FCAT Science

Thirty ele­men­tary teach­ers attended a full-day hands-on-minds-on, inquiry-based teacher train­ing work­shop enti­tled Teach­ing Sci­ence Through Children’s Lit­er­a­ture. Teach­ers were intro­duced to a wide-array of children’s lit­er­a­ture that can be incor­po­rated into the sci­ence class­room to teach inter­me­di­ate level sci­ence con­cepts cov­er­ing the New World-Class Sun­shine State Sci­ence Stan­dards. Teach­ers con­ducted a wide-array of hands-on-minds-on inves­ti­ga­tions to explore nature of sci­ence, earth and space, phys­i­cal sci­ence, and life sci­ence con­cepts. Inves­ti­ga­tions under­taken by the teach­ers were directly con­nected to the Big Ideas within the New World-Class Sun­shine State Sci­ence Stan­dards. Teach­ers explored the states of mat­ter with a unique non-Newtonian sub­stance called  . They also were intro­duced to how to use Oobleck to teach numer­ous earth and space sci­ence con­cepts. Teach­ers designed and con­structed bot­tle biol­ogy ecosys­tems to rein­force a wide-array of life sci­ence con­cepts includ­ing: food chains, food webs, inter­de­pen­dence, lim­it­ing fac­tors, oxy­gen cycle, nitro­gen cycle, carbon-dioxide cycle, pho­to­syn­the­sis, and the water cycle. Teach­ers were intro­duced to many of Leonardo daVinci’s inno­va­tions and inven­tions by explor­ing the book Who Was Leonardo daVinci by Roberta Edwards. Teach­ers con­structed sim­ple para­chutes and heli­copters, and com­pared bird feath­ers to air­plane wing design to explore force, motion, and energy con­cepts as well as make con­nec­tions to the con­tri­bu­tions of Leonardo daVinci to soci­ety. Teach­ers explored weath­er­ing and ero­sion con­cepts and the rock cycle by con­duct­ing hands-on inves­ti­ga­tions with Coquina Rock. Lastly, teach­ers observed and stud­ied man­grove seedlings to rein­force numer­ous life sci­ence con­cepts. Each hands-on-minds-on inves­ti­ga­tion was directly related to selected children’s lit­er­a­ture. All inves­ti­ga­tions under­taken dur­ing the teacher train­ing work­shop are directly related to FCAT Sci­ence annu­ally assessed bench­marks. A sam­ple of children’s authors included: Lynn Cherry, John Him­mel­man, Dr. Seuss, Ellen Prager, Kris­tine and Robert Thorson,Cherie Mason, Jean Craig­head George, Carl Hiassen, and many oth­ers. All of the children’s lit­er­a­ture intro­duced to the teach­ers and used within the teacher train­ing work­shop can be found and ordered from the fol­low­ing site.

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.