Section 1
Introduction
This book has been written as a resource for K–8 teachers and future teachers. Although this book is intended for elementary and middle school teachers, I have tried to “up the ante” a little bit. In my experiences with children, more often than not, I found that my expectations for what they can and want to understand about science fell far short of what they were actually capable. The National Science Education Standards and most state standards and curricular documents provide a minimum baseline for what we may expect children to learn. If children are interested and engaged, they are capable of learning fairly complex concepts.
As a result, the science content addressed in this book is at a somewhat higher level. The five basic reasons for raising the level of conceptual content include:
1. Many science concepts and theories need a higher degree of complexity in order for the explanations to make any sense at all.
2. Many children are quite capable of learning more complex concepts in science for which teachers need to be more prepared.
3. In order to design meaningful instructional activities around concepts, teachers need to have more extensive understandings of the subject matter.
4. If teachers are to teach through inquiry, they need to have better understandings of the subject matter in order to generate questions that guide student inquiry.
5. If teachers provide a community for conducting inquiry, such inquiry can move in directions that are completely unexpected. In such cases, teachers may not have prepared for the conceptual territory. This book aims to provide a resource for just such situations.
What this Book Does Not Do
This book maintains a focus on science content. It does not provide:
• activities for use in teaching science;
• approaches for planning and implementing science instruction;
• any pedagogical knowledge or recommendations.
A great deal of effort was taken in writing this book to keep the focus on essential content knowledge and to keep the length of the book reasonably short. However, it is hoped that readers of this book will not take the knowledge in this book and just present it to children. Rather, the intent is to help teachers understand science concepts to the degree to which they can develop rich and exciting inquiry approaches to exploring these concepts with children.
For those interested in matters of implementing science through inquiry, read Creating a Classroom Community of Young Scientists (2nd edition) from Routledge.
The Structure of this Book
The book is structured around the traditional subject matter headings in science:
• Life sciences
• Ecological sciences
• Physical sciences
• Earth sciences.
Although it was tempting to use a different and more integrated approach, this structure more closely fits with the structure of the National Science Education Standards, with the exception of ecology, which the Standards put into the other three subject matter areas. Throughout this book references are made to other sections where appropriate knowledge is explored in further depth. However, as you will see, concepts from other sciences come into play throughout each of these sections.
Science Language
It has been suggested that science introduces more new vocabulary per instructional day, than do foreign languages. Although it may be nice to have a book on science that avoids much of this language, this book does present the terminology where appropriate. I believe this is necessary for these reasons:
• The terms help if you want to look up further information on the topic.
• Once children understand concepts, they like to use the real vocabulary of scientists.
However, I do have two recommendations:
1. Try not to present the terminology first, but rather bring in the terms after children have developed understandings of the concepts in their own words.
2. Look up the words’ roots, which are most often in Greek and Latin. What you find is that many of these words actually have rather simple meanings.
The Tentative Nature of Science Knowledge
Science knowledge changes all of the time. I was quite surprised in doing the research for this book just how much of the knowledge I had learned previously was no longer “true.” Throughout this book, I have tried to bring the most current understandings. However, I am sure that some of this knowledge will change by the time this book is in print.
Units of Measurement
Scientists everywhere use metric units. All countries except the United States also use the metric system of measurement. I do think it is important for teachers to introduce and use metric as much possible. However, in this book I have used the American Standards units with metric equivalents in most situations. I have done this in part to provide more meaning to the measurements, as well as to bring in a certain sense of familiarity to the discussions.
Where to Go from Here
This book is only the start. There are so many interesting areas of science to explore that this book simply cannot cover. My suggestions are to add to your understandings in several ways:
• Read popular books on science. There are many excellent and easy to read books on a variety of subjects.
• There are many good sources of information on the Web. At the same time, there are many awful sites. Look at where you are going. Is the site reliable and easily identifiable? Sites connected to museums, to certain federal and state agencies, certain universities, and professional organizations are usually good bets. Others may look good, but may not be very reliable.
• Take more classes and volunteer to help scientists during the summer. Build it in as a vacation activity.
• Use some of the computer and internet resources for exploring science, such as Google Earth, Google Maps, Stellarium, and Celestia.
I have tried to provide a few good sources of information at the end of each section. However, there are many more. The sources I have provided are just the beginning.
Let your curiosity take you and your students to new and exciting places!
Section 2
Life Processes and Systems
The National Science Education Standards addressed in this section are: |
|
Content Standard C: Life Science |
K–4: | 1 The characteristics of organisms |
K–4: | 2 Life cycles of organisms |
K–4: | 3 Organisms and environment |
K5–8: | 1 Structure and function in living systems |
K5–8: | 2 Reproduction and heredity |
K5–8: | 3 Regulation and behavior |
K5–8: | 4 Populations and ecosystems (in part in this section) |
K5–8: | 5 Diversity and adaptation of organisms |
Content Standard G: History and Nature of Science |
K–8: | 1 Science as a human endeavor |
K5–8: | 2 Nature of science |
K5–8: | 3 History of science |
How do we know that something is or was alive, or is the product of a living thing? The answers to this question may seem obvious, but it probably doesn’t surprise you that children struggle with the concept. Young children often consider non-living things, such as bicycles and computers, to be alive. However, the question is a point of contention even beyond the world of children. Biologists are still arguing about whether viruses are alive. In many traditional Native American cultures, rocks, earth, and other natural objects may be considered alive. In some scientific circles, many scientists accept the Gaia Hypothesis, which considers the whole Earth system, including its atmosphere, geology, and life, as a living system.
While the question of what is living is fairly straightforward for most of what we investigate with children, there are many opportun...
