Advertising in NSTA Publications

December 2008 Issue—Theme: Community Resources

Featuring:

Communication Skills: Learning to Write and Writing to Learn in Science: Refutational Texts and Analytical Rubrics—This article outlines a technique that science teachers can use to help their students learn to write and write to learn in science. We, as science teachers, understand that our students need time, practice, and lots of encouragement in order to learn how to read and write well. What we also need to remember, however, is that learning how to read and write in science is an important part of scientific literacy and it can help students understand and retain key science content.

The Thinking Machine—Successful projects come from careful planning and revisions. This paper outlines a successful project on simple machines conducted with a group of future middles school teachers with the purpose of classroom application. This project is based on Rube Goldberg machines/inventions.

Designing the Perfect Plant: Activities and a Game to Investigate Plant Ecology—We developed plant ecology activities where middle school students "designed" and drew plant species and played a game to see which species was most successful.

Media and Science: Developing Skepticism and Critical Thinking—Analyzing media messages, a skill also known as "media literacy," has become increasingly important in the context of science. To analyze contradictory claims and make evidence-based personal decisions, a person must be familiar with the facts and processes of science. But that person also needs to be able to recognize and understand how those facts and processes are being presented and manipulated to put the best light on a given point of view.

Field Journals: Bringing the Past to Life—In this activity, students travel back in time as explorers to collect scientific information on plant and animal life during various geological eras. I use the book titled The Deep Time Diaries as a way to bring literature into the science classroom and as a way to introduce field journals. I give students two days to collect research from the internet, books, and maps to complete their field journal entries. They then compile the information and create drawings of what they discovered.

Science Journals: How Do Teachers Encourage All Students to Write?—There is increasing pressure for science teachers to make authentic connections to literacy. One 6th grade science teacher describes how science journals can be used to help motivate writing and learning while supporting inquiry-based science.

Science and Language Arts Teachers Working Together to Promote Literacy—In this article, science and language arts teachers team up on three open-ended question assignments. Literacy skills are interwoven with science process skills as students write from three different points of view to show their competence in science concepts. The three points of view are description, fiction and persuasion. The science skills and concepts that are forwarded by these writing skills are scientific reporting, careers, and scientific argumentation. The article presents three open-ended questions and a checklist scoring guide. Teachers provide time for practice, feedback and mentoring so that students can achieve competence in the presented skills and content.

Sculpt-a-Scientist: An Activity Designed to Confront Negative—Sculpt-a-Scientist is a fun tactile activity that I use to activate and confront preconceived stereotypes of scientists. Modeled after the Draw-a-Scientist test (Chambers, 1983), Sculpt-a-Scientist uses modeling clay or play dough as the medium for creative expression.

Science SLAMS—A reading strategy for answering open-ended questions—Reading strategies need to be integrated into all subject area instruction including science. SLAMS is a reading strategy that gives students a format for answering open-ended questions after reading non-fiction.

Effectively Communicating with English Language Learners Using Sheltered Instruction—This paper presents an instructional strategy for effective communication with English Language Learners (ELL) using sheltered instruction in the science classroom.

(Titles and content subject to change)