Elaine
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Viewing 10 posts - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
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I do find using rubrics to be very helpful in "grading" any type of report or application. As students work on projects, a simple check could be given at certain points along the way to just to make sure students or groups are on track. In addition to the methods for sharing listed above, I will invite experts in the field to come in to talk with students about their project and to give them feedback on improving the project or what possible next steps could be. A local non-profit, NoVA Outside, holds a Student Environmental Action Showcase each year where students can share their work with college students, the public, other students from across the Chesapeake Bay watershed and professional experts. I try to include elected officials in the review of student projects and to help the students work with them to change policy. We have had some luck with this with school boards and state delegates.
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One of the biggest issues I have is letting the students lead the work. Trained in secondary education, I feel like I always need to know the answers to all of the questions students are asking or know how just how to investigate them. I have to remind myself that it is ok for us to learn together. I don't have to be the resident expert on everything! Time is always an issue--making sure that students really have the time needed to collect enough data to answer their questions can be an issue too. As the teacher said--he has his kids get at least 12 days of data before doing any analysis.
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I like to look at the maps in Journey North. This has data publicly available that students can easily access. Journey North has recorded sightings on maps of frogs, various bird species, monarchs, leaf out times and tulip blooming--all signs of spring. The sightings have times associated with them. Students could overlay this data with temperature data, sunrise times, sunset times, distance from the ocean, proximity to rivers, etc. to see what variables may be affecting the time these various spring harbingers appear.
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I used eBird and Merlin. I loaded the apps on my phone and went out to ID birds and submit my sightings. I was a bit intimidated by this since there was one bird ID I was not 100% on. I wasn't quite sure what to do with that. I am looking forward to getting more familiar with using Merlin for ID to alleviate that issue. I think that doing this with students will allow them to become better at making observations as they learn more bird ID techniques. They will also be better at using technology as a tool for scientific research and can learn to make charts and graphs of their data. They can also learn lots about bird behavior, bird colors and body parts, why certain birds have the characteristics that they do, what birds travel in flocks and why, what birds are solitary or in pairs, where birds usually nest and other bird facts.
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One of the things I find is that we are so busy during the school day, we do not allow time for wonderings to occur. As an outdoor educator at a school my time with kids outside was often limited by the other specials kids had to go to, other classes, etc. One thing I did with a sixth grade teacher was plan to take kids outside to a wooded area on our grounds at least a few times per month for most of the school year. Small teams of students were given a meter square to record data and observations. The team used the same area every time they went out. The kids recorded certain data every time they went out and then made observations and wrote down questions they had. Several teams turned their questions into science experiments they displayed at our annual STEAM night at the school. It was just a matter of giving kids the time and the framework to wonder.....
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I found that by closing my eyes I could hear so much more. Counting the repeating sounds was fun and I was amazed at the amount of bird activity around me. I had lots of human made noise too--people, motors of various types--it was nice to have the natural and the unnatural coexist. It seems that there are so few places where human noise does not exist. Even on backpacking trips, airplanes fly over. Doing this activity has me focusing more on sounds as I have been going about the rest of my day too. This shows that observations using all of our senses are so key.
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1. Just getting kids outside 2. Improving student observational skills 3. Improving data collection methods. Keep the data collection and the solution finding student driven. 4. Framing the scientific need for the data--show the maps, the data compilations, talk about the real world problems that the data sets are aimed to help solve 5. Presenting the project and the project findings to an authentic outside audience and perhaps brainstorming next steps with that audience (projects to implement at school or in a local setting, new school policies or school district policies, local, state or federal legislation)---and then do it!!!
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In the work that I do, I always try to make kids feel like scientists. I may bring in experts to show them the best data collection methods so they feel like they really know what they are doing. This way too, they are willing to take ownership of the data they collect. Allowing them to see the data others have collected helps too--they see that their data is comparable. Collecting data more than once to be sure the data can be repeatedly found to be the same or nearly the same helps too. I always engage youth with outside people for presentations of what they have done. They can do that throughout the project with their peers, students in other classes, etc. to help them improve their project boards, get more wonderings and new areas for research. We bring in elected officials at the local, state and national level (we are located just outside of DC) and kids present to them. We have a few examples of new state legislation put in place due to student findings.--then kids really see they made a difference. Many of our projects are implemented at the school level so that kids see an impact there. A local non-profit NoVA Outside has put on a Student Environmental Action Showcase for 10 years now. This is in partnership with George Mason University. The event is on campus and college students participate as judges and volunteers. This has encouraged many students to consider college as a next step. The students are presented as content experts at this event. This has been curtailed with COVID-19 but we hope to be back at some point. We have done some virtual work the past two years.
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Working with elementary students to determine the best methods for managing stormwater on campus, we observe the movement of the stormwater during a rain storm and then talk about the need for cleaning and slowing stormwater before it is released from our property and into a nearby stream. Students are given a set of materials (screen, soil, sod, plants, filters, etc.) and asked to build the best water filter and solution we can implement on the school grounds to clean and slow the water. They are given small tanks to build their filtering solution. They measure the amount of water that comes through each filter design and the turbidity of the water. This is a guided inquiry activity because they are given the problem but not the full procedure or the question. Having them go beyond this with more questions--what if we used a larger area, what if we used other materials, what if we had a sequence of filters, --and then had them design the experiment fully could lead to open inquiry. (We usually follow through and build rain gardens or storm drain filters on site.)
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Inquiry is the basis for learning about the world around us. Students and teachers alike can explore and ask question after question followed by experiments and research. Inquiry is an iterative process that requires back and forth, more questions, more research and willingness to ask more questions and change course when the unexpected happens. It really is the scientific method expanded to real life.
Viewing 10 posts - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)