Blog Post #2 - Science Readings

The four strands of science combine science content with science process, which in most cases, are taught as two separate things. The four strands being, understanding scientific explanations, generating scientific evidence, reflecting on scientific knowledge, and participating productively in science. In elementary school, we focused more on the generating scientific evidence and reflecting through the experiments that we did. However, it seems that as I continued on in school, we moved away from the experiments and the reflecting and moved towards understanding scientific explanations through definitions and readings and then moved towards a better rounded science experience by incorporating all four of the strands in high school. This might explain why I liked science more in elementary and high school then I did in middle school. These four stands really emphasis the importance of interactive science (experiments and such) while still getting the definitions and facts. I feel that these four strands also incorporate all different types of learners. As teachers we need to create lessons that help the visual, the auditory, and the kinesthetic learners and when you include all four strands into a science lesson, you really create a well rounded lesson for all of these learners. The visual learners get the definitions and facts from books, they see the data that they collect from the field, and they can write reflections. The auditory learners can talk openly and reflect out loud with a group of people on what they have collected and you could read the definitions and such out loud. The kinesthetic learners are actually doing the experiments and activities and learning from them, and then participating in the discussions that ensue. Incorporating the four strands might cause a lesson to take more planning time – however, the effects seem to be well worth time as we see in the “Biodiversity of a City Schoolyard.”

In the “Trouble with Textbooks” article, the problem with textbooks that many students have seen for years is finally brought out to the attention of adults and teachers. While I’m sure they were well aware of the size of the textbooks, this article brings up the point that these flashy, heavy, books “utterly fail to… teach science.” I remember having these really fun and colorful textbooks that had just a few pages of reading because of all the pictures and “side bar activities.” As a student, when a teacher assigns 5-7 pages of reading for homework and a worksheet (which were the standard homework assignments for me in elementary school), you groan and think about how long it is going to take you to read these boring pages. Then you open your book and find that really, when you subtract the pictures, the vocabulary words on the side, and the extra fun facts that are printed in the margins, you really only end up with 3-4 pages worth of actual text to read. What a waste!! The article also brings up the point of teachers picking the books that come with the most accessories, such as CD’s and pre-made test banks, which are all great resources for the teachers and when used properly can help the students but shouldn’t the students education come before flashy resources? The resources that come with the books are useless if the students are not comprehending the material in the book. While I do feel that books need to have pictures to grasp the students attention, we really need to find a compromise between the flashy non-effective text books and the “Matter and Molecules” text book formed by Michigan State – and quickly.