Gather and Interpret Data at the chalk face...

Hi everyone...
I had my first visit this week with a lovely little school north of Napier and got to spend Tuesday night watching the super moon rise over the port. Now I already knew that Napier was nice but way to pull out all the stops! 
Whilst I was there we started talking about the science capabilities with a particular focus on formative assessment. Because a visit is never enough time, I wanted to share some ideas on students developing this capability and some activities teachers could use. Rather than simply email it, I thought others might like this too! If you have further ideas, websites or resources that could help, please do share.

First stop has to be www.scienceonline.tki.org.nz. Here is where the science capabilities first arrived. Here you'll find definitions for each capability as well as levelled lessons for them. This is a gold mine for starting! There are lessons planned with just a science focus (the ones with the drop down menus) and with a literacy focus (the ones with the PDF to download). having a closer look will help teachers to understand the differences between gathering the data and inferring.

Term One is always a fiddly term with school camps, swimming, sports events, parent meetings, etc. so a perfect time to pick up some smaller 2-3 lesson units that are completed within a week. My lessons emailed last term are a good example of these and there are plenty on the internet. But they don't have a capabilities focus, they will have a content or knowledge one -the trick is using the lessons but changing the learning intentions to children observing closely and then inferring from these observations...

A lot of the ideas I'm thinking about lend themselves well to reading and writing as well as measurement in maths. Children can be writing a paragraph on an object with readers using the information to work out which object it might be, for example a group of rocks marked A, B, C and so on. Often when we have been busy observing, getting thrown by me asking questions and looking for possible answers, students are keen to research or investigate and here's the reading! Do we know how to critique what we read? Should we accept whatever Google puts up first?

With objects (and I guess photos could too), I like to encourage the children to estimate size and weight. At first they struggle with this as it's something we don't tend to do a lot of -but with science observations, we need to be! Remember though the differences between the levels of the NZC... young children may simply be talking about bigger than and smaller than, with older children using mm and cm, etc. 

Yes I know... I love fungus! But be careful as some are poisonous!

Objects can be anything! This week, I used half a dozen rocks off the beach and children were engaged for the whole half hour. I use shells, leaves, bark, rocks, feathers, seed pods, anything! Get children to describe aloud, see how many senses they can use, estimate and measure, compare, etc. I might get students to see how many describing words they can come up with and then go back through and put a smilie by the observations and a star by the inferences... Sometimes I walk around and star words too then challenge them to think about why I might have thought it was an inference. Get two groups together and tell them they can only describe the similarities between their two rocks, or only the differences. You could even use a Venn diagram with an object in each circle... older children might compare three or more -rock, feather and a leave could be interesting!

Students can draw observations or diagrams (the two are different), write paragraphs, lists of words, pose questions, research -the world's your oyster -really! Younger children could be focusing on shape, size and colour to start with.

Other options include media... I love using photos and prompting children to only describe features of what they can see -colours, shapes, etc. If they describe a feeling, I always run up to the screen, feel it, and say nope! They need to realise that's an inference as it's not directly measurable. Instead, I could say The fur is darker at the bottom. I think that means the fur could be wet as my hair gets darker when it's wet and the bear is running through a river. Remember, you need to be able to directly measure and observe! Using CGI images is great too! When finished, get children to write about the creature -could it be real? What would its diet be? What about its habitat? Images at extreme magnifications are good too -I like to use a fly eye for this!

Another thing I do with images is to use Word and then put a table over the top with all the cells filled in black. Students need to think carefully about which cell they want 'unfilled' and why.

He just looks so happy! And now I'm wondering if it's a she!

I always make sure there's a chance at the end to talk about the inferences and what the animal or object is.

The last sort of images I use are cartoons as these are wonderful for older children to unpack the inferences from the observations...

My most favourite Gary Larson cartoon!

I see two pilots... Really? Oh, I see two men... Well how do you know they're men? Okay, I can see the shoulders and heads of two men, One is wearing headphones and glasses. They both have uniforms -Really? Sigh... Blue shirts with yellow flashes on. I think that might be a uniform. One person is bald and I think that means it's a man... I have put a cartoon up and got teams to write down all their observations. As a team reads out their list and reads out one that might be an inference and another team challenges them, they have to stop if it is an inference and that team reads out...

Competitions are lots of fun with any images -all the groups make a list of words and see who comes up with the most. Put an object on the science table and people can just add to it whenever.

Videos are great too -I usually pick ones that are no more than a couple of minutes long. I might play it the first time with the sound off and then again with the sound on. And I let children talk at the same time -just like you teachers do! Nature videos are the best and the one I use the most is the one below. 

Sometimes I will ask the children why I might have muted it -this one has music which could make you think the spider is dancing instead of... I'll pause the video so we can describe the spider first and then watch the video. And then time for inferences... Inferences are always based on our prior knowledge or scientific knowledge -not just made up stuff! It has to have a 'because' as well... I think it might be hunting and trying to catch a prey by waving its arms so that they prey is distracted and comes over because it's curious. Some animals do this... Can you think of one? No, not right now. Okay, have a look and come back to us... I think it might be looking for a mate by dancing and showing it's body. It looks a bit like the peacock with his feathers... 

Other videos have great sounds -I have a couple that would be hard to guess unless you watched it -play only the sound... What do you notice? Describe the sound carefully -and in a measurable way not an inference! I notice that the sound has air puffing with the sound. It goes high then low at the end. I can hear a different sound in the middle only for a quick millisecond -it sounds like a woman. Then play the video too and discuss... as always, is it actually real?!?

 

This is getting a bit long! I might do some more next week and finish up for today otherwise I'll lose you all! Where can you find all these? I use Facebook a lot, go surfing once in a very rare while, save images and clips from news apps on my iPad... And you can head to my Facebook page (search science happening), and save to your computer what ever you like! I think these make great activities for after lunch as scientists learning how to observe as well as for writing starters...

Have fun. Tell me how you go and stay tuned for next week's ideas!

Keep sciencing