News Archives - 2005 | 2004| 2003 | 2002

November 2006
ASC 2006 Summer Institute
By Diane McBee

The Alaska Science Consortium 2006 Summer Institute in Bethel from July 31st to August 11th. Fourteen participants came from several communities that included Sitka, Anchorage, Kalskag, Kipnuk, Goodnews Bay, St. Michael, and Eek. Three teachers were from Bethel. The institute was lead by Diane McBee and Dave Gillam. Julie McWilliams was our gracious host and met our every need.

When we arrived in Bethel, we were greeted by strong winds and rain, but since our focus was life science in the tundra, we explored the tundra and went on our field trips regardless of the weather.

Matt Weaver from the Department of Natural Resources, Division of Forestry, was our main speaker. He taught about tundra ecology and the threat of fire. He led the participants through several Project Learning Tree activities and helped us to learn what happens when there is a fire in the forest. Other guest speakers included Joy Schantz who taught us about scientific illustration. Marlene Schmidt took us on a tundra walk. Valerie Boswell discussed tundra issues and rabies, while Carolee Francis helped us learn about diabetes. Matt Leinberger gave a presentation on robotics.

Discrepant events, process skills, and the I Wonder projects helped the participants understand the components of good science teaching. The Learning Cycle Model was used to guide students in developing and presenting quality lessons in science. The participants also learned from each other as they shared micro-teaches and offered constructive feedback on those lessons.

The participants completed the institute after having broadened their science resource network, learning new lessons, meeting new friends, and becoming confident in their ability to teach science and have fun doing it. If you are interested in attending the 2007 Summer Institute and your district is a member of the Alaska Science Consortium, check this web site for more information this coming winter. The location and dates will be posted after the October ASC Board meeting.

---

October 2006
Alaska Science Consortium 2006 Annual Meeting
By Cyndy Curran, ASC Coordinator

Our Annual Meeting was held in Anchorage on October 13 and 14. There were 21 people at the meeting representing our member districts and regions. We currently have 15 member districts.
One of our major themes for this school year is “staying connected”. We want to stay connected with our fellows and member districts as well as the greater science community. We hope to be in contact with all our fellows by the end of the first semester this year. We will be working on ideas for our web site and other ways to stay connected.

As part of staying connected, the ASC is sponsoring a 1 credit class on the GLEs later this fall. More information will be available soon. Another opportunity to stay connected will be through participation in the science book club that will meet online.

To stay connected to the greater science community, we are partners in two exciting Math/Science Partnership grants funded through Title II A: the STEP Grant with the Geophysical Institute in Fairbanks and the Alaska Sea/River Week Project through UAF. Many of our member districts are participating in both these grants. Watch for information about the professional development opportunities available through these grants this school year and next summer.

We are excited as we begin planning for our Summer Institute, which will be held in Southeast Alaska in 2007. The Summer Institute dates are set for June 4-15. The focus this year will be physical science. As more information becomes available it will be posted on the ASC website as well as sent to both the administrative and teacher representatives in our member districts.

Watch our web site for more opportunities to “stay connected”

May 2006
Building a Presence in Alaska
By Cheryl Cooper, State Coordinator

The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) sponsors a program called Building a Presence for Science (BaP). The program has been in existence in Alaska since 1998. The partners involved with Building A Presence in Alaska are the Department of Education and Early Development, The Imaginarium, The Challenger Center, ANROE (Alaska Natural Resources and Outdoor Education), Emma Walton, Texas Gail Raymond, and the Alaska Science Teachers Association.

The goals of the Building a Presence program are:

Currently the program has established a network of 20 volunteers who are Key Leaders and they are responsible for 20-35 schools in an assigned area of Alaska. The Key Leaders ask a person at each of their assigned schools to be a Point of Contact. A Key Leader distributes professional development opportunities and current science issues information to a Point of Contact via email and they in turn share the information with their school. In addition, teachers of all disciplines have an immediate resource for science (the PoC) to help integrate the entire school instructional program. The Building a Presence network can help schools become active participants in science education reform. With an advocate for science in every school building, districts will have an identified cadre of individuals who can help distribute information about both the national science education standards and state science frameworks and assessment. Districts can use the Point of Contact network as they work to improve science teaching and learning.

We have 45% of our Alaskan public and private schools with a Point of Contact identified in them and the list is growing daily. If you would like to become a Point of Contact for your school, please contact Cheryl Cooper, State BaP coordinator and she will get you connected with a Key Leader. Her email is:cheryl@wildak.net

For more information about the Building a Presence program, go to nsta.org/bap

April 2006

ASC Executive Council elections were recently held. The results are:

March 2006
By Teresa Elmore
3rd Grade Teacher, Tok School
Alaska Gateway School District

SCIENCE FAIR TIME AGAIN

Yes, it’s that time of year again! I know many of the schools have already been in the process of getting Science Fair projects underway in order to be ready for the Anchorage and Juneau competitions. We thank you for the help and encouragement that you give your students. I know our small schools usually put it off until after the State testing has been done and then hold our own district competitions. But no matter what works best for your classroom, we would like to see all students encouraged to participate.

Districts are soon going to have to step up to the plate and realize that science is just as important to teach as reading, writing, and math because the required testing is beginning. Now that we have National Science Standards, State Science Standards, and Grade Level Expectations, there is no excuse for our students to be unprepared.

One of the best ways to get kids interested in science is to get them involved in a hands-on science project where they can choose something that they have a question about and then be responsible for setting up the experiment. This is a good time to introduce the Learning Cycle Model and the appropriate vocabulary. Gear-up, explore, generalize, and apply for the K-3 grades and gear-up, explore, generalize, experiment, interpret and apply for the 4th through 12th grades.

The Alaska Science Consortium offers scholarships yearly to the students who demonstrate the best use of the Scientific Process in their projects. For the Anchorage Science Fair we will be giving two $250 scholarships to high school students, two $125 scholarships to middle school/junior high students, and five $50 scholarships to elementary students. At the present time we also give four $125 scholarships for high school students at the Juneau Science Fair. The judges will be Alaska Science Consortium fellows who are very knowledge in the area of science.

When spring fever is hitting everyone and it’s hard to hold your students attention, it is time to do some discrepant events and let the class get down and dirty.

 

February 2006
By Lester Parks
SW Region School District

The Language of Science

Did you ever wonder why your high school English teachers had you diagramming sentences? I know I never knew, but then I paid little attention in those classes anyway. It was not until I taught diagramming sentences that I had any idea why any of us would ever want to do such a thing, and I made sure my students got the point that applying the rules of proper punctuation is entirely dependent upon being able to correctly diagram a sentence. What I found, though, was that this skill had benefits far beyond putting commas, semicolons, and periods in the correct places.

When I first came to “Bush” Alaska, I thought I was coming strictly as a mathematics teacher. After arriving in the village I would be teaching in, however, I learned that I was also the English teacher. I did not know much about the language arts, but I figured I could handle it. Then the day before school started, I found out that it was my responsibility to teach science as well. I knew quite a bit more about science than I did about the language arts, and I liked the idea of teaching science, but all combined this felt like a lot of pressure!

Given the multiple subjects, grades, and proficiency levels I encountered in my classroom, I soon found it very difficult to provide adequate time, instruction, and feedback to all my students on a daily basis for each of their subjects, at least so long as I tried to teach them in isolation from one another. I found it easy to combine science instruction with mathematics, and mathematics instruction with science, but the technical part of the English language felt a lot to me like a completely separate and detached pursuit.

Lucky for my students and me, though, as I learned more and more about the rules of English, the more and more I realized that I could use language instruction to support my math instruction, and vice versa. Just as mathematics is the “language” of science, describing and predicting the behavior of phenomena in sentences of equations and inequalities, the vocabulary of language describes the structure of mathematical sentences just as accurately as it does a sentence written in English. I found that applying the rules of the English language to mathematical sentences helped my students to better understand both disciplines.

For example, consider the mathematical sentence 5 + 3 = 8. Like an English sentence, a mathematical sentence contains both a subject and a verb and expresses a complete thought. Asked to identify the verb, students are quick to assume it must be the addition operator, or “plus” as they like to call it. However, if asked to write the mathematical sentence in English, they quickly realize their error. For given the sentence “Five and three is equal to eight.” students will usually determine that is equal is their verb. Eliminating objects of prepositions, i.e., eight, the subject must be the compound five and three, where and, and therefore the addition operator, are coordinating conjunctions.

While the preceding was a simple example, it is helpful in sorting out more confusing scenarios. For whatever reason, it seemed like when faced with a word problem such as “Seventy-five is divided by a number. The quotient is fifteen. What is the number?” the students would often be confused over whether to write the equation 75 / n = 15 or n / 75 = 15. Once we had the vocabulary, however, the students were able to diagram the “sentence” to answer this question on their own.

The confusion comes in the first of the three English sentences, but diagramming the sentence helps clear things up. The first step is to identify the verb, namely is divided. Next, eliminating the objects of prepositions, i.e., number, we are left with seventy-five as the only choice for our subject. Something about recognizing and acknowledging the subject-verb relationship seemed to make it clear to the students that 75 / n is the proper compound subject of the full mathematical sentence 75 / n = 15.

As students begin to realize the importance that a firm understanding of the English language plays in understanding the meaning of the language of mathematics, it is a good time to reinforce both to the students and to yourself the importance that a firm understanding of the mathematical language plays in understanding, modeling, and predicting the phenomena studied in science. Though you may wonder why anyone would want to pay attention to the terminology of operator, operand, identity, and inverse, it is just as important to understanding the language of science as subject, verb, object, and clause are to understanding the language of English.

 

January 2006
By Wendy Douglas, Anthony A.Andrews School;
St.Michael, Alaska

Measurement in Everyday Life

Is this going to be on the test? Often this is the first question we ask as students and teachers. Many times it is not on the test but it is an integral part of our everyday life.

Whether we realize it or not we are always measuring some part of ourselves, and the environment around us. Students need to more easily conceptualize the important uses of math and measurement.

In bush Alaska, I found that simply cooking with my students is a learning opportunity. Many of my 5th and 6th grade students had no idea had to use measuring cups. We doubled recipes and divided them creating more learning opportunities. The science of our experiment was even better as we examined our cookie dough very carefully both before and after the process.

In the bush we often need things built, but there are few qualified to build them. Often, folks are brought in from outside the villages to build or assist with simple cutting. I have arranged for students to visit building sites in the community to observe for themselves the many uses of mathematics and also to send a message that they can become a carpenter, a construction worker, and a manager if they have the necessary skills.

The following are some ideas, suggested books, and websites that encourage fun learning inside and outside the classroom, in rural and urban settings.

LIFE SCIENCE:
Young students can measure height, weight, and calorie intake by journaling what they eat.

Older students can measure the growth of a living organism, rate of decay, bird count and migration patterns, distances, square miles of habitat. Students can work with wildlife experts such as Audubon Society to do egg counts and U.S. Fish & Game, to chart statistics of annual and/or seasonal catches.

EARTH SCIENCE:
Young students can measure weather, moon journals are a simple way to incorporate writing with counting the number of days in a lunar cycle.
For older students carbon dating would be interesting project. Throughout Alaska, erosion is an immediate concern. Especially with the ozone's effects on glacier ice and increasing water levels.

More Ideas:

Suggested Books on Measurement: