FCAT Science

Teach­ers were actively engaged in the learn­ing process as they con­ducted hands-on-minds-on, inquiry-based inves­ti­ga­tions to explore FCAT sci­ence con­tent and con­cepts. I began the work­shop with hav­ing teach­ers dis­cuss how they help to develop and strengthen crit­i­cal think­ing skills in their stu­dents. Teach­ers con­ducted inves­ti­ga­tions to explore the nature of mat­ter, phys­i­cal sci­ence, earth and life sci­ence con­cepts. It was a great group of teach­ers, and fan­tas­tic Cen­tral Florida school. I expect great strides in the sci­ence class­room from this group of moti­vated teach­ers and their students.

May­port Mid­dle School has added a coastal sci­ences mag­net pro­gram to its cur­ricu­lum. The addi­tion of the Coastal Sci­ences mag­net pro­gram has helped to increase stu­dent  enroll­ment at May­port Mid­dle School by nearly 100 stu­dents. The Coastal Sci­ences mag­net pro­gram is the the first of its kind in Duval county, and the first mid­dle –school mag­net in the Beaches and intra­coastal area. The school’s enroll­ment had declined in recent years due to the depar­ture of the air­craft car­rier USS John F. Kennedy from May­port and the clos­ing of numer­ous mobile home parks and apart­ment com­plexes in the sur­round­ing area. In addi­tion to tak­ing the tra­di­tional sixth-grade sci­ence class. Stu­dents enrolled in the Coastal Sci­ences mag­net pro­gram take another sci­ence class divided into four nine-week areas: micro­bi­ol­ogy, oceanog­ra­phy, marine envi­ron­ments, and liv­ing coastal zones. Stu­dents con­duct hands-on labs such as using dip nets to col­lect marine spec­i­mens within a pond located on the cam­pus. Addi­tion­ally, May­port Mid­dle School has a new lab, out­fit­ted with lap­tops, aquar­i­ums, micro­scopes, and other equip­ment. The new lab was paid for with a fed­eral grant. Per­haps other Florida school dis­tricts fac­ing a decline in stu­dent enroll­ment should con­sider revamp­ing schools with declin­ing enroll­ment with sci­ence and/or STEM mag­net pro­grams. Check out The Florida Times-Union arti­cle Marine Biol­o­gists: The Next Gen­er­a­tion by Mary Kelli Palka.

I recently had the plea­sure of con­duct­ing a full-day teacher train­ing work­shop for a char­ter school in Florida. Thir­teen teach­ers were actively engaged in inquiry-based inves­ti­ga­tions that tie directly to the Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Sci­ence Stan­dards. Teach­ers con­ducted numer­ous hands-on-minds-on explo­rations to investigate:

• Nature of Science;
• Earth and Space Science;
• Phys­i­cal Sci­ence; and
• Life Sci­ence concepts.

The admin­is­tra­tor of the school requested that I rein­force the impor­tance of writ­ing and jour­nals within the sci­ence class­room, as well as across the dis­ci­plines. Thus, a major focus of the teacher train­ing work­shop involved the teach­ers main­tain­ing a jour­nal through­out the ses­sion. We spent the early part of the morn­ing explor­ing the school yard. Mak­ing obser­va­tions, col­lect­ing leaves, seeds, soil sam­ples, insect exoskele­tons, and more… While out­side the teach­ers recorded their obser­va­tions in their stu­dent note­books. When we returned to the class­rooms teach­ers were given time to reflect on their obser­va­tions within their jour­nals, observe spec­i­mens with eye loupes and micro­scopes. Teach­ers then attached spec­i­mens inside of their jour­nals. Addi­tion­ally, were introduced:

•  To effec­tive strate­gies to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between weath­er­ing and erosion;
• How liv­ing things inter­act with their envi­ron­ment via design­ing and con­struct­ing a bot­tle biol­ogy ecosystem;
• Botan­i­cal concepts;
• States of Matter;
• Dif­fer­ences between chem­i­cal and phys­i­cal changes; and
• Dif­fer­ences between mix­tures and solutions.

At the end of the teacher train­ing ses­sion, the teach­ers left the ses­sion with their arms filled with mod­els they had con­structed, ref­er­ences, man­u­als, and an inter­ac­tive stu­dent notebook/ jour­nal from the ses­sion. I’m quite cer­tain that these teach­ers will incor­po­rate many of the strate­gies they were intro­duced to as they imple­ment the Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Sci­ence Stan­dards  (NGSSS) in their classrooms.

I’ve been con­duct­ing full-day teacher train­ing work­shops for the past two weeks at a quaint beach­side ele­men­tary school located in Volu­sia county, Florida. The six hour work­shops are con­ducted for spe­cific grade lev­els, align­ing with their cur­ricu­lum maps for the last 9 weeks of the 2009–2010 school year. The fol­low­ing pho­tos were taken from the 4th and 5th grade teacher ses­sions. Dur­ing the work­shop teach­ers con­ducted numer­ous inquiry-based hands-on sci­ence inves­ti­ga­tions to explore life sci­ence con­cepts. Teach­ers recorded notes, obser­va­tions, and attached spec­i­mens in their inter­ac­tive stu­dent note­books. Inves­ti­ga­tions made con­nec­tions to the Big Ideas 14–17 from Florida’s Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Stan­dards. The teach­ers left the work­shop revi­tal­ized, ener­gized, and excited about explor­ing life sci­ence con­cepts with their stu­dents. Great group of teach­ers, and an exam­ple of a  school that has placed empha­sis on the impor­tance of con­duct­ing mean­ing­ful sci­ence with their stu­dents. Dur­ing the teacher train­ing work­shop teach­ers con­ducted the fol­low­ing investigations:

• Con­ducted inves­ti­ga­tions to explore clas­si­fi­ca­tion con­cepts (animal)
• Con­ducted inves­ti­ga­tions to explore clas­si­fi­ca­tion con­cepts (plant)
• Con­ducted inves­ti­ga­tions to explore life cycles within the plant and ani­mal kingdoms
• Con­ducted inves­ti­ga­tions to com­pare and con­trast among the plant and ani­mal kingdoms
• Designed and con­structed a model of a plant or ani­mal cell using a ziplock bag filled with Karo Syrup (rep­re­sents cyto­plasm), with addi­tional mate­ri­als placed within the bag to rep­re­sent the cell organelles.
• Designed and con­structed a class­room ter­rar­ium rep­re­sent­ing a com­plete ecosys­tem (gar­den snails, pill bugs, earth­worms, bird seed, soil, water, and decay­ing plant mate­r­ial were placed inside aquar­i­ums). Con­cepts cov­ered included: inter­de­pen­dence, ecol­ogy, envi­ron­ment, food web, com­mu­nity, sun, energy, energy trans­for­ma­tion, pro­duc­ers, con­sumers, and decomposers.
• The key con­cept inte­grated within all inves­ti­ga­tions under­taken was struc­ture and func­tion in the plant and ani­mal kingdoms.

Teacher uses a micro­scope to observe pond water organisms.

Teacher builds model plant cell from sim­ple house­hold materials.Cell model lab sheet used in mak­ing model of plant and ani­mal cell.

Teach­ers used inter­ac­tive stu­dent jour­nals dur­ing teacher train­ing workshop.

Teacher builds class­room ter­rar­ium to teach about life sci­ence concepts.

Teach­ers stud­ied the Hibis­cus plants as well as the ani­mals that live on or near the Hibis­cus plants.