Science Standards and Groups

We started with standards that came from the NSTA - National Science Teachers Association. But they are broad, vague, grade specific, and voluminous.

The move has been to more:
- outcome based - meaning what the students specifically knows how to do
- hierarchial - with big ideas and less significant ideas clearly distinguished
- international - leadership in science standards has moved into the international arena
- scaffolded and spiraling and grade-banded - the talk is now of students covering the same big idea in K-2nd, 3rd-5th, and middle school at different levels of sophistication.

NSTA
NAEP
National Science Education Standards - see content, items, results over time by grade etc
Education Commission - International Standards
Pennsylvania Science Anchors - html conceptual
Pennsylvania Science Anchors - pdf doc

cool free physics engine

Here's a piece of code waiting for someone to really take advantage of it for educational purposes. http://www.newtondynamics.com However, it's more designed to be downloaded and ran than over the net which is not our preferred modus operandi. Still, it's cool.

Notes on Taking Science to Schools by NAS (2007)

Paraphrasing & Commenting

SCIENCE PROFICIENCY
Consists of 4 elements
1. Know science content
2. Do the evidence-explanation dance.
3. Know "the scientific method".
4. Participate: Do & debate science.

Note: 1 & 3 are knowledge. 2&4 are activities/processes.
Key issues.
A. How to incorporate 2&4 in online program? (esp 4)
B. Does the manditory testing test all 4? Or mostly just 1.
C. Should a (our) curriculum teach to the test (#1) or to Science Proficiency more boadly (#1-4)?

More detailed explanation of the 4 elements
1. Know science/Science content.
2. Do the evidence<->explanation thing.
--Compare evidence to explanation & vice versa.
--Generate explanations from evidence. Test explations using evidence. Say how explanations predict evidence.
3. Know "the scientific method(s). (How science is done and progresses. How it has progressed.)
4. Do & discuss science. (Do experiments and the evidence/explanation dance. Debate science.)

CONCLUSIONS
1. Kids come with implicit scientific knowledge (right or wrong).
2. ...and this varies with experience...
3. ...that is influence by race, gender & other social factors.
4. Kids learn by doing science.
5. Variety of approaches is needed.

Corollaries:
a. Must take into account what students know (meaningful? actionable?)
b. ...and be sensitive (meaningful? actionable?)
c. Kids are smarter (and better at abstracting) than we thought. (but how actionable?)

RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Treat children smarter.
2. Organize K-8 instruction & progression around a few "Big Ideas"
3. Stress the evidence-explanation dance. Include other forms of evidence generation besides experiments (e.g., observation, historical analysis)
4. Get students doing all 4 "Scientific Proficiencies": (1) knowing content (2) the evidence-explanation dance, (3) scientific method? and (4) doing, talking & debating (science).
5. (Authorities should give teachers the mandate to...) Get students investigating, talking and writing around the evidence-explanation dance.

MY SYNTHESIS OF THE CONCLUSIONS AND...
1. Build on the (implicit) science understanding that students come with.
2. Provide a variety of approaches to encourage and accomodate the variety among students (in the understanding/beliefs/attitudes they bring and individual learning styles/abilities/stages.)
...RECOMMENDATIONS
3. Treat children smarter.
4. Organize around "Big Ideas".
5. Get students doing and discussing the evidence-explanation dance.

MY REACTION TO THESE
a. Generally, 1&2 seem hardest and 3-5 seem easiest, most straightforward to implement.
b. 1-3 present the question of how? since they are rather vague and aspirational.
c. In a classroom, 2&3 present some challenges with all but #4: How to include/engage/encourage/not discourage students with "lower" scientific confidence, understanding or ability, with less interest and with different or "less scientific" learning and thinking styles?
d. An individual, online environment presents challenges with #5. How can a student do science and discuss/debate science on a computer, alone, at home?

You can learn a lot from bicycles about:

True or false.

You can learn a great deal from bicycles in terms of:

T/F The history of the last century. True.
More info: In the late 1880s, the bicycle was the focal point of technological innovation in the US. In the last decade of the 19th century, at least one-third of all new patent applications at the U.S Patent Office were bicycle related.

T/F The evolution of commerce. True.
Sewing machine factories had the equipment and skills to build bicycles, so some companies made the shift to this new, promising business. One such converted engineer was James Starley, one of the leading bicycle makers of his generation. Starley made a series of basic technological improvements that led to the development of the modern bicycle. As early as the 1870s, he devised ways to make steel tubing light yet strong enough to build bicycles.

T/F Physics. True.
(introduction to gyroscope section)

Sources:
http://www.fi.edu/learn/sci-tech/bicycle-tech/bicycle-tech.php?cts=instrumentation
*[From The American Bicycle. Pridmore and Hurd, 1995.]

List of resources

Here's another list of resorces, this one from thepioneerwomen.com
Audio Memory: You Never Forget What You Sing!
Gravitas Publications: Real Science 4 Kids - "Gravitas Publications, Inc. is a small, independent publishing company, specializing in quality educational materials for children and adults. Gravitas Publications is owned and operated by Dr. Rebecca W. Keller, the author of the increasingly popular science series Real Science-4-Kids (RS4K)"
Standard Deviants Educational Videos & DVDs - An expensive, but awesome resource for older kids, Standard Deviants was founded in 1993 with a mission to "combine solid educational content with cutting-edge technology and top-notch writing…Sometimes described as a cross between Sesame Street and Saturday Night Live, our products teach the most difficult concepts with an added twist of humor."
Teaching Textbooks - "Teaching Textbooks were designed specifically for independent learners, they simply have more teaching/explanation than any other product on the market. We realized that independent learners needed a product that contains the maximum amount of teaching, so a Teaching Textbook, with its approximately 700 pages of text and 120 - 160 hours of teacher instruction on CD-ROM, is both a teacher and a textbook combined into one."

Then our own list, collected and grown again:

BTW, in my search for interesting science education, I’ve run across a few resources that I thought that I would mention. These are lesser known but very useful resources.
1. The Science Songs - they are great!
2. The FOSS Science resources
3. Annenberg Media has complete science materials for K5.
4. Operation Physics is a curriculum of 13 physics units for grades 4-9
5. Time4Learning has huge chunks of great interactive online science curriculum.
6. The science gizmos at explorelearning.com
7. Glencoe virtual science dissections
8. unscientific list of tones
9. Andrew Nutter's sites: Chem4Kids , BIOLOGY4KIDS.COM, http://www.physics4kids.com/, http://www.geography4kids.com/, http://www.cosmos4kids.com/, and http://www.numbernut.com/

10 elearning has many modules - http://e-learningforkids.org/courses.html

11 VoyagerU's math and science gizmos at explorelearning.com

Online Science Courses to Checkout

I. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT/EMPG. Do later.

II. McGRAW HILL
A. K-8 DIVISION IS MACMILLANMCGRAW HILL

Main Textbook series is "Science: A Closer Look"
You can see their product line here. Also click a book and click through to see online sample of their Chapter/Section reviews and quizzes. (I got perfect score on all my grade 5 electricity and cells.)
http://www.macmillanmh.com/science/2008/student/index.html

Not available cheap on Amazon. Have to pay full price to get any copies.
http://www.macmillanmh.com/science/2008/student/index.html

B. SRA is their online. STILL NEED TO CHECKOUT FOR DETAILED INFO.

III. PEARSON

A. NovaNet from Pearson is their online course series for 6-12).

Press release on new NovaNet courses: http://www.pearsoned.com/pr_2008/081208.htm

Glossy brochure on: http://www.pearsonschool.com/live/assets/200814/NN_Brochure_Core_02(lo)_7241_1.pdf

Video sales pitch: http://www.pearsonschool.com/index.cfm?locator=PSZ9Oj&ProgramID=32510

Call 1-88-977-7100 (Pearson NovaNet)

B. SuccessMaker Enterprises is their main computerized course series.

need url

C. Pearson's Family Education Network...Don't bother looking at this. There's nothing there in the way of online courses. Just a lot of homeschooling and general educational info. But no course offerings.

Striving for some actionable insights

1. I get a little impatient as I guess you do with all the big reports with overarching conclusions stated as broad generalizations about what should be. A mixture of cynicism and interest, admiration and distain. Fortunately, we don't have to revise US science education policy, we just have to create a decent online curriculum that works for many but not necessarily all kids. But as a practical matter, what are the reports and our experience/common sense telling us that's usefu....

2. INTEREST/MOTIVATION/ENGAGEMENT. Kids learn best when their curiousity and excitement are engaged.

3. SCIENTIFIC CITIZENS? I think educating to create scientifically literate voters who make analytical science-based policy judgments is a little idealistic and silly. The majority of people will vote their emotions and prejudices. Issues will remain too complex and people too busy for most citizens to give serious scientific analysis to policy issues. Some people will naturally love and others will naturally hate and ignore science. We will always have a big population of the scientifically engaged/literate and the scientifically disinterested/illiterate.

4. CREATING OPPORTUNITY. On the other hand, making sure that all kids have the opportunity to get good at science (if they are so inclined temperamentally/intellectually) seems like a sensible and feasible goal. Otherwise stated, forget kids that don't like science, let's make sure that kids that like science aren't blocked by race, background or lousy teachers/schools/environment.

5. NURTURING EXCELLENCE FOR US COMPETITIVENESS. This is a second realistic, feasible, important goal. For kids that like science, we should have the mechanisms to make them the world's best and our country the world's best at science and technology. Science has to be cool and respected. Science Education has to be (a) available (b) high quality and (c) with fast and far advancement possible.

6. STIMULATION, CONTENT, INQUIRY & DEBATE/DISCUSSION/COMMUNICATION. These four items are my quick initial stab at the pillars of good science education. STIMULATION is kind of my own thing. The other 3 things are paraphrasing what I think your "motherlode" (lode/load homonym!) NRC blue-ribbon committee report is saying. They are saying that yes, experiments are important [i.e., INQUIRY] but not the only thing. You have to get kids involved in COMMUNICATING (reading/writing) in an interactive way [DEBATE/DISCUSSION] so they are using and understanding scientific reasoning, vocabulary, synthesis. And so they are absorbing and forming scientific explanations of the world and comparing that they think with what their friends think and their teachers say and the books says and their preacher says.

7. THE SCIENCE CYCLE. To restate what I just said, here's my sparkling theory. Learning science is about wondering (how something works, why something is as it is), observing, making your own theories, hearing others' theories, making a mental model of others' theories, comparing/contrasting it with your theories and observations. Maybe you could say Scientific Learning = Observations (mine and others) * Mental Representations (mine and others), where...

Learning is roughly the same as understanding and developing.
Observations is roughly the same as noticing, gathering/analyzing data.
Mental Representations is roughly the same as theories, hypothesies, explanations, principles.

Here's a third way of saying about the same thing.
A. MOTIVATION: I wonder (or am induced to wonder) how things work.
B. SCIENTIFIC PROCESS(ING): Once motivated, I engage in the process of going back and forth comparing OBSERVATIONS (that I make or am given) with EXPLANATIONS (that i make up or am given).
C. RESOLUTION:
(1) I am satisfied and feel accomplished when I arrive at a set of observations and explanations that make sense to me.
(2) I pass the test when I can move back and forth between the official observations and explanations that I am being taught.

8. THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD IS B.S. Another part of the discussion I find a little silly, is the stuff about understanding the scientific method and defining, inculcating and glorifying it. For people who are logical, linear, analytical thinkers it is second nature, a big Duh! if you try to teach it. (You don't have to teach it. You just model it and use it and they will absorb it.) And for people whose minds don't work scientifically, science will be difficult and possibly a turnoff. If you get the motivation thing going and the ping-pong game between observation and explanation is being played vigorously, the scientific process/method just happens naturally and comes along for the ride.

9. INTUITION, IMAGINATION & CREATIVITY matter. This is another reason why I think expounding on scientific method is a waste of time. It's not just scientific method that makes science progress. In fact, the progress, breakthroughs, ahas, inventions, discoveries come primarilyt from I, I and C. Scientific method is the tool, not the craftsmanship. Wonder, beauty and curiousity are also part of the non-scientific methods that are key to scientific motivation and progress.

10. HOW DO YOU (students) THINK THIS WORKS??? From my recent reading, esp. the recent "Uncovering Student Ideas in Science: New Formative Assessment Probes" series of 4 books from NSTA, I think this can be a key to a good curriculum. Ask the class (your homeschooler) why the sky is blue, how people got here, what causes day and night, what made the Grand Canyon, why is it sunny one day and rainy the next? If you get them engaged in explaining, exploring, wondering or best of all arguing about why? and how?...then the rest will be much easier.


ADDENDA:

1. I don't literally mean "forget students that aren't inclined toward science". I think we need mechanisms in high school and college (perhaps earlier) to feed their scientific curiousity and knowledge without turning them off and discouraging them with a lot of math, memorization and competition. Example, my young "R" is interested in science but thinks she's bad at it and hates math. She just took Astronomy for Poets (in college), enjoyed it, learned a lot and got an A. That's a success for doing the right thing with a scientifically-interested non-scientist. Bravo for the college and the teacher.

2. Just to restate the bit about "I pass the test when I can go back and forth well between the observations and explanations I have been given" above. An example: Exam gives a word problem. I know the formula (and hopefully what it means). I plug the data given into the formula and calculate the answer. I've just gone from given data to formula to answer data. In otherwords, from given observation to explanation to calculated observation. Capiche? Second Example: Exams asks why does the sky look blue? I answer with the theory about how the red and other wavelengths get filtered out by the atmostphere and blue light is what's left. OK, I just went from observation to theory on the exam. Last example: Exam asks what happens if you drop Calcium (Ca) in water? I say you get Ca(OH)2. I went from explanation (theory or principal about how Ca reacts (donates two electrons) with how OH reacts (want to accept one electron) to data. (Explanation to expected observation.) Just dancing back and forth between facts and principles and vice versa.