • What questions do students have that relate to her curiosity? Which of these do students think they can investigate simply by going outside and carefully observing?
  • Plan to bring notebooks/sketch pads, trowels, rakes, nets, magnifying lenses, and small containers (such as salad dressing cups or baby food jars) to help unearth, collect for observation, and examine what students find.

Over time, as students get into a rhythm of recording data (including their observations), discuss their observations, questions, and any “wonderings” that are coming up for them. Keep a running list of questions on cards that you post.  Eventually, classify questions according to those that someone could/could not investigate by  running an experiment or planned observation. Consider trying some student-suggested investigations in your classroom, possibly guiding students to adapt and simplify questions as needed.

 

 

Practice 8: Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

This practice stems from and leads to the practice of asking questions. To deepen this connection, explicitly  involve students in identifying ways to collect and record data.

  • What will help us compare and contrast what they see across individual animals within a species, and across species?
  • As we try different approaches, what are the benefits and disadvantages of each?
  • What type of numerical data might be interesting and important to track? (Suggestions: numbers of individuals within a species population that survive to adult form, growth of individuals at, weight of food offered and consumed, numbers of certain features (spots, sensory organs, etc.).

 

  • Sketch the specimens but also keep notes of daily observations of change and constancy. Compare and contrast classroom records with information from other sources about other species.

  • Students might try making watercolor sketches the way Merian did!

 

  • Encourage students to think about the relationships of art, science, and technology in relation to this practice:

 

  • How does making sketches help you as a scientist?
  • How does being a scientist help you as an artist?
  • Maria made prints and books for sale. How did printing technology contribute to scientific knowledge and Maria’s ability to continue studying insects?

 

Add photography and videography to expand this opportunity for students to reflect on how technology helps us in scientific inquiry.

  • Compare and contrast the benefits and drawbacks of using pencil, watercolor, still photography, and video to document, enhance, and communicate observations.
    • What differences do we see among the drawings created by different individuals? How might such differences impact a scientific community?

 

Technology Tie-Ins: Use Insect Info to Solve Agricultural Problems

Two free lessons from the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers Association engage students in practical applications of understanding insects life cycles and ecological relationships. Bugs on the Bog is an Integrated Pest Management problem-solving activity. Students rely on knowledge of pest insect stages to manage a model cranberry bog. How Do You Bee? focuses on ecological relationships between pollinators and plants at different plant stages.

(Disclosure: My educational consulting firm developed the CCCGA lessons.)

 

 

Mind the (Gender, SES, Racial, etc.) Gap: All Students as Scientists

Maybe these ideas and resources will bring about a full-scale metamorphosis in any beliefs that threaten your students’ pursuit of STEM:

 

  • Prominently post pictures of students that provide evidence that they are already scientists. Have students take and/or caption the pictures.

 

  • Discuss the book’s claims and evidence that Merian’s culture constrained, but didn’t stop, her.
    • Today, what beliefs might hinder or help you and others thrive as scientists?

These materials might support student exploration of this question.

 

We–Jodi and Carolyn–have had our say about this week’s featured books and connections to the classroom. But we’re most interested in hearing from you.

  • Have you read the books?
  • …Used them to foster science learning and engagement on the part of learners?
  • Do you want to recommend any additional resources or share a great lesson idea?
  • Share your thoughts; leave a comment!

(And Happy Pi Day!)

Jodi Wheeler-Toppen is a former science teacher and the author of the Once Upon A Science Book series (NSTA Press) on integrating science, reading, and writing instruction.  She also writes for children, with her most recent book being Dog Science Unleashed: Fun Activities to do with Your Canine Companion. Visit https://OnceUponAScienceBook.com for more information on her books and staff development offerings.

 

Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano is a STEM education consultant and provides curriculum development and professional development to schools and nonprofits as Blue Heron STEM Education, Inc., which she co-founded. Her books for kids include the popular A Black Hole is NOT a Hole (published in English, Korean, Chinese, and as an audiobook), and her recent Running on Sunshine: How Solar Energy Works. Find her in classrooms providing author visits, on Facebook –and in April 2019 at the National Science Teachers Association conference in St. Louis, where she will co-present on using authentic data in the classroom and participate–along with Jodi and several other STEM Tuesday contributors–in the Linking Literacy Event, which features conversations with authors.

 

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STEM Tuesday– Taking a Look at Climate Change/Earth Science– Writing Tips & Resources

By on February 19, 2019   /   Climate Change/Earth Science, Common Core & NGSS, Cross-Curricular, STEM Tuesday  

The Right Words

There’s a Neil Gaiman quote which is popular around the writing circles.

“Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.”

Find the right word.

And then the next.

And then the next…

That’s where the “magic” of writing comes in, right? Wrong. That’s where the work of writing comes in.

Hard work is the magic.

In nonfiction, finding the right words are just as important as it is in fiction. And in STEM nonfiction, the importance and value of the précise and correct word rises exponentially. The right word can make or break the credibility of the piece. The wrong word can create confusion, misinformation, and spread inaccuracies.

The right word matters.

This month’s topic is Climate Change/Earth Science. While planning the Writing Tips & Resources post this month, I originally planned an optimistic post on the potential solutions to our environmental issues blossoming in some of our young minds. Kids working toward and demanding changes in their institutions and local environments. It’s promising.

But then I heard something last week that made me shelf the original touch-feely post. It was an unfortunate reminder of how important the right words are. One prominent politician making fun of another prominent politician with the classic jab of “global warming? (laugh, laugh, laugh)” as the second politician made a campaign announcement backdropped by snow and cold weather.

Global Warming

One of the most prominent choices of words gone astray has to be “global warming”. The fight against climate change would have been a whole lot better off if “global warming” was never introduced as the lead terminology. What’s hard now to get many to understand is that small changes, like the atmospheric warming over the Earth poles caused by a stark increase in CO2 build up, can cause big problems to the entire system.

The Earth is a system. Changes in portions of a system can resonate throughout the entire system. This is the so-called Butterfly Effect associated with chaos theory (which also suffered from a poor choice of words (A butterfly flaps its wings…) in early explanations of chaos theory). In the system then, even a relatively small increase in temperature can change the weather patterns thousands of miles away. It’s HARD to get people to accept this when they keep reverting to “global warming” mode while they’re standing knee-deep in record snowfall.

Save the Planet

Another problematic choice of words I feel has held back the efforts to promote and advance earth science is, “Save the Planet”. Barring catastrophic internal of external events, the planet will survive humans. Earth will be fine. It may look and act completely different, but it’ll still be here.

What we need to do is reframe the environmental argument in terms of saving ourselves and the flora & fauna currently inhabiting this planet. Reframe environmentalism in terms of long-term economic viability and make it something of value to everyone.

The Right Word

Words are powerful. They carry weight. The right word can forward a way of thought or a new idea while the wrong word can sink the ship before it leaves port. Choose words wisely. Find the right word with the best fit. Make it work for you and work for your ideas.

The world of STEM will appreciate your efforts.

Mike Hays has worked hard from a young age to be a well-rounded individual. A well-rounded, equal opportunity sports enthusiasts, that is. If they keep a score, he’ll either watch it, play it, or coach it. A molecular microbiologist by day, middle-grade author, sports coach, and general good citizen by night, he blogs about sports/training related topics at www.coachhays.com and writer stuff at www.mikehaysbooks.com. Two of his science essays, The Science of Jurassic Park and Zombie Microbiology 101,  are included in the Putting the Science in Fiction collection from Writer’s Digest Books. He can be found roaming around the Twitter-sphere under the guise of @coachhays64.

 

The O.O.L.F Files

The Out Of Left Field (O.O.L.F.) Files this month takes a look at earth science, climate science, and some ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Here are a couple of information packed sites from some heavy hitters on the climate front:

I found this article and Tweeted it out to my fellow STEM Tuesday team member, Patricia Newman, thinking she’d enjoy the article on laboratories working to reduce single-use plastics because of her fantastic book, PLASTICS AHOY!

She liked it but one-upped me by Tweeting me this article about the potential use of plastic bags in cellphones.

Geodesy – I’ve been researching geodesy as a side topic to a story about satellite navigation I’m working on. It’s fascinating science!

(Geodesy definition and information from GIM International, “the independent and high-quality information online source for everything the global geomatics industry has to offer: news, articles, vacancies, company profiles, educators and an event calendar.”

And if you just can’t get enough geodesy in your current life, here is a PDF from N.O.A.A.  of the 1985 reprint,

 

 

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