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