How do you get third graders shrieking with excitement over the solar system? By up-ending the traditional ways of teaching it, throwing out old lesson plans and taking advantage of our school-wide mentoring program. Since I was directly involved, I have a lot of skin in this game and was hoping that this could happen. But there is always risk in doing something new.
I’m working with the two teachers, Alicia Palmeri and Carla Christiana, of Bogert Elementary in Upper Saddle River, NJ and their students via videoconferencing as part of our schoolwide pilot project by my start-up company iNK Think Tank. We are a group of award-winning children’s nonfiction authors who are mentoring both teachers and students who are using our books as they fit into their curriculum. The iNK group doing the mentoring is Authors on Call. We are working in all disciplines in grades 3, 4, 5 and the sessions with teachers and conferences with students are timed to coordinate with what’s happening in the classroom. It is an innovative, organic approach to content and literacy that seems to infect everyone with the love of learning.
In my initial interactive videoconference with Alicia and Carla, I stressed that learning about the solar system meant thinking about how we know about it. We look at the sky and see two things: light and motion—i.e. bodies of light that move. That’s it! The stars, sun and moon rise and set. Planets, which mean “wanderers,” move over a period of time against the background pattern of stars. Sometimes they move backwards for a while but they ultimately come back to the same place in the sky where they were first observed. From this information, we have to figure out what’s actually happening.
Alicia and Carla agreed to use my approach to introduce the unit by asking the children to first think about motion. As part of our project, Bogert is using my book called What’s the BIG Idea? The introduction to the book defines “a BIG idea” as one for which there are no quick or easy answers. There are four BIG ideas in this book: motion, energy, matter, and life. Science tackles BIG ideas. How? The same way you eat an elephant: one bite at a time. Science, itself is a big idea. Every topic is broken down into a series of questions in a logical sequence. The answer that follows each question is full of simple hands-on activities that illustrate concepts. This book, by the way, meets all eight core curriculum standards for science. So to begin this unit, I asked the teachers to give their students the first question in the book, which is displayed on a double-page spread.
I suggested that they print out a pdf of the page (which I supplied) and give it to their students and ask them to think about the question and talk about it with each other and their parents for a day without giving them the answer. This is not the typical approach. Teachers often report feeling compelled to answer kids’ questions immediately so that they do well on tests. Quick answers also tend to stop further questions.) Right from the git-go asking the teachers and students to dwell on a question for twenty-four hours was outside-the-box. I was extremely gratified that Carla and Alicia grasped the importance of teaching the content as I’ve organized it in my book, although it meant writing up completely new and different lesson plans. The logical sequence of the questions in What’s the BIG Idea? ultimately gives a foundation for understanding many concepts,including the celestial mechanics of the solar system. The first question is: Why does a rolling ball stop rolling? After dancing with mystery overnight, the next day the kids were more than ready to read the text that begins to explain the First Law of Motion. They then followed up with the second question in the book: “How do we know the earth is moving when it looks like the sky is moving?” This led to an understanding of stellar parallax—the concept first put forward by Copernicus as proof the earth moved, although the tools needed to actually see it hadn’t been invented yet.
I then met the students for my first interactive video conference where I told them the story of how Galileo was sent to prison for life for suggesting that the earth was moving around the sun. That powerful story made quite an impression! The teachers were hoping that this session with me would generate questions for the kids to research.
There was no question that the students were very interested, engaged, and enthusiastic. Clearly they were motivated to learn more. And I didn’t want them to lose that. But the questions that the kids came up with weren’t really good questions for a research report. A meaningful research question depends on knowing something about the subject. These kids didn’t know enough yet to ask such questions. So I started worrying about how to get them to learn more.
I believe that elementary school science needs to focus more on HOW scientists learn. Astronomers learn a lot about the universe by studying pictures and recent technology has produced extraordinary photos of all sorts of heavenly bodies. These photos are free on the NASA website. How about asking the children to explore the site, working with partners on assigned topics within the solar system, to find something personally exciting and interesting to share with others? (The specific facts are not important.) I suggested this to the teachers through a LOT of writing on our wiki. (You can see for yourself on the page: http://bogert-authorsoncall.wikispaces.com/Carla+Christiana) After visiting the NASA website, Carla agreed but expressed some reservations:
“I’ve had some more time to think about the new research assignment. I’m thinking that I will assign partners to each one of the topics you mentioned (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) I’m excited to have the children use the NASA website because the pictures are very vivid and I agree that they will generate excitement. The only problem I am having is the level of difficulty of the text on the NASA website. I know my 8 year olds are going to experience some challenges with comprehending what they are reading. I think they will learn valuable things from the website, but I have some reservations about the site at the same time. Hopefully working in partnerships will help with this problem but let me know your thoughts.”
My response: “I agree. Some of the reading is challenging and it gave me pause. You might want to poke around in the “For Kids” section. However, I think it’s also an opportunity to expose kids to the way scientists write--it takes some skill and background knowledge to read these texts for meaning. Tell them that this is very challenging reading and you don’t expect them to understand it. It’s ok to let them know it’s a challenge. You might be surprised at how they rise to the occasion.”
The outcome? Surprising and delightful! Carla wrote: “After telling them that the site we are reading from was written by NASA and that some adults thought the text might be too hard to read, they took on the challenge and read with vigor throughout the research session. Students began to shriek with excitement at first glimpses of the photographs of their planets and were calling their partners over to their computers to show the interesting facts they discovered and pictures they found. Two groups realized that the same instrument was used to collect data on two different planets. I look forward to having more time to research tomorrow afternoon.”
When I next met with the students, they were full of questions about their discoveries. And these were the kind of questions that required further research. “Why is Neptune green? What does that tell us about the planet?” “Why doesn’t Mercury have moons?” “Why does Jupiter have so many moons?” “How did the rings form around Saturn?” One question about the Comet Lovejoy got me curious enough to go on the site myself. Apparently, this comet survived a close encounter with the sun. I checked it out and their research was correct!! Questions like “How do planets form?” led me to suggest going to the library to read a book about it. In general, the questions were far more specific and insightful than before they did some exploration.
Clearly they were motivated to learn more. I asked them how they felt about making discoveries. They said that they were confused at first but when they stumbled upon something familiar they got interested and began reading. Some of the kids asked the teachers if they were allowed to go on the website at home! Imagine that! Asking permission to learn more! Despite a couple of technology glitches where we lost the call, I felt that the children were well on their way to some meaningful learning about how to do research, how it feels to make a discovery, how scientists look at the heavens and how we know some of what we know about the solar system.
The collaborating partners are each writing reports that are going to be organized into a giant poster about the solar system with the children’s research findings in the position of their subject of interest in the solar system. Not too shabby for third grade.
Originally Published in SB&F on April 2012
I’m working with the two teachers, Alicia Palmeri and Carla Christiana, of Bogert Elementary in Upper Saddle River, NJ and their students via videoconferencing as part of our schoolwide pilot project by my start-up company iNK Think Tank. We are a group of award-winning children’s nonfiction authors who are mentoring both teachers and students who are using our books as they fit into their curriculum. The iNK group doing the mentoring is Authors on Call. We are working in all disciplines in grades 3, 4, 5 and the sessions with teachers and conferences with students are timed to coordinate with what’s happening in the classroom. It is an innovative, organic approach to content and literacy that seems to infect everyone with the love of learning.
In my initial interactive videoconference with Alicia and Carla, I stressed that learning about the solar system meant thinking about how we know about it. We look at the sky and see two things: light and motion—i.e. bodies of light that move. That’s it! The stars, sun and moon rise and set. Planets, which mean “wanderers,” move over a period of time against the background pattern of stars. Sometimes they move backwards for a while but they ultimately come back to the same place in the sky where they were first observed. From this information, we have to figure out what’s actually happening.
Alicia and Carla agreed to use my approach to introduce the unit by asking the children to first think about motion. As part of our project, Bogert is using my book called What’s the BIG Idea? The introduction to the book defines “a BIG idea” as one for which there are no quick or easy answers. There are four BIG ideas in this book: motion, energy, matter, and life. Science tackles BIG ideas. How? The same way you eat an elephant: one bite at a time. Science, itself is a big idea. Every topic is broken down into a series of questions in a logical sequence. The answer that follows each question is full of simple hands-on activities that illustrate concepts. This book, by the way, meets all eight core curriculum standards for science. So to begin this unit, I asked the teachers to give their students the first question in the book, which is displayed on a double-page spread.
I suggested that they print out a pdf of the page (which I supplied) and give it to their students and ask them to think about the question and talk about it with each other and their parents for a day without giving them the answer. This is not the typical approach. Teachers often report feeling compelled to answer kids’ questions immediately so that they do well on tests. Quick answers also tend to stop further questions.) Right from the git-go asking the teachers and students to dwell on a question for twenty-four hours was outside-the-box. I was extremely gratified that Carla and Alicia grasped the importance of teaching the content as I’ve organized it in my book, although it meant writing up completely new and different lesson plans. The logical sequence of the questions in What’s the BIG Idea? ultimately gives a foundation for understanding many concepts,including the celestial mechanics of the solar system. The first question is: Why does a rolling ball stop rolling? After dancing with mystery overnight, the next day the kids were more than ready to read the text that begins to explain the First Law of Motion. They then followed up with the second question in the book: “How do we know the earth is moving when it looks like the sky is moving?” This led to an understanding of stellar parallax—the concept first put forward by Copernicus as proof the earth moved, although the tools needed to actually see it hadn’t been invented yet.
I then met the students for my first interactive video conference where I told them the story of how Galileo was sent to prison for life for suggesting that the earth was moving around the sun. That powerful story made quite an impression! The teachers were hoping that this session with me would generate questions for the kids to research.
There was no question that the students were very interested, engaged, and enthusiastic. Clearly they were motivated to learn more. And I didn’t want them to lose that. But the questions that the kids came up with weren’t really good questions for a research report. A meaningful research question depends on knowing something about the subject. These kids didn’t know enough yet to ask such questions. So I started worrying about how to get them to learn more.
I believe that elementary school science needs to focus more on HOW scientists learn. Astronomers learn a lot about the universe by studying pictures and recent technology has produced extraordinary photos of all sorts of heavenly bodies. These photos are free on the NASA website. How about asking the children to explore the site, working with partners on assigned topics within the solar system, to find something personally exciting and interesting to share with others? (The specific facts are not important.) I suggested this to the teachers through a LOT of writing on our wiki. (You can see for yourself on the page: http://bogert-authorsoncall.wikispaces.com/Carla+Christiana) After visiting the NASA website, Carla agreed but expressed some reservations:
“I’ve had some more time to think about the new research assignment. I’m thinking that I will assign partners to each one of the topics you mentioned (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) I’m excited to have the children use the NASA website because the pictures are very vivid and I agree that they will generate excitement. The only problem I am having is the level of difficulty of the text on the NASA website. I know my 8 year olds are going to experience some challenges with comprehending what they are reading. I think they will learn valuable things from the website, but I have some reservations about the site at the same time. Hopefully working in partnerships will help with this problem but let me know your thoughts.”
My response: “I agree. Some of the reading is challenging and it gave me pause. You might want to poke around in the “For Kids” section. However, I think it’s also an opportunity to expose kids to the way scientists write--it takes some skill and background knowledge to read these texts for meaning. Tell them that this is very challenging reading and you don’t expect them to understand it. It’s ok to let them know it’s a challenge. You might be surprised at how they rise to the occasion.”
The outcome? Surprising and delightful! Carla wrote: “After telling them that the site we are reading from was written by NASA and that some adults thought the text might be too hard to read, they took on the challenge and read with vigor throughout the research session. Students began to shriek with excitement at first glimpses of the photographs of their planets and were calling their partners over to their computers to show the interesting facts they discovered and pictures they found. Two groups realized that the same instrument was used to collect data on two different planets. I look forward to having more time to research tomorrow afternoon.”
When I next met with the students, they were full of questions about their discoveries. And these were the kind of questions that required further research. “Why is Neptune green? What does that tell us about the planet?” “Why doesn’t Mercury have moons?” “Why does Jupiter have so many moons?” “How did the rings form around Saturn?” One question about the Comet Lovejoy got me curious enough to go on the site myself. Apparently, this comet survived a close encounter with the sun. I checked it out and their research was correct!! Questions like “How do planets form?” led me to suggest going to the library to read a book about it. In general, the questions were far more specific and insightful than before they did some exploration.
Clearly they were motivated to learn more. I asked them how they felt about making discoveries. They said that they were confused at first but when they stumbled upon something familiar they got interested and began reading. Some of the kids asked the teachers if they were allowed to go on the website at home! Imagine that! Asking permission to learn more! Despite a couple of technology glitches where we lost the call, I felt that the children were well on their way to some meaningful learning about how to do research, how it feels to make a discovery, how scientists look at the heavens and how we know some of what we know about the solar system.
The collaborating partners are each writing reports that are going to be organized into a giant poster about the solar system with the children’s research findings in the position of their subject of interest in the solar system. Not too shabby for third grade.
Originally Published in SB&F on April 2012
the questions scientists ask that lead to BIG ideas about motion, energy, matter and life. In the introduction, where I define a BIG idea as one for which there is no quick or easy answer, I tell the story of Isador Isaac Rabi (1898-1988) who discovered magnetic resonance—the phenomenon behind MRIs . (He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944.) He said that he owed his success in science to his mother. Everyday, when he came home from school, she would ask him, “So, what good question did you ask today?” 