First a big
thank you to those who answered my survey. I really appreciate your comments
and sharing your views as well as all the encouragement! Mostly, everyone was
pleased with the blog posts as they are, although fortnightly would be
preferred. The length was fine as were the different purposes of the posts
–support for planning, teaching, and assessment in science. One new component
will be Digital Technology. And some of you wanted to see some references to
the new DT+HM curriculum and in particular with a science focus. This will also
be good for me too; now that I’m an accredited DT facilitator, I better start
doing stuff!
This blog
is a bit of a bitsa… just a few ideas I’ve had bubbling for a wee while. Last
term, I talked about different science topics. With the increase in schools designing
their own local curricula, there’s more of a focus on local area science (or
place-based learning) and hopefully students participating in longer term
projects, for example, looking after the local stream or river, introducing
native species, reducing plastic, etc. This could end up with students working
on projects through their time at a particular school (which ends up with
wondering how we do this so all students continue to be engaged from NE to Year
8).
However, we
also have other context strands that may need a focus as well. I love seeing
science topics that can draw on more than one context strand, for example,
Living World and Planet Earth and Beyond, and the Cross Cutting
Concepts resources from the States are a good example of this. I do realise
that the curriculum is quite clear about there not being a need to teach all
context strands every year, as long as they have opportunities up until Year
10. Yeah, this could mean that we leave Material World and Physical World to
the secondary schools, but there’s lots of fun to be had here! I feel primary
teachers do have an obligation to at least introduce these topics, vocabulary and
concepts at least at an initial level.
These particular
areas fit in well to the shorter units that may only be a couple of weeks long.
Students may explore light or sound, build electrical kits, discover chemical
and physical reactions or simply play with different materials (for juniors,
this could be simply playing with plastic, metal, glass, etc. and seeking
patterns, noticing differences and developing vocabulary). It might even be a 2
or 3 day mini-unit modelled on the three day sessions of play --> explore scientifically --> inquire and communicate findings.
BUT! Are we
still thinking about what we expect the students to show vis à vis the science
capabilities? Do we have expectations that we can share with the students? Do
we know how to support the students in developing these science capabilities?
It’s all good deciding that by the end of the sessions, I want children to be
noticing change over a period of time, but how can I support the children to do
this? What questions will I ask? How will I share my own observations as I scaffold
this thinking?
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The
Physical World strand is far too big to cover in a year but I might pick two or
three parts to use as contexts for developing the science capabilities, and
also their thinking about this context strand. I might choose forces, magnetism or light, and revisit the topics two or three times. By having some notes, I can pick up
quickly what we were talking about last time. I know I don’t talk a lot about
the context strands as I’m far more focused on the capabilities and the Nature
of Science strands but there are contexts we should be working in! And these
change! There’s an expectation that children have visited Planet Earth and
Beyond in the junior rooms where they shared ideas and observations about the
Sun and Moon (Level 1 and Level 2) so that at Level 3 or Level 4, students can
then investigate the solar system, because they already have some idea about
space, been introduced to some vocabulary and have generated some curiosity! As
an aside, it does make me smile when primary schools want to do stars for
Matariki but the curriculum says that’s for Year 9 and 10 students –doesn’t stop
me though! Whilst I’m in the junior room looking at the Sun and Moon, I might
bring it up a few times through the year, choosing readers with this topic,
perhaps commenting on how bright the Moon was last night, etc… And the seniors
starting the unit might just spent a bit of time linking back to what the
juniors did before embarking for Uranus.
And the
same goes for the capabilities! If you’re into assessment (which I guess we all
should really be!), the NMSSA
resources are a great place to start with. Unfortunately, they start with
Level 2 but it’s not too hard to put in some ideas for Level 1 (although I have
a totally different way of thinking about Level 1 science!). We do want to see
the capabilities not as a jigsaw puzzle with bits here and there, but all
creating one picture through the year: Do
you remember when we were doing that experiment and we were collecting data
over 30 minutes? Today, we’ll be doing something similar. Some of you gave me
some feedback that it had been quite hard to measure temperature carefully so
today we’ll be using digital thermometers and stopwatch apps. Or it might
be we had some real issues with deciding
the difference between a chemical and a physical change so I thought we could
have another go at the experiment from last term, just for today, and see if we
can make sure we understand the difference. I found these two definitions
online and I thought we could start with them and then you could try and prove
which definition suits your experiment.
Oh, and I know
the Physical and Material World strands are big –the idea isn’t that you cover
all of them! These are just some ideas for you! I was having a look through
that big old green Science curriculum, the one I got when I graduated (actually,
I have no idea where my curriculum went, much to my chagrin!) and I love that
for every Level, there are sample learning contexts, possible learning experiences
and assessment examples that I reckon could still work with some capabilities
icing on the top!
So dig out
those Steve Spangler experiments, Nanogirl’s cook book (a great resource and
kiwi!) or the 500 Science Experiments resource folder and get going! Still have
fun! Still amaze the kids! But, see if we can create a wonderful jigsaw puzzle
picture that not only the teacher can see, but students too!
Keep
sciencing!