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.

Florida is fac­ing a crit­i­cal short­age of math and sci­ence teach­ers at the mid­dle and high school level. Florida plans on using Race to The Top funds to spur the edu­ca­tion of more of these  crit­i­cal instruc­tors, accord­ing to the Florida Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion. I’m hop­ing that the Florida Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion seeks out qual­ity edu­ca­tional expe­ri­ences and long-term pro­fes­sional staff devel­op­ment for the math and sci­ence teach­ers that will be head­ing into Florida’s mid­dle and high school sci­ence class­rooms. Also, of impor­tance is the need for teach­ers trained in STEM edu­ca­tion prac­tices. To read Leslie Postal’s arti­cle in Novem­ber 28th, 2011 Orlando Sen­tinel see the fol­low­ing link.

Just back from con­duct­ing 10 days of teacher train­ing work­shops through­out the state of Florida. As always it’s a plea­sure to share my exper­tise and enthu­si­asm for sci­ence with the teach­ers I meet. The 2011–2012 school year is no dif­fer­ent than the pre­vi­ous years, school dis­tricts and schools want for their stu­dents to do well on the FCAT. For stu­dents to do well on the sci­ence com­po­nent of the FCAT it’s essen­tial that the stu­dents have had the oppor­tu­nity to con­duct hands-on-minds-on, inquiry-based sci­ence inves­ti­ga­tions through­out the school year. The stu­dents must be able to com­pre­hend sci­ence con­cepts. If they have been taught sci­ence con­cepts through route mem­o­riza­tion and paper and pen­cil activ­i­ties, they are sure to do poorly on the FCAT. The FCAT requires stu­dents to be able to think crit­i­cally, includ­ing extrap­o­lat­ing infor­ma­tion from extended ques­tions, as well as inter­pret­ing data from graphs. Dur­ing two recent FCAT sci­ence teacher train­ing work­shops teach­ers explored a wide-array of sci­ence con­cepts from the Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Stan­dards. Teach­ers con­ducted hands-on inves­ti­ga­tions to explore Nature of Sci­ence, Earth and Space Sci­ence, Phys­i­cal Sci­ence, and Life Sci­ence con­cepts. Con­duct­ing inves­ti­ga­tions that allow the stu­dent to see the con­nec­tions to the Big Ideas is essen­tial. The fol­low­ing pho­tos are from recent FCAT sci­ence teacher train­ing work­shops. I’m wish­ing all the Florida stu­dents and teach­ers a great year ahead, to ask ques­tions, develop crit­i­cal think­ing skills, as they actively explore all the won­ders of 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.