Forum Role: Participant
Active Since: July 6, 2020
Topics Started: 0
Replies Created: 13

Forum Replies Created

Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
  • Allison
    Participant
    As an informal educator, I don't typically have opportunities to use rubrics or to grade the work of my students. I'd love to develop some kind of after school science club or camp where we would have more time to dive into report writing. Even if I didn't give out grades, having some form of a rubric would give the students a clear idea of what their project should look like and also give the students a chance for peer review, which I think would be the most helpful tool!
  • Allison
    Participant
    My biggest challenge comes with limited time. Since I lead programs that are often only an hour long, I not only don't have time to formally assess students' work, but I often feel like I don't have time to facilitate inquiry with all of the content I have to fit in the programs. I understand this must be how formal educators feel with their own lesson plans and education requirements! While I often ask questions to the group, it's hard to get all of the students to speak up and voice their thoughts. I find that when I take them outside they seem to have more courage to talk to me or talk to other students that might have been all the way across the classroom before. Out in the field they can look around and explore what they are curious about. I'd like to move away from structured lesson plans a little bit and create room for deviation so I can follow the students' inquiries and curiosities.
  • Allison
    Participant
    I usually turn to the iNaturalist database for any information I need, as they have data on every kingdom! iNaturalist data is accessible to anyone, even if you don't have an account. I think it would be a lot of fun to study data trends between different species, or even broader than that. For example, we can explore the relationship between the observations of pollinators and flowering plants, or something more specific like the observations of Monarchs versus milkweed plants. I think a large database like iNaturalist would provide the widest opportunities for students with any interests!
  • Allison
    Participant
    I did the Great Sunflower Project. While I use iNaturalist and participate in citizen science projects that require photo observations, I love finding projects that do not require photos with your observations. Working in a park, I don't have technology that I can share with a large group of people and we often do drop-off programs that don't involve the parents or their phones. This makes it hard to do many citizen science projects, but I'm very excited to try out the Great Sunflower Project and even eBird with a group of students. I noticed while doing my count that it might be a little difficult to identify a pollinator while keeping up with other pollinator species coming and going. It might help to do this project with a group of kids or in pairs. I expect the students to see many more species of pollinators than they would have expected and to be curious about their behaviors, flying from flower to flower. It's also always great to teach and reinforce the importance of pollinators. This can be a great activity to spark "I Wonder" questions!
  • Allison
    Participant
    I find that responses are often different depending on if I'm talking to the kids inside our Nature Center or if we're outside in the park. In the Nature Center, they're seated at tables while I stand at the front of the room. In these situations, they know they're supposed to sit quietly and listen to the teacher. It's hard to start discussions like this. However, when we go outside and we are all standing together in a group, it helps to break down the barrier between teacher and student and we can begin to have a discussion as a group of scientists. As someone else pointed out, the shy students will also come up to me when we're outside. They are able to speak to me directly instead of saying something to the whole group and with positive reinforcement, the students gain more confidence to speak to me and the other students.
  • Allison
    Participant
    When I'm leading a program, it's hard not to point out something interesting that I see and tell the students all about it. Like with the pigeon example in the video, it would be more beneficial to point something out, ask a question, and have the students explore the interesting sight themselves through inquiry. I think it would also be exciting to explore something that I don't know much about. That way I can join in on the students' inquiry and exploration and help them learn about the process by facilitating their questioning and also demonstrating it myself. I occasionally lead programs for adults and I find that I can act more like a partner in those settings more than with kids. I think that if I "position youth as people who do science" I can build their confidence and we can work together as a team of scientists rather than a class and a teacher!
  • Allison
    Participant
    I most enjoyed hearing a sound and then figuring out where it was on my map. It was like a spacial exercise or puzzle for my brain. I could hear a bird chirping and try to decide how far away it was. Whenever I'm outside, I usually listen for small sounds around me that help me find creatures, like insects, herps, or birds. But when I did this exercise, I noticed constant sounds farther away that I would normally block out. I also had to make sure that I didn't focus on what I was writing so much that I could miss sounds. This would be a great activity to do with kids and adults to help connect them with the nature around them and to help with multitasking! Sound Map
  • Allison
    Participant
    As an informal educator in a nature center, I am able to provide a lot of hands-on learning in the park. We often do citizen science events, but not as much in a smaller program setting. I feel that I need to bring more inquiry into our smaller programs. I like the idea of the "I Wonder" board. While I can't always incorporate the scientific process in activities and crafts that I lead, I believe that an "I Wonder" board could fit well into any program! The kids can contribute questions to the board throughout the program and at the end we can discuss the questions and how we would go about finding the answers. This way, the kids can take these ideas home with them and work on finding answers as an at-home extension.
  • Allison
    Participant
    Because I teach programs in a park, I believe that I often engage students with complex systems and also connect them to their local environment. However, I need to work harder to model the first practice, "position youth as people who do science." With a limited time for programs, I don't often engage the kids as scientists as much as just help them experience science and nature. I need to do a better job of facilitating inquiry and data collection instead of directly telling or leading them to what I'm trying to teach.
  • Allison
    Participant
    I typically use iNaturalist as a platform and participate in projects that use it, like the NRPA's pollinator bioblitz, and we've also participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count. I work in a park and it's typically easier to incorporate citizen science into events for the general public. They can either participate directly through iNaturalist or eBird, or we provide observation forms and the option for participants to submit their observations for us to log into the appropriate cite. In programs, the kids don't typically have their own phones to take photos with or log observations so I do that part for them whenever we find new species we'd like to identify and log. We're also in the process of introducing citizen science hikes for families where we'll focus on a specific project each time and the adults in the family will be able to take photos of observations.
  • Allison
    Participant
    I work in a Nature Center and lead just one hour nature programs for kids of all ages. It is very difficult in this setting to teach specific procedures and to see progress, as we don't have the same group of kids each time. I do have a topic that I really enjoy teaching that I believe often falls under structured inquiry or guided inquiry, depending on the day, and that topic is seeds! I talk with the kids about how it's important for seeds to get distance from the parent plant for their survival and the survival of the species, then we speculate on how the seeds could travel. While we don't write anything down because of the time constraints, we discuss a question, go out into the park to gather up seeds of all types, think about how each of the seeds could travel, and then test the "hypothesis." Or if we cannot gather seeds, I would provide them with the materials, which would be the structured inquiry approach. I enjoy the first scenario much more because they get to find the test subjects and decide on the procedure to test out their hypothesis. If I could do this program, and others like it, with a little more time I could have them write down their questions, hypothesis, and data in a journal. However, I could do a much better job communicating this scientific process verbally instead of the more unstructured flow I typically lean toward.
  • Allison
    Participant
    You have some wonderful ideas! I do Alka Seltzer rockets during camps or whenever we need a "fun" experiment during programs. I often find that the kids don't quite understand or just don't care about the chemical reaction on paper, but just enjoy the colorful explosions! I think helping them think about the experiment and changing the controls is an incredible way to help them think about the reaction going on in the rocket. Thank you for the tips!
  • Allison
    Participant
    As I did the concept map I just let my mind wander and wrote down everything, so it's a little more personalized to how I consider inquiry. To me, inquiry is natural wonder and excitement over the magic in life. I experience inquiry everyday, like when I wake up in the morning and immediately look out the window to see what birds are visiting my bird feeder. Inquiry comes from experiences that make you go "huh" and make you want to keep learning new things. While this comes naturally to me in my adult life, I can see how inquiry, especially scientific inquiry, needs to be facilitated in youth. I'm very excited to get back in the classroom and help kids see the wonders in science and nature so they can gain a lifelong curiosity. Inquiry Concept Map
    in reply to: Intro to Inquiry #720081
Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)