Merry Christmas y'all!

Well as the year slowly finishes up, and I must admit the high temperature records and odd very muggy day are certainly making it a memorable finish, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a refreshing break.

http://gurumagazine.org/science/festive/santas-scientificially-accurate-sleigh/

Thanks to those of you who have had me invading your classrooms, taking your afternoons and revving up the students -all in the name of science! It's been a privilege working with you all and seeing the excitement and enthusiasm for teaching science. This year has been my most travelled with lots of time in beautiful Opotiki as well as in the hinterlands of Wairoa, which are just magnificent. Wherever I've headed, I've been made to feel very welcome, worked with amazing children who have become even more keen for science, been hassled (lots!) and asked the hard questions which I sometimes have no idea what the answer is!

It's been a very different year for PLD and I think the changes have been a positive move and it has been encouraging to see schools running with the new format. Next year, I already have some schools and CoLs lined up for more science and I'm grateful for the votes of confidence! It's nice to have new schools and also lovely to continue working with schools that I've had some time with. I'd also be keen to revisit schools I've worked with in the past to see how things are going -it'd be nice to have some time to see what you're all doing in science.

So have a lovely break, a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. Enjoy time away from the classroom and get energised for 2018!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2521973/The-science-Santa-Mr-Claus-eat-150-BILLION-calories-visit-5-556-houses-SECOND-Christmas-Eve.html

Oh, and there's lots of science with Santa's visits... and some quite technical ones too! I think this one has to be my favourite, even explaining Rudolph's shiny red nose! It's http://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/3720721/The_Science_of_Santa.html. Who said it was all magic?!?

Merry Christmas
Paul

A great resource from Department of Conservation

Almost the end of the year! I was sort of wrestling with whether to write another blog with activities but then realised that there are still three more weeks of school and the weather is glorious! Get the kids outside and looking at the plants and birds!!

A wee while ago, I had the opportunity to see the Department of Conservation roll out some new teaching resources for primary teachers. They did look good but, as is sometimes the case, I sort of forgot about them... until this week! I'm doing some teaching down in lovely Opotiki and we've decided to look at a small park/reserve/wetlands that's by the school. In writing up my little unit plan, I came across the DoC stuff again and was very impressed!

From the website -don't bother clicking it, it's not hyperlinked!

The best way in is here: http://www.doc.govt.nz/get-involved/conservation-education/ which leads off to other places. I also like their "Big Picture": http://www.doc.govt.nz/get-involved/conservation-education/the-big-picture/. There's good links from a Maaori perspective as well through the values.

With my unit, we are looking at what's in the wetlands already, how everything's connected together. There are some lovely resources to download... with activities to print out, identification supports and the science capabilities too! And quite coincidentally "I notice, I think, I wonder"... it does make me a little sad as I thought I had made this up but obviously there are other clever people out there too!

The "Experiencing ... in your green space" (birds, native trees, etc) series and the "Investigating pests" series have lots to keep your children busy!

So a great resource to start playing with this year or for a big unit next year!

And a wee side order: don't forget about some of my posts sharing smaller activities that might be useful at this time of the year to support one-off writing activities, developing observation skills, etc.

Keep sciencing on!
Paul

Just give me the lessons and I'll teach them!

So I have a wee confession... It has changed through the four years that I have worked as a facilitator from "let me give you everything you want to teach science" to "I don't think giving you everything is the best way to do science PLD, let me help you to learn how to plan some effective science units..."; sort of that whole 'give a man a fish or teach him how to fish' idea. When I often have a reflection time for PLD, I do get a few comments wanting lots of lessons and units.

google image

And here's my worry. Yes, I could pass on some resources and I know that there are other PLD providers who do this -sending out a box jam-packed with lots of great science ideas or providing participants with a folder full of lessons and activities for classes, and to be honest, I do share unit plans and lesson activities too (although I'm not sure where they end up as most teachers I work with have no idea about these lovely lessons!)... However, I don't know how this is going to support teachers to learn about the science pedagogy. When I was teaching, I used to sometimes download great units. I would teach them, the kids would love them, but I'm not sure I grew in my own understanding of that curriculum area or the pedagogical knowledge to teach, for example, science well. In fact, most of the stuff I downloaded wasn't New Zealand based but I would decide it was good enough! I was so flat out with all the other curriculum areas that to have prepacked units were marvellous!

Looking back, I realised that I still actually taught Science or Social Sciences or Art the same as I always did. I once found a great website with art critiquing and I remember one lesson where we were a bit behind and I was basically saying look at the artist's work, see those lines? Get them on paper! Our Japanese art (I forget the artist's name but he created beautiful ink art) looked nothing like the art we were looking at because I didn't really 'get' art. Looking at the essence statement in the NZC (p. 17), I think I understand art better now. I think I would spend more time looking at art, a sense of communication, a sense of a message shared with me by the artist and then creating our own 'messages' in that form.

Sometimes we're so busy that we just want to get the science done! Those boxes of resources are marvellous and I know there could be some good science in them but what do you do if there are no more boxes? Or courses? Or (heaven forbid) me!!! Do I understand the science well enough to be able to teach a nature of science based unit (or science capabilities based)? Do I know how to question? Can I think of ways of dealing with student misconceptions (or my own!)? And just as importantly, are these ready made units actually reflecting student wonderings? Are they an authentic context that reflects my students, where they're at, the place I'm working in... My class was predominantly Maaori, so I had to adapt any unit to reflect this.

And here's the goal of this blog! Teaching the science capabilities seems difficult at first. I'm always delighted though when teachers get the essence of what this is about and get excited! I don't need to know a lot of content (although I need a bit even just for my own confidence), and I do need to know how to question well (and I have Paul's lovely question sheets to help me), and how to involve the children and get them wondering and investigating further. Sometimes a prepacked box, or printed lessons (and yes, even mine) won't know or understand your class! They'll need some adapting. In fact, you may not even want to follow my roadmap! Or the Learning Intentions... I know that Paul's lesson is focusing on Gather and Interpret Data but I actually want to develop their thinking around explanations so I'll shorten this bit and extend out their wonderings so we can get some investigating happening and then build up explanations. I'll also get some School Journal articles together so we can explore some literacy examples to scaffold writing explanations as well as some fake news articles to challenge their critiquing.

What does excite me with the PLD reflections is that some teachers do ask for planning support! I know I've been in this job for a few years now and I'm pretty much able to automatically slip into gear with thinking nature of science style and I also know it's taken a while to get here (and that I still have lots to learn and grow in!). I also remember being a teacher and the pressure of planning. I used to use the second week of the holidays to do my planning and I never got it finished! So my goal with the PLD is to support teachers to be able to adapt what's out there.

We have the Science Learning Hub (with NZC planned lessons, units, videos, posters, etc, etc), the scienceonline site with TKI (with capabilities lessons at all the different levels and for all the science capabilities), pond, Royal Society, and NZAPSE (science educators site) just for starters online! And these are all kiwi sites. There's also the Connecteds, School Journals, Making Better Sense, Building Science Concepts books in the cupboard at your school! There are many, many activities out there on the interweb as well. I use a number of American, British and Australian resources in my science teaching but never as printed! In fact even the NZ stuff, I will adapt for what I want to do, how I can support the teacher who may have given me some ideas as to what the class has been up to, and if I know the class well enough, to suit them.

By adapting the lessons, they'll be tailor made for my bunch! I might add more questioning, or even need to add the whole science capabilities idea as most international resources (and our older science printings) chase after content. I might drop bits altogether. I need to also be thinking about those authentic contexts, what I want the children to get out of the lessons and where to after that.

The big question is always if I had to teach science myself with no support, would it be a science capabilities based lesson or unit? If all the external PLD became extinct, what is your science understanding? What is important to you for the children to understand and develop? What do you want children in your class to leave with (and that's only a couple of months away!)? Adapting a resource might seem scary but it can be fun and actually help develop your thinking and understanding of science! It can be PLD for you!  So what do I want at the end of the unit? What evidence do I want to record about student understanding in science? What do I want them to have developed further? These are hard questions! Is it important they know that wasps have six legs and three body parts? Or Saturn has a hexagonal cloud structure over its north pole? Or that water is produced when you mix baking soda and vinegar together? Or that e=mc²? That last one might be a wee bit hard!

YouTube image of the man himself!

I might like children to know some of this stuff as we're going along. I get excited if a child comes up to me with a shell and can tell me all about it -and I get even more excited about the process... unless it's simply a lucky google hit! I want to hear the child's enthusiasm and passion! I want to ask questions and see how this child is thinking and answering. I want to know how they can be sure it's a such and such shell...

So what do I want at the end of the unit? I don't mind if it's magnets, friction, ants, the solar system, broadbeans or the theory of light! I want to know that the children are developing a concept of what science is about. I want them to be learning about evidence and proof and investigating and asking questions and being curious. I want them to 'own' the science, to know it's their science. I want them to grow up and ask questions, be sceptical, be confident to find answers, and to challenge thinking (their's and other people's)! So this is what I'll be checking as the lessons are progressing. My lessons pinched from somewhere may not include any of these ideas so I'm going to have to adapt, scribble everywhere, pull in other ideas etc. I may even ask a knowledgeable person about tikanga... I want to get the students planting and wondering about adding some authentic contexts for them, could you help at all? 

So get out there, be confident, listen to what the students are interested in and follow their lead! This was going to be a post all about how to adapt and I've sort of done that but I think there might need to be a part two!

Keep on sciencing
Paul

Gather and Interpret Data ideas

Kia Ora koutou!
I hope you are all enjoying your term break and thinking lots about the science you can do this term! A lot of teachers are playing with the "Gather and Interpret Data" science capability and besides heading to the TKI website where there are lots and lots of already preplanned lessons with assessment ideas all for different levels, I've posted a few ideas below. Some of these came out of the old Te Toi Tupu capability workshops that were planned by Ally Bull, so some credit has to go to her!
As those of you whose schools are doing science PLD with me will know, I'm a big fan of the incidental science (which I must get around to writing a post about) and the short but sweet opportunities to expose the students to some science that can pop up. I like the idea of a science introduction leading to a reading or writing lesson too -let's merge them altogether and create some authentic contexts. By no means am I chucking out the science units and series of lessons, just wanting to remind teachers that there are probably more opportunities than you think for science!

• Children observing objects... One activity that came from the capabilities workshops was a group of four taking turns to observe an object for a couple of minutes and then swapping until they had recorded some noticings on all four objects. They then shared their observations and besides crossing out inferences (and these are an interesting debate in themselves -how do you know that's lichen or mold or... so is that an observation or inference?!?), they discuss each word and if two or more have the same, then they cross them off. The one with the most unique observations wins! You'll notice I said "record" not "write" as some children may prefer to draw. As children are doing this, I tend to wander around and look for good examples of children observing shape, size, colour, measurement, using different senses and then get these children to feedback to their group and possibly the class as to why I've highlighted their noticing. We might also discuss thorny issues like is beige and light brown the same colour or he wrote 'twig' and that's an inference. The aim of the game is not to get rules focused but to develop good language. You could even start recording some of the more interesting words for a word bank! It's up to teachers how they do the activity and it could be a lovely starter for writing time. Children could do this in pairs or groups or have a writer from a more senior class recording the children's thoughts.
• Children observing objects or pictures or videos... Similar to the first but with children individually or in groups recording down all their noticings. Go through them to check for inferences and particular ideas (for example textures might be the focus) and the group with the most observations wins! You might like to do this with an object on the science table and a large sheet for all the children to record their ideas. 

With both of these activities, we want objective observations. Yes, the rock might be 'amazing', but is that a good observation? I also try to use a variety of objects and pictures, some the children may have no idea about -and these ones can be good to see how are the children observing. Do they go straight to inference: It's a spider's leg! Do they have lots of language at their disposal? Are they using a lot of 'like': It's like the top of an egg, all smooth and curved.

Peacock Spider, youtube image

Once they've observed, get them to do a bit of inferencing. One of my favourite videos to use is one with peacock spiders (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_yYC5r8xMI). I always turn the sound off -later I might play it with the sound on which might be music or narration and ask the children why did I turn off the music. In terms of the spider video, students will comment that the music makes them think the spider is dancing. When I show this to teachers, the first thing they say is It's a courtship dance which of course is an inference -there are no other spiders in the video and really we have no idea until we've perhaps watched some more. So I challenge the teachers to notice... it's legs have little hairs on like a bottle brush... I can see these colours... it's making quick darting moves... It's always the same two legs that stretch out and then move downwards... It has lots of eyes (which I might challenge them on: how do you know they're eyes? And sometimes I might show some creatures with what look like eyes but aren't just to remind them to notice not infer). After the observations we can infer: I think the peacock spider might be scared and so it's waving its arms around. Maybe it's trying to be bigger? From this I want the children's inferences to draw in prior knowledge or scientific knowledge: So what other animals or insects might do this? This way we're showing children that our inferences are the beginnings of our explanations. We're needing evidence and proof now that we have our thoughts sorted out. Let's watch some more of the videos to see if there's a large predator or a female spider it's trying to attract...

Nikon 2017 Photo Competition

If I'm using an object or picture, I'll try to finish with a What do you think it might be? Here's where inferences come into play but also I might finish with telling the children in a couple of minutes about the peacock spider or that this is the eye of a fly (the above photo)...If I'm feeling particularly nasty, I might not and leave it to the children to do some more figuring out if I know that they can accomplish this with google, books and websites.

And another idea:

• What is it? I might use an object (and it doesn't always have to be natural, it could be an interesting looking piece of machinery that will still grow some interesting vocab and descriptive language) or a picture to challenge them to go deeper. I'll always start with getting the children to observe and make connections to what they might already know and then perhaps a chance to look on the internet or in a book for more detail. At the end, whatever they decide must have reasoning... 

  

  Nikon 2017 Photo Competition

I think this might be something to do with plants -maybe a seed or something? I can see a dark green base and darker lines (obs) and I think it might be a leaf and those are its veins (inference). The two objects (not 'things'!) are sort of like circles with a darker circle at the top (obs) which I think might be a hole as it is darker and I think I can almost see the other side (inf with a reason too). There are like hairs (trying to make sense so using 'like hair' not 'hair) in lines coming down the objects and they're very straight. They are white and might be all similar lengths as they curve the same as the object. I think these objects might be seeds as I've seen seeds with fluffy bits on before. maybe they've floated to this leaf and are just sitting there ready to float off again?
As it is, they're actually caterpillar eggs but I hope you can see from my example, that the child (me!) has used colours, shapes, tentative language, inferences using some prior knowledge, reasoning, etc -lots to gather evidence on how the child is gathering and interpreting data.

The other reason I might tell the class the answer is that there are those of us out there who need the answer! And yes, I'm one of those! Recently a teacher showed me an amazing photo. It's not this one but like this...

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/wasp-hornet-removal-under-a-car.826370/

It was inside a shed though. I went through my observations first (fighting the It's a...!) and inferring as I went along. I was heading down a thinking that maybe it was a plant or something and then had to ask So what is it? It turned out to be a huge hornet's nest! Knowing this caused me then to come up with a whole pile of new questions: Was it hard? Was it rough or smooth? What was it made of? Wood?How many hornets? Was it just one big hive or lots (and how would you know?). Underneath the surface, was it like a beehive with hexagonal structures? Knowing what it was stimulated more curosity!

Actually today, I had my own What is it? I collect rocks and have got some real beauties. In fact yesterday Anne gave me some lovely rocks for a sort of late birthday pressie type thing. We ended up chatting lots and thinking back, we were inferring and then backing these up with our observations. Anne's much more science clever than me but it was an interesting discussion! Anyway at home, I've started putting some labels onto the rocks and one I had thought was schist. However for some reason, I did a second look and now am wondering if it's gneiss... And yes, someone out there probably knows for sure so do feel free to tell me!

my rock

Schist, https://flexiblelearning.auckland.ac.nz/rocks_minerals/rocks/schist.html (my fave rocks website)

Although the photos aren't fantastic, there are lots of similarities between my rock and schist, they're both very hard, quite glittery, different colours, mainly greys and white scattered through and it's quite sharp on the edges. However after reading about schist having quite defined layers, I realised that my rock doesn't! I went onto the website and read up a bit more on schist and gneiss. Both can be found in the South Island (which is where I found my rock), both are metamorphic which explains the glittery bits -they're crystals. From this, I've learnt a wee bit more about my rocks (and the annoying fact that I probably walked straight past bits of schist, thinking they were all the same!) and used my observations, inferences and the internet to come up with a possible explanation. However I also realise that for some rock identifications, I'm just not sure -especially carnelian, chalcedony, and chert which is all found in the Coromandel and all looks similar (to me anyway!) and that's all a bit above me at the moment!

Finally, why? Why do all this? I'm reading some Effective Indicator readings from ERO and something that comes up a lot is ensuring that students know why we're doing this, what's the purpose? I know that observations and talking out loud, recording the noticings will all impact their writing. I also know that this is what scientists do! By observing closely, two things might happen -one, our inferences might be more accurate or deeper and two, our curiosity might be piqued with lots of questions popping up! Imagine what would happen if we simply jumped straight to inferences. Besides possibly getting it wrong, we also stop observing because we now 'know'. I throw lots of questions at the children, particularly if they're jumping to inferences to get them to look again. Sometimes I might simply scaffold my own thinking: I don't know, I'm looking at the shape and the colour of the objects and I'm wondering if it might be more about camouflage. Also, I don't know whether seeds are green like that. I think from memory, they're usually brown or black. What if it's a chrysalis or something, you know, with the insect popping out the top... but it's so tiny! It would have to be a really small insect... like a mite or aphid...

So a few ideas for you to think about -might be good for the science table! Oh, and don't forget the newspapers! There's a great article in stuff today: https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sports/97797197/Team-New-Zealand-pounced-on-Oracle-wingsail-tech-to-help-win-the-Americas-Cup? which has some science ideas in it about energy and once again showing how important science is, especially to winning!

Oh, and where do I get my pictures from? Usually the internet, it might be a facebook photo or a stuff/nzherald article or image. And the objects I find or get given to me!

I hope you have a go!

Keep on sciencing
Paul

For next term...

I've been thinking about next term a bit this week, thinking about science (strangely enough) and some ideas for what I could do in the classroom. My wrestling is that I still have the old me teaching science so thinking of topics, whilst the new me is trying to keep the focus on the science capabilities or the nature of science.

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/hall-of-fame/

Instead of saying "We're doing planets", or butterflies, or chemical change, which in itself causes kids to say "Oh we've done planets with Miss..." with the idea that they now know all there is to know about planets (hands up who've had that happen in class!), perhaps we could be more specific about what we're exploring. I'd also like us to think more about which capability or particular bit of exploring how science itself works that we'll be doing in class.
This might mean my introduction to our next science unit, rather than being "We're doing plants", could be "I want to focus on how we observe closely and then explain our thinking by doing some science, around the topic of plants -looking at seeds, how plants germinate and how we could help them to grow faster." Straight away I can see the 'science itself' bits as well as know that this is going to be different to when I grew broadbeans in Mr A's class back in Year 3!
When I'm picking topics, I'm also thinking about what the children would like to do. We want to have science being authentic and relevant to them. Sometimes I do think that, although children haven't been speaking of the wonders of magnetic forces, I know they'd enjoy the experiences and could get a lot of critical thinking and discussion from my questions about magnets so I might run with that. When I'm modelling in classes, children will say things that make me think that could be a topic for another time. For example, students at a senior level struggling to describe texture or smells, or a student thinking that the sugar cube has melted, or in a junior room, children arguing with me that my lovely little jellyfish isn't real -it is real, it's just not alive!

I often suggest to teachers to make a note of these ideas to revisit later. And talking about revisiting, why not have a couple of lessons to revise what you have explored earlier in the year. Do children still remember? Are they using the vocab you introduced? Have their misconceptions gone or have they popped back?
The other bit that I've been thinking about is What do I really want the students to get out of this? Those who have had me invade their schools, classrooms and minds, know that I do like the idea of kids learning 'stuff' but I'm not really bothered by how much stuff or what that stuff might be. I've been rereading a publication Anne reminded me of about the Big Ideas of science.  It's a great read, with some ideas about progressions, unpacking their Big Ideas and it's easy to read. Here's one link: http://thescienceteacher.co.uk/big-ideas/. I'm not saying we should all be running after this but it does remind me that our own NZC has some ideas about each of the strands.
So I've decided I want to look at insects and their behaviours. We get little ant invasions regularly in the classroom and there are a few wasps around too. I'm going to use the Landcare website to look at invasive insects, I might get the kids to think about ways we can eradicate the wasp populations (and yes, I know it will result in the death of many wasps but I think that's a good thing and the children will learn about investigating, gathering data, interpreting their results and sharing information) and I might have a play with some ideas I've had about whether insects prefer different colours as I've seen some research about bees liking particular colours (carried out by primary school children and published) and ants preferring lighter colours.

I won't be assessing whether they know insects have three body parts although we will be sketching insects, learning about their body parts and life cycles. I will be assessing how children investigate, how careful students are with their research and how they use their data to prove their thinking. I might try to provide students with some reading to go along with my unit as well as some chances to be exposed to scientists or 'entomologists' at work in the field (if you'll excuse the pun). I'll definitely get some stats in too with children's data.
With my insects unit, I'm using the Living World as my context strand. There might be a wee bit of other strands like Material World if I'm making wasp poisons but LW will be my main focus. I've read the NZC p.28 which has a paragraph on the Living World:

New Zealand Curriculum, p. 28

It's kind of like an essence statement so there might be some big ideas here for me. I also know this is a paragraph that covers from Y1 to Y12 so I don't need to do everything here! It says the emphasis is on New Zealand's biology so I think I'll look at some native ants and other insects and perhaps how invasive species have impacted them. A key word is "sustainability" so perhaps that could be a bit of a focus too -how can we help the NZ praying mantis rather than letting that South African bully slowly wipe it out (an entertaining article about this: http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/what-we-do/publications/forest-bird-magazine-article/springbok-invasion)?
So where will I find these lovely units preplanned for me? Nowhere! You know your children, what science capabilities they need to further develop, what they're particularly interested in and what levels they are operating at in terms of science and literacy. I do get asked a lot for lessons with everything in them and yes, I could write them but they're not my class! There are lots of resources out there that I use quite happily, both printed and online but the trick is to adapt them.
No lessons overseas will focus on our NZ science capabilities although they might have a nature of science centre. To be honest, I  don't find many experiments that do have this. We have great printed resources with our Making Better Sense series and the Building Science Concepts that have their own version of Big Ideas for students and are levelled for kiwi kids as well as full of good activities. But they also aren't science capabilities based! They can sort of link up with the Nature of Science and if I check the process skills bits with each lesson and make that my focus, I can create some great lessons on insects, weather, plants, magnets, etc! The focus of the BSCs tends to be teacher-driven and "children, understand this content idea", but they just need a bit of tweaking. I've done this with a few of the BSCs and think they can work quite well.
"Well Paul, that sounds marvellous but I have a lot of other work to do and just don't have the time" is probably how a lot of you are responding but if you want to really understand the nature of science, you need to do the planning and thinking! Plan the unit with a group of teachers -they might not be in your school but across your Community of Learning... imagine if all the Y5/6 teachers got together for an afternoon and planned collaboratively?!? Or imagine if you grabbed a teacher of a level below your class and one teacher above and then planned a progressive unit thinking about what children at the different levels could learn and how each next class could build on that knowledge of how the natural physical world and science itself works. Which then leads me to thinking about what if children enjoyed the chance to revisit science topics, to get a little deeper into that topic, that they had the chance to apply what they had already learnt?
Well, I hope this has given you some ideas for the next term. As always I still really like incidental science so it may be that I won't have a particular topic per se, but will pick up little bits here and there as the children / whanau / me / tv / etc! discover it.

keep on sciencing
Paul

Rain, rain, and possibly more rain...

MetService image

Woke up this morning to more rain... and yesterday, we had a fantastic hail storm that left a lot of hail on the grass -but not the concrete I wonder if the hail bounces easier on the concrete so ends up on the grass where it doesn't bounce so well?...
Anyway, it got me thinking that here's a great chance to do some science! We can do lots of work around the capabilities with students measuring the rainfall, observing the clouds, checking the wind direction and reading weather maps. They can make predictions about the weather and check! They can critique each other's measurements and forecasts. They can create their own weather maps and learn to identify different cloud types.

MetService image

Children can gather data and could need maths skills to measure capacity, and draw bar graphs showing rain fall for each day, or perhaps the morning, afternoon... students could find out there are certain periods of the day where it rains more than others. From my own experience, most rain falls just before the 3pm bell until about 3:15! We could look at the water cycle in action -rather than the good ol' water cycle on paper! Students might notice that the water does drain away, or disappears off the tennis courts. They might also notice that the streams are higher and might have changed colour (the streams not the students). Can we use all these observations to start thinking about what's going on? The TKI site has a lesson using a Connected article: http://scienceonline.tki.org.nz/Science-capabilities-for-citizenship/Introducing-five-science-capabilities/Interpret-representations/Interview-with-a-Glass-of-Water.
From a literacy point of view, keeping with the weather theme could mean sharing some poems, stories and articles about the weather. Across in North America, this hurricane season has been particular vicious and children could read newspaper articles, watch video clips, etc to keep up with what's happening. The fourth capability Interpret Representations is nicely integrated here with students exploring the different ways the weather is represented. The MetService website is great with students being able to move the timescale on different maps to see the weather happening. There are a lot of maps and forecasts for children to explore. Science Learning Hub has some weather activities too, including one about clouds (https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/628-observing-clouds-and-weather) and one that has some information on the water cycle and weather maps (https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/725-water-and-weather).

MetService image

With one of the Key Competencies being about 'symbols', we can learn about that too! Could they forecast the weather from the maps? I'm always curious that locals (and usually the older more grizzly ones!) can look up at the sky and say It'll be raining in an hour...
There's also a particular language used in weather forecasts... could the students read a few, learn the vocabulary used and then write some themselves... What kind of day would you like to forecast -for your birthday, or for the cross country? In my case, this forecast would be perfect for the dreaded run: Showers, some heavy with possible hail, easing from afternoon. Snow to 500 metres at first.  (I pinched it from today's forecast for Southland!). 

MetService image

In terms of music, my kids loved doing soundscapes with the weather -lots of noise and excitement! Could children do some art around the topic of weather? Could we look at how weather impacts society -in fact the very recent Edgecumbe floods is one example.
Remembering that the essence statement in the NZC says that students explore how the natural physical world and science itself work. So how could we do this with the weather? Is there a cycle to the weather? Is there a bit of a domino effect happening? In terms of science, how do meteorologists know what's going to happen? Are they always right? How come they're not? Are they getting better? I know the science learning hub are keen to connect classrooms to scientists so you might have the opportunity to have a chat with one.

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Finally what questions do the children have? Are the sayings right? How come (if they are)? Are raindrops really tear shaped, because hail isn't!

And whilst it's windy, we could make kites... but I think that's another post!

Stay dry,
Paul

Māori Language Week 2017

I thought I'd just write a few notes with Māori Language Week coming up September 11. There is far more to write about science and connections we can make in this area with Māori but this is more of a beginning type thing!

In terms of the NZC, the earlier green document (which I still see floating around schools!) was a lot clearer about integrating te reo and tikanga Māori into science. The newer document is a wee bit lighter about this but I think there's lots still out there! Of course those teaching in rumaki and kura have the lovely Putaiao document which has some similarities to NZC Science in that there are context strands (but only three with Living World and Planet Earth and Beyond combined, which could make for some interesting conversations!), and the Nature of Science across the top. Putaiao gets a fourth strand about history and philosophy in science, which I'm very envious of and do wish it was in the NZC as well (I know it is sort of, with the Nature of Science strand "Understanding About Science"...).

By the way, if you have ideas and comments, please do post them below. I'd love to build up a resource of places, websites and people that could support teachers in this! I don't profess to being an expert at all -In fact when I read an article by Dr Georgina Stewart who is passionate about Putaiao, I found that some of my ideas were some of those she thought weren't helpful!

At the least, putting te reo into science topics could be possible with most lessons. The Buliding Science Concept resource which is in most schools usually has a glossary at the back with words in te reo and I've noticed that sometimes te reo will be used in the information at the front of the book too, for example talking about forces and friction. If you're doing a Living World unit, you might be able to find te reo for insect names, or shells. Perhaps you all could describe an object with te reo, talking about it's colour (http://www.maorilanguage.net/maori-words-phrases/colours-nga-tae/) or shape (https://nzmaths.co.nz/resource/te-whanau-taparau-polygon-family)...

Another option, and this is a little bit from the last post, is to find topics such as spinning tops that have clear links to Māori. For example, spinning tops (potaka), or kites (manu tukutuku) could teach science concepts as well as share with children that science happened here in Aotearoa too! When I think about the particular wood that is used to carve waka, or the best places to grow kumara, in my mind this shows that science was happening here! People would probably have experimented with different places to grow kumara to find where it lived best. They might have compared different woods to decide which would be best for a waka. Why are there only certain rocks used for hangi? I know that students really connect to these kinds of topics and to using te reo in science lessons. This connection to their own culture engages and validates Māori students.

If I was doing a unit on natural disasters, I might set some time aside to bring up Ruamoko, god of earthquakes and volcanoes. This is seen as a 'pluralistic approach' where, although I might be teaching tectonic plates, I'm also exploring some other cultural views as well. If I was looking at heat transfer with hangi rocks, I would probably do some pluralistic bits as well such as looking at protocol with hangi. This idea is still a relatively new one for me, so I'm still getting my head around it. I'm trying to think about ways to share these views without saying this one's right and this one's wrong and at the same time I'm thinking that using these ideas could engage our Māori students as we, in a sense, endorse their culture.

For Putaiao users, there are some great resources on TKI and as I've looked through them, I have wondered about using some of them myself!

• http://putaiao.tki.org.nz/ is one with some activities as well although I'm not sure about the translations to English here -I've found a few 'interesting' ones! 
• http://eng.mataurangamaori.tki.org.nz/Support-materials/Putaiao has a lot of links for teachers with activities etc
• http://eng.keitemohiokoe.tki.org.nz/ is more geared towards secondary students but never the less there might be some gold in there for you!
• http://putaiao.tki.org.nz/Papakupu-Putaiao is a dictionary (and does go both ways so could be effective in finding those words in te reo!

Oh, and outside of websites and our own thinking, remember there are good resources around you! It might be parents who are fluent and can support you. It could be a visit to the local marae as well, to connect and share ideas around teaching science.

So there we have it. Some ideas for you to practice during Māori Language Week on the 11th. Give it a go! It might be as simple as getting children to use some te reo to describe their noticings! As always, do share websites, ideas and activities that could help us all!

Hei Konā,

Paora

Roadmaps for science

Just spent a couple of lovely weeks in Opotiki causing chaos, probably talking too much and sharing science ideas. In fact one lovely teacher got a great shot of me hard at work! I was challenged to stand on a table that was standing on card cylinders... all a part of the Material World strand (and I guess some Physical World structures too). Apparently I don't weigh more than a pile of children!

Anyway, something that came up a bit was "where to next? Once I've taught a lesson in science, where do I go next?" If you're familiar with my ideas around teaching science and have your hands on a few of my lessons, you'll notice that most of them are based around three to four lessons, usually starting with a discovery or play experience that may only take 15 minutes, then a more scientific explore the next time followed by children investigating further and then feeding back to the class their findings. Unfortunately most teachers will do a one-off lesson which can prevent the children investigating further, asking more questions, building an explanation or developing an understanding of the concept introduced or even leave the student wondering why we did the lesson in the first place!
For me, I feel that I could build a 3-4 lessons with writing, reading and maths connections from a simple science experiment that I find online. I'm letting the children do the asking and exploring and as I want to know a wee bit more to support my questioning and thinking, I might do a bit of prep work beforehand. For example, tomorrow I'm doing a lesson on capillary action. I've set up my lesson, I know where I want to go in the lesson (it's focused on Critiquing Evidence) and some ideas on how I could follow up the lesson although I'm just doing the one. I've thought about some maths (measuring the water quantity, area the paper towel has absorbed) and writing links (based around explanation writing). I've also had a think about capillary action, how I could explain it (although that doesn't mean I'll be doing a knowledge dump but I need to know what it is to support students' thinking), and explore it further. I've also planned out in my head what I'd hope to see at different levels for the activity both for the capability I'm focusing on and the science concept. I tend to do 'one activity fits all'-type experiences and then extend it what I'd like to see at different levels.
It does take a bit of prep, and because I'm a bit of a squirrel, I probably take a bit longer than most. One time I was thinking about jellyfish and after a wee while, found myself reading about how intelligent octopus are and whether they have sentience!

http://imgur.com/azTk7RX

So if I was to think about teachers developing their pedagogies in science teaching, here's a few of my ideas for where to next. I'm certain there are far more learned folk out there with ideas too so it would be a good one to investigate further!

1. I'm a big fan of incidental science and like the idea that, if children get enthused and engaged about whatever it is that's happening, I'm going to run with it perhaps that day or maybe the next if I need the chance to sort out some resources and activities. A child might bring in a large rock or crystal or animal skull (happens more than you think!) and the kids are fascinated... what type is it? How could we find out? How do you think it was made? What words can we use to describe it (by the way, this could mean lovely descriptive language as well as scientific vocabulary but children do need to know the difference!)? It might be an article in the paper, a school journal story, something someone saw on TV (that may not even be real but has them questioning) or at the movies

   

   A movie that forgot to read the chapter about global warming...
   but now we call it climate change so it's okay...

2. If I'm thinking about a specific capability, I might observe the children in action during a science experiment to plan my 'where to next'. Maybe the students aren't using tentative language or using all their senses. Maybe they're not measuring accurately and don't really see the point of having to. Maybe, their explanations are more based on their own thinking rather than what they're noticing. If this is my focus, then I can do whatever science I like but just have my questions and indicators ready to support children to develop further. I might scaffold or model my own observations to support theirs.
3. If I'm thinking about science ideas, for example capillary action or dissolving or 'living', I'm going to either set up a few activities over a few days, for example show capillary action in paper towels, celery sticks and small straws or get children dissolving sugar, salt, and sand (yes, I know...) or challenge their thinking about what makes something 'real' -most junior level children tend to use 'real' for 'living' so a toy isn't real whilst a weta crawling up my arm is (yes, you can shudder, I did!). I'm going to make sure that the concept isn't my whole focus, after all, the nature of science is the overarching strand of the science curriculum so I tend to plan, teach and assess to that but I do want to offer the children lots of opportunities to support their thinking around the concept offered. I'm also hopeful that these ideas will be revisited and built upon by other teachers further on up the school (a topic for a blog all on its own).
4. Whilst I'm doing science with the children, or reading a book, or talking stuff, I may notice that children have some interesting ideas or concepts -for example, juniors calling textures soft when they mean smooth, or saying it's white when they mean transparent. I may be doing some activities around dissolving and notice quite a few children telling me the sugar cube is melting. Although I may not do it straight away, I might make a note of this for a later lesson. Something like saying it's melting during a dissolving lesson might be a bit more of a priority as the concepts are happening right now but other ideas could happen a wee bit down the track with the comment A few weeks ago some of you were talking about spiders and wondering whether they have babies or eggs and asking questions about how they grow. I thought we could do a bit of science around spiders and insects and see what's happening. Some science is better at different times... looking for praying mantis eggs or seeing ant colonies at work might be better when the weather's warmer (and not so wet!).

   

   Was interesting that I went to the page to discover people posting photos of insects and creatures not insects (and calling them insects) and the discussion changed to 'what's an insect?'! Science is everywhere! And it was a bodybuilding site! https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=168518783 

5. Finally, what do the kids want to do? What questions are they asking? This has two dimensions. First, what do kids want to learn about? What science topics are they interested in? Secondly, what questions are they asking as a result of the experiment you are doing with them? You might be doing copters and they start thinking about paper planes or helicopters. They might start talking about whether copters actually fly, glide or just fall with style. They may end up talking about sycamore seeds that they've seen twirling. Or they might end up talking about something completely different but that has come up because of the copters investigation like me looking up melting and ending up reading about the probe Cassini on its last few orbits before it crashes into Saturn's atmosphere Sep 15... and yes, I know the date off by heart -it's very exciting! Let children ask questions, investigate ideas and try out their thinking even if it's something you haven't thought about or planned for. If there's a space and I have the stuff on me, I don't mind if children go off on a tangent whilst I'm doing soda water and raisins activities: I wonder if cashew nuts would do this? I don't know -go try! Whatever children investigate, I do try to leave space in the lesson wrap up for them to share back what they found out, let others ask that group questions and perhaps formulate some of their own from the investigation. I'd like to hope that children are beginning to feel like they're owning the investigation and inquiring themselves. An interesting aside was a lesson I did on spinning tops recently with a senior class. I had a child come up afterwards, all excited because he had a potaka and played with it often. We chatted about this, talking about similarities and differences with my spinning tops as well as me sharing some lovely wooden tops that I've been using as a link to potaka that were made especially for me. This child lit up, I think because of the cultural links, because he had something to share, some prior experience and because I challenged him about his potaka -how did it work, did he think it was better, could he bring it in to share with the class which he was really eager to do!
6. Links to other areas... It might be that you could find an article to share with a reading group or the class. For example, with my spinning tops, I've made up a wee whole class reading activity using PowerPoint and parts of a Wonderopolis article. If I'm doing something around birds, there's loads of Connecteds and School Journal articles the children could read. The children might be fascinated with the thought that the Ancient Egyptians played with spinning tops so I might head off, dare I say this on a science blog, to some exploration of Ancient Egyptians in a social sciences series of lessons.

   

   Ancient Egyptian spinning top, or so I've been told...

   
   

   

   Māori Pōtaka, te ara website

So there we have it, some ideas on where to next. I do hope this could be helpful for you! As always, do share your thoughts and questions in the comments section. 

And if your school is thinking about science PLD for 2018, give me a yell!!!

Keep sciencing on,

Paul

Being deliberately deliberate...

I was looking at some assessments the other day, along with a discussion of "Do you need to know any content to be able to ask any question that purportedly assesses the Nature of Science?"... And although I don't want to go down that very interesting avenue today it did get me thinking about how we develop the capabilities with students.

There are some great resources out there to support teachers in ensuring the Nature of Science "is the overarching strand" -my first stop would always be the TKI science online website, http://scienceonline.tki.org.nz/, and then the Science Learning Hub, https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/. Staying in New Zealand we have the NZAPSE website with activities and articles and of course the Royal Society website as well. All these have resources to teach different topics. Some are better at promoting the science capabilities or the Nature of Science but all need something more (in my humble opinion) and that's a teacher being deliberate!

A wee while ago, in chatting with some Year 9 teachers, they talked about what they'd like to see in fresh students eager to learn! It wasn't content (which I sort of was expecting to hear) but enthusiasm and understanding about science... knowing what words mean such as compare, investigate, analyse and being ready to enjoy science for what science is. They were wanting to see children who had also had a lot of science but not so much the what. This excited me! Imagine students who are asking questions, observing closely, inferring, critiquing one another, being aware of how science works, knowing bits and pieces giving them confidence to learn more, aware of science in their contexts, real world applications... the list is endless!

However for this to happen, and here's the aim for this post, teachers need to do more than simply do great science! We need to be deliberate about the vocab we use and ensure that students understand what those words mean in a science context. We need them to know that "although this is the 'water cycle', what's important here is the 'cycle' bit... we use this word in life cycles and rock cycles too... so what is the purpose of a cycle? What are the bits that help us identify it's a cycle?" A couple of years ago NZCER people came and shared with the science team some research they had been doing. I forget the fine detail but basically they found juniors could draw a butterfly life cycle fine but seniors couldn't draw the huhu bug life cycle even with all the information they needed shared with them. The students weren't aware that it's actually a cycle, a life cycle, and this one's about butterflies or frogs and can be applied to the huhu too.

So what does it mean to observe? What do I need to be doing to be observing? Is looking enough? Is a glance an observation? How do I critique? What is an explanation and how will I know I've explained (and I'm thinking about in a science context)? What is evidence? Is it just my thinking? What if I misinterpret the data... Ice melts because it's in my hand. When it's in the freezer, it's not in my hands so stays solid. When I hold it in my hand, it melts therefore my explanation is 'when ice touches skin it melts'... Teacher might ask 'So what's different? Could it be temperature?' No, it's just skin, skin must have some special property that melts ice... (and yeah, I know it's not a perfect made up example but I hope you get the idea)? Where to next?

This term as you teach lessons, focus on that Nature of Science element that the science capabilities reflect to a certain extent... What are the children learning about how science works? What words are important for them to understand and use (I'm thinking both science knowledge or content vocab, for example, solutes and solvents, as well as science processes like investigate, examine, measure, analyse)? How are you developing that science lens? Will children be asking more questions, investigating, discussing deeper, critiquing on another's thoughts? Will they know how science looks, which maybe quite different to how art looks? And the result of all this will be students who have sceptical dispositions, inquiring minds and the confidence to challenge.

Keep sciencing on!
Paul

Is it real? Does it matter? CGI and the world of the Nature of Science!

Yesterday Anne Barker, another crazy science facilitator working here at the IPL, Te Whai Toi Tangata, University of Waikato, sent me this lovely picture of a wee dragon hatching on the hills of Wales. It was an interesting coincidence as I had been busy saving some CGI images the day before!
I've been thinking for a while that these would be interesting to use with students and in different ways. With all this miserable weather and the end of the term drawing nigh, I thought these might make for some interesting science activities. If you do use them, do remind children that this is science time -how we observe, think and communicate might be a little different to other subjects and we want to develop that science lens as well as an awareness of what 'science' is, how it works.

From Facebook, Postize user 

 Before I even start getting children to do the 'thinking', I would grab these photos as a chance to develop those observation skills. Yes, we do want to hone inferencing and 'interpreting data' but for now, ask the children about what they can see. These observations or noticings need to be what we can directly see... I can't say, of my new favourite picture above, I can see very sharp teeth -because firstly, I can't feel these teeth (and would rather not!) and secondly, they might just look sharp but be rather blunt! I could say I can see x amount of teeth. They are all pointed at the tips and look like little isosceles triangles. Then I could add an inference of I think the teeth might be sharp. Another example is looking at the wet fur. Again, I can't be sure it's wet just from looking at it. It may be that the aaaah alli-bear (bear-igator?) is two-tone with its colouring. I notice that the legs and back half of the creature is a lot darker than the shoulders and head. I notice that it's running through water and there's a lot of splashes... I think that fur might be wet. I might do a bit of inferring -do you think the creature is running slow or fast? What do you notice that might help with your inferences? I think that it's running fast because when I run fast through water, the splashes are larger (prior knowledge) than when I walk. It's also on a bit of an angle which leads me to think it's running very quick. Again, we can't be sure of any of these facts, they're all inferences!

boredpanda.com

After some observations I might ask the children whether they think it is real or not. Critiquing is an important skill, as is developing that 'sceptical disposition'. There are lots of rather interesting sites out there with some not really being very clear as to whether they are 'true' or not. I'm always surprised how quickly some people will believe a Facebook claim or an internet photo -recently a couple returned home to find a meteorite had landed in their backyard. It was a NZ story and ran for a couple of days until it was realised that there was a prankster involved!

From Facebook, Postize user

If we think the picture isn't real, how come? What leads you to believe that? What clues are there? Yes, we can just run to google, but let's spend some time talking about it, thinking about it, critiquing, communicating, agreeing and disagreeing! How do we do this without using phrases like you're an idiot of course they're not real! We want to grow these communication skills so you might need to scaffold the way we could argue with one another. As I was chatting about this blogpost with Anne, she commented again on the Welsh dragons at the top -how could I know if they're real? I wonder if you had some general knowledge, that may help with thinking... We talk about the science capabilities and the Nature of Science and the importance of having contexts -this is the science knowledge bit and something that causes lots of arguments... what knowledge is important for children to have? Is it the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly? How to draw an electrical circuit? To understand how the phases of the moon happen? I have some of my own ideas that I think are important but I really like the way a teacher commented at a recent workshop (and sorry if I misquote you Robyn!) about the idea that simply having some knowledge might give you the confidence and want to know more stuff.
 I'm also particularly interested in clever CGI pictures that have hands in them -it sort of causes me to think twice about whether they are real or not!

boredpanda.com

My second idea for these photos is thinking about explanations... What might these new creatures do? What kind of habitats (using scientific vocabulary!) would they have? What would they eat? Would there be predators? How would they interact with humans? Might we kill them all because they'll kill us? Might we keep them as pets? I'm also thinking about what aspects of each animal are retained in the mutation...

From Facebook, Postize user

With my little monkey-rabbit... would this new creature retain all the intelligence within the brain of the monkey? Would its teeth be right for what kind of food the rabbit body wants? I'm imagining that the monkey's teeth will be more omnivorous and perhaps not so suited to a total herbivorous lifestyle. With a straight head swap, if there was trouble, the animal would have trouble climbing a tree to get away! A pony's teeth on the beaver head may struggle to eat fish, or gnaw a log for the dam so this creature might need to choose a different lifestyle.
If we decided that the animal has in fact evolved this way rather than a head swap so all the parts work together in harmony, what might it eat? How might it live?

boredpanda

Because we're wanting to motivate our children to want to write and read, could these activities be used as a motivation? As an observer, you see one of these animals in its natural habitat... What do you see? Hear? How does it move? How does it catch food? The children might need to know how the original animals live first (a bit of reading or YouTube videos!) and then decide which parts they want to use for their description. Could they draw a diagram of the creature highlighting features and their purposes eg "monkey brain for intelligence"... If the children decide that this creature has been deliberately mutated, why? By who? And for what purpose? What are the benefits of this mutated animal over a normal one?

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Perhaps the students would like to create their own creatures? Was just thinking it could be interesting if you had a pile of cards and whatever is drawn out is used! What if we wanted the perfect animal for eg climbing or swimming?

Finally, where did I get all these pictures from? The dreaded Google and Facebook! oh, and if the photos have 'boredpanda' attributed, they're real!

Keep on sciencing
Paul