2014 Science Fair at the White House

Set aside the tri-fold presentation boards and the PowerPoint presentations on laptops. Today's 2014 White House Science Fair features young academics and researchers who are tackling some big projects, using up-to-the-minute technology to make it happen. 

From prosthetic limbs to galaxy clusters, from disease research to autism and solar power, these young scientists are testing boundaries. 

-- lab leftovers becoming solar power generators
-- new information about dark matter
-- a vibrating bracelet to help autistic children manage ritual behaviors
-- a prosthetic leg from recycled tires and zip-ties, for use in developing countries
-- an alarm that sounds when cars grow too hot for humans or animals
-- an environmentally friendly solar cell
-- partnering with earthworms to reduce carbon emissions
-- stem-cell research against adult brain cancer
-- pedestrian safety systems in Africa

...and more.

At a time when many students use iPhones to watch cat videos and the Web strictly for entertainment, it's encouraging to see what students are doing with technology. 

Wouldn't it be great to explore with our students what other young people are doing in labs worldwide? Many of them used only materials that nearly everybody has access to (recycled materials, computers and curiosity). What other scientific breakthroughs could we encourage? Maybe one of our students could be at the White House Science Fair someday....

ConnectED

On NPR today: a White House directive to the FCC, to explore ways of getting high-speed internet to all of America's schools by 2018. It's called ConnectED. 

I had no idea that only 57% of America's schools have access to high-speed internet because of location or limited technology. That means 43% of American schools -- not students, schools -- don't have access to the internet. 

The White House also wants teachers better trained to use technology to accomplish academic outcomes; and it called on businesses like Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and Comcast to invest in tech infrastructure to ensure that all communities and schools have equal access to the internet.

There's been a lot in the news lately about Net Neutrality, the concept that businesses should not be permitted to charge tiered fees for various internet speeds. Without it, only the "haves" will possess fast, reliable access to communication and information.

We can't afford "have-not" schools. Businesses that make money from cell phones and internet usage should be willing to invest some of that money in serving the public; and it serves their long-term interest as well. 

Let's Go Shopping

Dry-erase markers.
Post-It Notes.
Pencils.
Pencil sharpener.
Books about science.
Books about social studies.

Books about people.
Books for fun.
Educational games.
Folders.
Sharpies.
Crayons. 
Glue.
Scissors.
Colored pencils.
Plastic tubs.
Labels.
Pens.
Index cards.
Envelopes.
Stapler.
Staples.
Staple remover.
Push pins.

And the list goes on.

I'm starting to think about items I'll need as a teacher. I won't have my own classroom for more than a year, but I'm thinking about purchasing some of these items one at a time whenever I go to Wal-Mart. Or pick some up this summer when back-to-school sales start and store them.

The above items are common and suitable for every classroom. But what about specialized items that will enable me to teach creatively...only, I don't know what I need? 

Items for science experiments, math games, social studies activities, language arts (I do know I want to buy those magnetic word tiles for assembling poetry on a metal surface). I know I can do great science activities with everyday household items...but which ones?

And children's books...there's no shortage of them out there, but how do I know which books to start buying, when I don't know what grade level I'll teach? 

So many questions, so many ideas, so many supplies waiting to be bought...and of course there's the question of spending my own money. But I guess that comes with the territory. I need to strike up some conversations with teachers who can provide me with great shopping lists.

Sunrise, Sunset

As I sit here, the sun has been streaming in my palladian window, bathing me in bright rays. Too bright at times, and I keep moving a bit to get the light out of my eyes. But the sun has moved on now and there's light on the floor in front of me, but it's out of my way. 

If people in the ancient world had blogged, somebody could have written that. And it's something we would still say today. But why? We know it's the Earth that moves, not the sun. Why do we persist in referring to the sunrise, the sunset, the sun moving across the sky?

Perspective is everything in life: the way we interact with people, the decisions we make, the understanding we develop...it all depends on perspective. 

Should we use different language in the science classroom to reflect scientific fact? Sunrise could be Earth-down. Sunset could be Earth-up. 

So much depends on perspective. Even colors are subjective; we take it for granted that everyone sees colors the same way. Sounds? I've sometimes wondered while in a crowded auditorium, if we all hear exactly the same tones of voice or music. Does the opening chord of Bach's famous Toccata and Fugue feel exactly the same to everyone?

Height is a major perspective to consider. I'm 6'5" and I am comfortable leaning on the top of a refrigerator (you need to clean up there, by the way). The students I encounter in the classroom always ask how tall I am (one inch taller than Abraham Lincoln, I always say, and then somebody always mentions the top hat. I may have to start wearing one.).

I take my perspective for granted. But perhaps I should get on my knees occasionally and see the world from the height of a third-grader. And maybe a third-grader should stand on a desk to see my viewpoint. 

The sun moves, and the sun never moves. Perspective. How very much we all have to learn.

Joyful Noise

The songs of nature are varied: whispering wind, bird calls, summer cicadas. We hear them, we learn in school that sounds are made by wings and vocal sacs and legs, and we steer through the seasons by them. But only a few people can duplicate the sounds. 

There's a book of poetry that I've enjoyed for a long time for the way it captures the feel of insect sounds, if not their literal noises. It's called Joyful Noise, a Newbery medal winner in 1989. Using parallel columns of text, the author, Paul Fleischman, introduces the reader to the whirling, buzzing, humming world of insect songs. Sometimes the readers read simultaneously and sometimes in alternating or overlapping lines.

I'd like to use this book (and an earlier volume on birds, I Am Phoenix) in a science curriculum, intertwining the worlds of scientific understanding and literature. True, Joyful Noise doesn't explain the difference between a grasshopper's thorax and abdominal spiracles, but it does give a child a floating, jumping sense of a grasshopper's life. 

There's the humorous account of a water strider who tries to teach another insect how to walk on water (OK, the surface tension of the water)...the poignant one-day life of the mayfly...the contrasting daily schedules of a queen and a worker bee...the mourning of the digger wasp...and a truly magical last page, taken from the diary of a caterpillar in its chrysalis. 

To read this book is to understand insects in the way most children do naturally: through observation and the way they make us feel. I'd like my students to experience that in the classroom, as well as in their backyards. 

Pair up, have a read, and hear the joyful noise for yourself. 

                                                             cicadas

                                                             pulsing

pulsing

chanting from the treetops             chanting from the treetops

sending

forth their                                           sending

booming                                            forth their

boisterous                                        booming

joyful noise!                                     joyful noise!

Romeo, Juliet and Aerodynamics

One of the educational terms I'm learning about is "learning progression": the carefully crafted strategy of deciding what children should learn in a particular subject by a certain grade, and then developing ways to introduce and reinforce those concepts at various grade levels. 

The instruction is simple at first and grows more complex with students' abilities. This is familiar to everyone; we all know math is easier in first grade than in fifth. 

But an interesting angle of this is that a teacher can teach advanced and complicated information without calling it what it is. 

As my textbook says, you can teach atomic molecular theory without ever using the words atomic, molecular or theory. 

Which got me thinking: how many times are students scared away from interesting topics because of name and reputation?

Shakespeare alluded to this in Act II, scene ii of Romeo and Juliet when he wrote that a rose smells like and is a rose, no matter what we call it (though he said it better!).

Third-graders can learn aerodynamics by making paper airplanes, but they're just having fun. Later, the word "fun" changes to "aerodynamics"; and wouldn't you prefer to realize you'd been learning it all along, only without the label?

The Way We Were

In my Teaching Science class, we've been considering the value of an inquiry-based classroom, one in which questions aren't simply asked and answered, and we're finished, thanks very much, have a good day. 

A teacher has to find out what a student already knows (assessing prior knowledge) and build on that, and the way to do this is to ask questions and not immediately supply the answers. 

A lecture or a classroom talk is not the same as a textbook, but today I found a science text that demonstrates how not to do this. 

This is a page from a 1961 text, book three in the ABC Science series. What if a teacher asked the questions on this page and then answered them as the book does? A student has no time for conjecture. 

"How do plants get the oxygen they need?" Silence. Imagine the answers. "By eating dirt." "The air." "It breathes." 

A teacher could hear the misconceptions and steer the conversation. "Eating dirt is an interesting idea. Can you tell me more about that?"

Eventually the discussion covers processes the plant uses to survive, but meanwhile the student has learned to think, to guess, to feel it's acceptable not to know, and to collaborate. And eventually, s/he knows how a plant gets oxygen. 

A science textbook probably shouldn't contain only questions for conjecture. I'm not saying this book is a failure. 

But teachers shouldn't teach like a book. What teachers need is to have less information freely dispensed, and more questions that leave everybody in the room a bit hungrier to find answers for themselves.