The Science Teacher's Toolbox

Hundreds of Practical Ideas to Support Your Students

Tara C. Dale, Mandi S. White, Larry Ferlazzo, Katie Hull Sypnieski

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781119570196
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Science & Technology

A winning educational formula of engaging lessons and powerful strategies for science teachers in numerous classroom settings

The Teacher's Toolbox series is an innovative, research-based resource providing teachers with instructional strategies for students of all levels and abilities. Each book in the collection focuses on a specific content area. Clear, concise guidance enables teachers to quickly integrate low-prep, high-value lessons and strategies in their middle school and high school classrooms. Every strategy follows a practical, how-to format established by the series editors.

The Science Teacher's Toolbox is a classroom-tested resource offering hundreds of accessible, student-friendly lessons and strategies that can be implemented in a variety of educational settings. Concise chapters fully explain the research basis, necessary technology, Next Generation Science Standards correlation, and implementation of each lesson and strategy.

Favoring a hands-on approach, this bookprovides step-by-step instructions that help teachers to apply their new skills and knowledge in their classrooms immediately. Lessons cover topics such as setting up labs, conducting experiments, using graphs, analyzing data, writing lab reports, incorporating technology, assessing student learning, teaching all-ability students, and much more. This book enables science teachers to:

• Understand how each strategy works in the classroom and avoid common mistakes
• Promote culturally responsive classrooms
• Activate and enhance prior knowledge
• Bring fresh and engaging activities into the classroom and the science lab

Written by respected authors and educators, The Science Teacher's Toolbox: Hundreds of Practical Ideas to Support Your Students is an invaluable aid for upper elementary, middle school, and high school science educators as well those in teacher education programs and staff development professionals.

PART I
Science Labs

CHAPTER 1
Strategies for Teaching Lab Safety

What Is It?

Lab safety includes the behavioral expectations, rules, and procedures that students follow during an interactive lab.

Why We Like It

During the first week of school, teachers can focus on getting to know their students. In addition, they can provide opportunities for their students to learn about each other, the teacher, and the classroom. See Chapter 14: Strategies for Cultural Responsiveness for resources that help you to get to know your students.

We've found that lab safety is the logical first unit in a science class. Students need to know the teacher's expectations and have time to practice safe behavior prior to doing science labs. Lab safety, when implemented correctly, reduces the risk of injury to the teacher and their students while also minimizing damage to lab equipment. Most important of all, lab safety can enhance student engagement and learning in science.

Supporting Research

Every science class should be teeming with lab and fieldwork that requires students to behave in specific ways to avoid injury. The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) declares that “inherent in conducting science activities, however, is the potential for injury” (NSTA, 2015). Students need to learn how to proactively avoid injury as well as how to appropriately react if an accident occurs.

Teaching students to follow lab safety rules provides them with an opportunity to practice taking personal responsibility. Some teachers believe punitive measures, such as receiving an F on a quiz, is an effective way to teach personal responsibility. However, simply receiving a bad grade does not teach students how to behave in a more responsible manner. Students are more likely to learn how to manage their behavior and attitudes when they receive guidance from an adult who takes the time to encourage students to reflect on their actions (Wormeli, 2016). Instruction on lab safety is a meaningful way to show students the bigger picture of a situation and, thus, enhance personal responsibility.

Skills for Intentional Scholars/NGSS Standards

The activities in this chapter require students to practice thinking critically as they apply their newly learned lab safety rules and procedures. Simply memorizing the rules won't suffice, especially in the case of an emergency. Students will not have time to read the lab safety rules when an emergency arises. They must know the rules well enough in order to instinctively react appropriately in a dangerous situation.

Application

There are multiple ways to introduce and teach lab safety in science classrooms. We will highlight the use of a contract and safety rule story, as well as list several other interactive methods that we use to reinforce appropriate lab behavior.

SCIENCE SAFETY CONTRACT

We use a Science Safety Contract to introduce the rules. It is important to read every rule with students before having them sign the bottom. Students then take the contract home to obtain a parent signature. Figure 1.1: Science Safety Contract English is an example of a lab safety form that can be adapted for all grade levels. A Spanish version of the contract is available in Figure 1.2: Science Safety Contract Spanish.

LAB SAFETY RULES STORY

This activity gives students an opportunity to interact with their new learning about lab safety. It can also be used as a formative assessment to determine how well students understand lab safety rules in context. See Chapter 17: Strategies for Assessing Student Learning for additional formative assessment resources.

To personalize the lesson for our students, we replace the student names in Figure 1.3: Identifying Broken Lab Safety Rules with our current students' names. Every class period receives a unique copy that includes four of the students from the respective class. We find that students tend to be more engaged when they find their names in the story, which helps us build a positive rapport with them. Figure 1.4: Identifying Broken Lab Safety Rules—Answer Key provides the answers, assuming a teacher is using Figure 1.1: Science Safety Contract.

OTHER INTERACTIVE WAYS TO TEACH LAB SAFETY

There are many fun and interactive ways to teach lab safety that require students to do more than memorize a list of rules. Here are some ideas for activities that students can do to demonstrate their understanding of lab safety:

• Draw a cartoon showing what happens when lab safety rules aren't followed.
• Produce a video explaining why it's important to follow lab safety rules.
• Write and act out a skit that demonstrates the lab safety rules. Have small groups create two skits each—one showing how to correctly follow lab rules and the other showing an example of not following them. Not only can students have fun with this juxtaposition, but showing ...