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Studies. In creating this unit, my goal was to accomplish three things: 1) Meet content area standards, 2) Incorporate PSSA test prep, and 3) Model an authentic scientific inquiry experience. This unit meets fourth grade standards in both the Common Core and Pennsylvania Assessment Anchors. In addition to the usual Math and Literacy high-stakes PSSA standardized tests that students in grades 3-8 are required to take in Pennsylvania, 4th (and 8th) graders must also take a Science PSSA. While there is a mile wide list of eligible content that is covered on the Science PSSA, the biggest enduring understanding that I want my students to uncover is that they can apply scientific skills to conduct their own experiments and design solutions. This overarching goal is summed up neatly under the PA Assessment Anchor category: The Nature of Science S4.A.2: Processes, Procedures, and Tools of Scientific Investigations. The anchor Physical Sciences S4.C.2 Forms, Sources, Conversion, and Transfer of Energy will also be incorporated, as students will have first-hand experience participating in circuit building investigations before coming up with their own researchable hypotheses related to electricity. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website reports that most of the electricity in the United States is generated from non-renewable resources. In 2011, the U.S. Secretary of Energy and Nobel Prize winning physicist, Dr. Steven Chu, launched an initiative to educate students about energy efficiency. When learning about electricity and inventions, students should be aware that the burning of fossil fuels is as much a moral issue as an economic one. Development of clean energy technology is necessary. The United States and the worlds dependency on natural resources like oil will not be sustainable forever. Countries, like China, who succeed at advancing clean energy technology, will be poised for global economic success. In February 2013, Dr. Chu announced that he would be leaving his U.S. Secretary post to go back to academia, teaching and researching at Stanford University. In his resignation speech, Chu reminded us that, We have a moral
responsibility to the most innocent victims of adverse climate change. Those who suffer the most are the people who are most innocent: the worlds poorest citizens and those yet to be born. I plan to reiterate these points to my students, so that they can begin to accept responsibility for their own energy consumption moving forward and perhaps be inspired to use and/or develop clean energy technologies. To encourage the notion to my fourth grade students that they can be scientists, I will introduce them to literacy and social studies texts directly related to what they are doing in science. The will read and reference non-fiction texts including: biographies of historical inventors and inventions (e.g., Thomas Edison and Lewis Latimer and the light bulb), and modern kid inventors (e.g. The Kids Invention Book); news articles of the top inventions of 2012; and, how-to manuals. Content related to Literacy and Social Studies will highlight two related enduring understandings. First, scientific and technological inventions have advanced the industrial growth of our nation and have spurred many changes in our daily lives. Second, these advancements had both positive and negative impacts on society and the environment, many of which can still be seen today. The Pennsylvania Department of Educations website aligns the Informational Text standards from both the PA Assessment Anchors to related Common Core standards. In each set of standards, students must be able to interpret topics from multiple points of view and use text structure to digest information. Many of my students have already expressed their interest in learning about electricity. While all of my 4th graders have daily experiences with electricity, most of them have no idea how it works. Many would be content believing electricity was magic. Other students have expressed that only scientists can explain electricity. Introducing this unit on electricity and inventors will my help students begin to identify themselves as problem-solvers and scientists. By using hands-on investigations driven by scientific methods of inquiry and observation, I want my students to realize
that they can answer their own questions. I believe the lessons will definitely be appealing and/or need satisfying (Glasser, 1998). The science lessons in particular will be such a departure from the students current everyday agenda, that I do not predict students will be bored. In carrying out this unit, I will need to establish my role as their teacher. Rather than answering their questions for them, I will aim to be a facilitator, questioner, and listener to whom they can communicate their ideas. Treating my students as passive recipients of understandings of a subject that others have constructed will defeat the purpose. Throughout the unit, I will ask my students to document their current beliefs, attitudes, and questions about electricity and inventions. Such documentations will not only reveal a great deal about students curiosities, understandings, and misconceptions, but also help inform my instruction. After the initial background-building experiments using batteries to light bulbs, I expect that students questions will evolve to reflect their broadening understandings of electricity. My job will be to help re-organize students inquiries so that they can distinguish between questions that can be answered through research in books and questions that can be answered via experimentation in an elementary school setting. I will also need to model basic trouble-shooting skills, so that students can use meta-cognition to identify when they are making errors in their connections. As a culmination science project, I want my students to mimic what happens in real scientific communities by having them present their question, hypothesis, data, summary, and new questions to each other. It is my belief that the students can learn as much from each other as they can from me. Learning about energy sources is a topic mandated by 4th grade PA Science Assessment Anchors, but I also choose this unit to satisfy my own preferences. I decided to put the central focus on science because my students are deprived of that content area almost exclusively. When they do get it, it is just a shallow glimpse. One of the sad consequences of working at an urban, public school that is labeled as failing is that science curriculum often gets pushed aside or ignored all
together. This has been the case for my 4th graders thus far. While my CM and I try to squeeze in mini-lessons whenever we can, we are discouraged from implementing lengthier science units that would steal instructional time from Math and Literacy. As a compromise, we tend to include science content in PSSA-prep literacy excerpts and math word problems. Growing, up I had a similar experience. In elementary and high school, science lessons were often presented as a list of completely abstract concepts that I believed held no connection to my daily life. Usually I found science my classes either boring or frustrating. The big picture, of why a science concept or natural phenomenon was meaningful, was often lost on me amongst all the seemingly unrelated, discrete facts and formulas I was forced to memorize. In fact, it was not until I got to college that I was required to design my own experiment as a Psychology major with a Cognitive Neuroscience concentration. If an experiment could answer my question, my undergrad professors pointed me to the right materials, rather than to the answers. At Penn GSE-TEPs program, I participated in an elementary/middle school science methods course that transformed the way I want to teach science to my future students. Our professor emphasized that science is doing. Instead of listening to long-winded explanations, we were provided with minimal, but deliberate instructions and adequate supplies to design our own investigations. As a class, we formulated our own operational definitions for scientific terms, by coming to consensuses. This only served to further deepen our conceptual knowledge as we were forced to justify, defend, and consider multiple explanations. Not to mention, this style of learning accurately reflects what real scientists and inventors do. Science education has become increasingly important in the 21st century. Cognitive Researchers (which is a relatively new scientific field itself) reveal that even young children have surprisingly sophisticated ways of interpreting the natural world based on their direct experiences with the physical environment. Children do not enter schools as blank slates. Any child who has
ever owned a pet (or any child that has been to a museum, camp, or park) has already had some experience investigating nature or science topics. And their current scientific beliefs are often shaped around these personal interactions. Teachers should aim to identify the status of students existing conceptions and misconceptions. In this way, teachers can deliver a student-centered curriculum that helps students construct knowledge in ways that build on or correct previous understandings. If only for 2 weeks, I want to deeply expose my students to true science objectives and goals (of observations, inquiry, and investigations). While the tasks of the students may be more challenging (as many fall on higher level of Blooms Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives), the lessons will still be developmentally appropriate. Lectures and explanations of how electricity works will surely go in one ear and out the other if students are not first permitted to do science. Each science lesson will provide multiple points of entry for students, as the investigations and questions will be open-ended, with no clear right or wrong answers at the outset. In fact, students will be encouraged to make different discoveries at their own pace through trial and error. I anticipate that this will inspire confidence and interest in students to persevere, especially in those who have just about given up in Math and Literacy. As their science teacher, I will be sure to emphasize that discovering what does not work, is just as important as discovering what does work. There are many resources available to us. At one point in her thus far, 16 year long career, my Classroom Mentor was a middle school science teacher. She has still multiple closets within the school filled with science kits, materials, and texts. Many of the supplies I need will be borrowed from her. For everything else, there is a commercial electric supply store 2 blocks from the Stanton Elementary. Students who are absent, will be able to catch up on lessons by simulating experiments like circuit-building on-line via laptops and/or through software apps via laptops borrowed from Penn-GSEs technology department. A presentation from other students, who have had success
exploring their own proclivities for engineering and electricity, would be an excellent resource and way to bring the unit to life. Right around the corner is Science Leadership Academy high school, a magnet high school that flourishes thanks in part to its partnership with Drexel University. In addition, West Philadelphia high school houses the West Philly Hybrid X Team, which won and placed in national competitions for electric car building, as well as for cars that get over 100 miles/gallon. My goal is to provide my students with as many connections to the enduring understandings as possible. My students initial ideas, even if they are misconceptions, about how electricity and scientists work will be acknowledged and built upon. The unit will aim to help students apply their existing knowledge to new problems and different contexts. As they confront new evidence and use new tools to examine data, I will encourage them to reshape their ideas over time. Furthermore, they will learn how to propose researchable questions, how to challenge a theory, and where to go to for more information.
References: Chu, S. (2013, February). Letter from Secretary Steven Chu to Energy Department Employees Announcing His Decision Not to Serve a Second Term. Retrieved from http://energy.gov/articles/letter-secretarysteven-chu-energy-department-employees-announcing-his-decision-not-serve Glasser, W. (1998). The quality school: Managing students without coercion. New York: Harper Perennial. Schneider, D. (2013, February). Simon Hauger Revs Up High Schools with Car Projects. Retrieved from http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/simon-hauger-revs-up-high-schools-with-carprojects