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