Nurturing and Sustaining Effective Programs in Science Education for Grades K-8 Building a Village in California: Summary of a Convocation (2009) / Chapter Skim
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3 Science Education in Action
3 Science Education in Action
Pages 25-34
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From page 25... ...
This lesson, along with the "Poster Session on Science Investigations" that is described below, engendered considerable subsequent discussion among participants throughout the convocation about the success of these approaches to teaching and learning, the critical role of teachers in making these kinds of lessons accessible and interesting to students, and how science education in California might be changed if such approaches were to be adopted statewide.
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From page 26... ...
26 NURTURING AND SUSTAINING EFFECTIVE PROGRAMS FIGURE 3-1 Fifth grade teacher Nancy Chung leading a hands-on science lesson for her students and convocation participants. Photo courtesy of Sue Neuen.
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From page 27... ...
-- Nancy Chung The objectives of the lesson were to identify the state of matter of an unknown substance called "Oobleck," understand what scientists do when faced with an unknown substance, and discover that Oobleck is a "non-Newtonian fluid" that has the properties of both a liquid and a solid. To the theme music of Mission Impossible, she announced to her students, "We're here today on a very special mission. We have been asked to identify a mysterious substance that I'm holding in my hand right now.
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From page 28... ...
No, the students said, it is an educated prediction with reasons why you think something will happen. The students then began doing a number of tests, including the pour test, the poke test, the squeeze test, the sink test, the roll test, and tests they devised on their own.
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From page 29... ...
Then flip your papers to the very back." On a Venn diagram on the last page of their handouts, the students wrote the word Oobleck where they thought it should go, including in areas of the graph that include more than one category. "If you think it's all three, then write Oobleck in the middle, where all three overlap." Then she directed their attention to the words "Something to Think About" at the bottom of the page.
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From page 30... ...
Is there something you can do to test that, besides look it up on the Internet or ask a teacher? If it's a physical reaction, can you somehow separate it and get it back into its original form?
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From page 31... ...
So go ahead and talk about that and we'll clean up afterwards." "Thank you. I hope you had a lot of fun playing -- I mean learning -- with the Oobleck." Excerpts from the California Fifth Grade Science Standardsa 1-a Students know that during chemical reactions the atoms in the reactants rearrange to form products with different properties.
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FIGURE 3-2 Students demonstrate their work in science to convocation participants. Photo courtesy of Maureen Allen.
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From page 33... ...
She and her two partners had used a light gate to measure the time a toy car spent rolling down a ramp given different inclinations of the ramp. They then calculated the car's speed according to the formula s = d × t, where s equals speed, d is distance, and t is time.
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