Science unit lengths and developing thinking...

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?

The game the whole family can play... Aah yes I understand now... you have some bits missing from your brain...
Oh the jokes! Buy here!

 And then there’s the other side! I sometimes worry that little units end up being like a pile of jig saw pieces. There might be the odd piece that you can clearly see joins to another but, for plenty of children, they’re all just random pieces! As I’m writing this paragraph, I find I’m asking myself Do you mean capabilities-wise or context strand-wise? I mean both! I think one three-day session on the Material World area of grouping materials in different ways, based on observations and measurements (L3 and L4) is a good start but I want to develop their thinking! I might need to jot a few notes of class behaviour, their thinking, any misconceptions and wonderings so that I might pick this up again at a later time.

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.

Not a planet... our Aloe Vera is going mad flowering and I'm thinking lots about how much energy this must take besides admiring the symmetry and how lovely the flowers look! Maybe there should be an 'A' in STEAM!

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!