Posts Tagged writing

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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STEM Tuesday– Taking a Look at Climate Change/Earth Science– In the Classroom

By on February 12, 2019   /   Climate Change/Earth Science, Common Core & NGSS, Cross-Curricular, STEM Tuesday  

Tough Texts

As I discussed in last week’s In the Classroom blog, science text is tough because it is often dense–there are lots of ideas crammed into just a few sentences. Students often think of reading as an all-or-nothing proposition: either they read through and get it (success!) or they read through and didn’t (failure!). Academic text is more complicated than that. Just as they couldn’t unzip a duffle bag and instantly perceive everything inside, they won’t be able to understand most academic texts on the first read-through. They have to be like the guards at the stadium and unpack (or at least riffle through) the things inside the duffel bag.

In this month’s blog, I am going to walk through a set of unpacking tools that readers might use to work through a passage from Inside Biosphere 2: Earth Science Under Glass by Mary Kay Carson.

Before using this passage with your class, you should do a quick book-talk, explaining that the Biosphere 2 is a gigantic (multi-acre!) laboratory that reproduces several earth biomes in ways that allow scientists to control environmental variables such as the temperature, rainfall, wind, and the organisms present. One of the biomes is a tropical rainforest. Joost van Haren studies this biome.

Then present them with this passage from pages 24-25.

Highlight these strategies as you work through the passage with your students:

Chunking

Focus in on this sentence:

Coal, petroleum, and natural gas were once plants and animals full of carbon, like all living things.

There are actually three ideas in this sentence, that I have marked with slash marks (/) below.

Coal, petroleum, and natural gas were once plants and animals / full of carbon, / like all living things.

If your students are familiar with all three ideas, the sentence will be easy to read. But if some of these ideas are new, they may need to linger on them a moment, and think through what is being said and how it relates to their prior knowledge about fossil fuels.

This strategy is called chunking. Students tend to pause and think at points predetermined by the author: at commas, periods, or the ends of paragraphs. Sometimes, a reader needs to slow down and process smaller chunks of text. As Ruth Schoenbach explains in Reading for Understanding, nobody eats a pizza in one bite. Everyone has to break the pizza down, bit by bit, but different people take different sized bites.

Sketching/ Diagramming

This passage offers a whole series of causes and effects, a cascade of consequences. A quick sketch of the relationships between ideas could help keep them straight. This was my sketch through the text:

Look for surrounding supports

Many science ideas are easier to understand in diagram form, so when you encounter tough text, check surrounding pages for a diagram or illustration. In this case, some of the information in this paragraph is summarized in a diagram of a tree interacting with the environment on page 24.

Build your background

Sometimes, tough text is tough because the writer of the text assumes you already know something that you don’t already know. If you’ve tried to unpack the text, and its still tough, you may need to step back a level–not a “reading level” so much as a “knowledge level.” Read someone else’s account of the ideas, especially one aimed at a less knowledgeable audience, and see if that gives you the background for the more sophisticated text. Another book off this week’s list addressed some of these ideas in simpler form. Show students this passage from page 5 in Out of the Ice by Claire Eamer.

What information does this paragraph contribute to their understanding?

Skip it

Let students know that sometimes, its ok to just skip past a section of tough text! This can feel very freeing for struggling readers. It depends on your purpose for reading–I chose this passage because it gets at an important idea for Earth Science. But what if you are reading this because you want an overview of Biosphere 2? Or you are planning to visit, and want to know what to expect? Or you’re looking for an idea for a science project? You might not need to understand this particular section of text. In this particular book, there is a wealth of interesting information. You could skip this paragraph and still glean all kinds of great ideas from the book. Indeed, it may be that reading further clarifies this set of ideas for you.

(And as a side note make sure your students know that it can be ok to blame the author. Sometimes, text is tough because it is not well-written (not the case here, but sometimes)! Struggling readers tend to assume that reading struggles are all their fault. But many times, the fault lies with writer for not expressing ideas clearly.)

Jodi Wheeler-Toppen is a former science teacher and the author of the Once Upon A Science Book series (NSTA Press) on integrating science and reading 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.

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