3..2..1...Launch!!!

So, I am working on the Structures and Properties of Matter storyline.  Lots of possibilities here but I think I will settle on the classics.  Nothing engages kids more than the old baking soda and vinegar rocket.  It really captures all of the performance expectations nicely.  However, the problem I have with them is the whole "turn over the rocket and run" solution to safety.

So how do we make the launch more predictable and safe for everyone?  That became my obsession this weekend.  After many iterations, I have a usable solution.  It requires some refinement but the core idea is pretty solid.  To finish it off, I want to add a pressure gauge and a catch to hold the rocket on until mission command is ready to launch.  It took six modifications and a 3D printer, but I think that will work as well.  Here is the "Mk 1" launcher.   

Baking Soda and Vinegar Rocket Laucher from Eric Cromwell on Vimeo.

How did we choose what to teach in the NGSS?

Greetings everyone!  Just getting back from NSTA and am really charged up (as is the intention of good conferences).  It is really gratifying to talk with so many enthusiastic teachers and administrators with a passion for teaching elementary students about the wonders of the universe.  I still find it a hoot when I get approached by people excited about reading my blog.  It tells me there is a real need to talk about this time of change we are going through, but please don't take my word for it...

 Honestly, the intent of this blog from the beginning has been to put out the path that I am taking not as thee  path, but as a set of ideas to get this process moving.  I want to be questioned and challenged about my ideas.  Indeed, challenge is the path to improvement.  In the spirit of that idea, I have been asked the question in my title several times.  So here is my response.  

I use the topic based arrangement of the NGSS as is.  Each page of performance expectations is the basis for a unit.  My assumption has been that there was some reason the PE's to be bundled this way; although after questioning the writers for confirmation of this the best I got was "these are the ones that seemed to fit together coherently."  In a couple of units, we have to get very creative.  

The grade 3 page on Forces and Motion for example.  It combines classic Newtonian concepts with electromagnetic forces. We can make it work, but it feels very odd.  The Safe Racer program is being upgraded.  It will not only challenge students to keep an egg safe in their cars, but also require them to explain how the magnetic release system we will be adding works.  Along with measuring how far the car goes, we can measure how fast the cars are going by accurately measuring the time it takes the car to reach the end of the ramp.  

In another example, the unit is split into two parts under a coherent storyline.  The Kindergarten Weather & Climate performance expectations have two distinct themes; protecting yourself from the sun and predicting the weather.  Our storyline for this unit asks students to build a structure to protect everyone from the sun while on the playground.  Part 2 asks the students to evaluate weather data in order to determine if they should tell the principal to take down the structure so it is not damaged by severe weather.  We actually have students evaluate the radar image.  It is easier than you think.  Break it down into two parts.  What colors symbolize severe weather and what direction is it moving?

So why not cherry pick the NGSS like so many publishers are doing.  For one, the NGSS is built on learning progressions.   This focus on progressions makes science cumulative.  When I talk to principals and other officials, I tell them to think about science like math now.  Imagine what would happen if schools stopped teaching math from K-5.  There is no way middle schools would ever compensate for that lost foundational knowledge.  That is science in an NGSS world.
  
My second concern in a buffet approach to the NGSS is orphaning a performance expectation.  I did not want to get to the end of curriculum writing and realize we missed one.  The one exception to this was in grade 5.  I shifted the PE on people improving the environment (5-ESS3-1) from the Earth Systems page to the Movement of Energy and Matter page.  That was the topic of my last blog entry.  

Lastly, I have ignored the engineering PE's as a separate entity.  It felt too much like the days when we "wove in" the old skills and processes.   Each unit, so far, has students working collaboratively to build a physical object.  That may be a model (beach erosion prevention), prototype (biomimicry solution), or fully functioning object (hand pollinator for example).  In this way, students are learning to act as engineers within context.  

As always, context and relevance are of extreme importance to me.  We are a practical species.  We tend to care about things when they are important to us.  I attended a pre-conference session by Megan Bang.   One of the great points she brought up is that we have to stop expecting our students to ask questions and respond based on our cultural norms.  What does that mean in this context?  Curriculum developers may find the phenomena of science exciting but until students see themselves connected to it, they will continue to ignore it.  As you read through your curriculum ask yourself these two questions from the perspective of your students.

Why am I learning this?

What will it help me to do?

Two Birds with One Curriculum

One of the myriad of challenges faced by curriculum developers today is finding out how many initiatives can be jammed into one curriculum guide.  Just in terms of standards, there are six sets which must be addressed to some extent in my curriculum.

• College and Career Ready Standards (aka Common Core)
• Next Generation Science Standards
• Environmental Literacy Standards
• STEM Standards of Practice 
• Partnership for 21st Century Skills
• Technology Literacy Standards

What I will attempt to do is illustrate on possible model to satisfy many of these standards in one unit.   

For many years, students across the district have enjoyed a one day outdoor education experience as part of their grade five curriculum.  The focus is on energy transfer within different habitats.

Fortunately, the NGSS did not shift this content from grade five.  The Matter and Energy in Organisms and Ecosystems topic page still requires students to develop the quintessential food web model.  At the same time, elementary students across the state must have a "Meaningful Watershed Experience" (MWEE).

A MWEE is most readily defined by a primary research process (I smell a Common Core connection!) developed in the early 1980's by Harold Hungerford and Trudi Volk at the University of Southern Illinois at Carbondale.  The name of the process is Investigating  and Evaluating Environmental Issues and Actions (IEEIA).  Not to be confused with E-I-E-I-O.  The research process was co-opted by Maryland and is now standard 1 of the Environmental Literacy Standards.  The process looks like this:

• Identify an environmental issue. 
• Develop and write research questions related to an environmental issue. 
• Given a specific issue, communicate the issue, the stakeholders involved and the stakeholders’ beliefs and values. 
• Design and conduct the research. 
• Use data and references to interpret findings to form conclusions. 
• Use recommendation(s) to develop and implement an environmental action plan.
• Communicate, evaluate and justify personal views on environmental issue and alternate ways to address them. 
• Analyze the effectiveness of the action plan in terms of achieving the desired outcomes.  

With this process in mind, how do we have students focus on matter and energy in ecosystems?  To answer that, let's start with the issue.  Issues are usually stated in a simple question.  For this unit, we are looking at the following:

Can people manage the ecosystem within Baltimore County?

From here students go into the field and conduct a modified "BioBlitz". They leave the field study with a large list of living things that undoubtedly interact.  The students must develop a food web of these organisms.   Now, here is the secret.  The areas students  survey are overpopulated with deer.  This is no surprise as most of the metropolitan area is overrun.  The impact these large herbivores have on the environment cannot be overstated.  The question is what to do about it.  This is one of those situations which has no one right answer and one that will not make everyone happy. (Ambiguity is part of the P21 Standards).  Here is a great video to introduce the complexity of the issue.

There was a physicists several years ago that stated something to the extent that we have to stop asking students questions that had answers.  I think this might have been in reference to theoretical physics but the idea stuck with me.    We have a lot of big problems in the world that cannot be simply bubbled in on the test.  Giving students the opportunity to grapple with complex issues in a safe environment is something we should do in schools.  

If you are interested in seeing what students can generate when given a complex topic, take a look at my repository of student generated projects.  

Issues Investigation Repository

2/3 Down and Looking Ahead

Greetings Science Curriculum Fans!  Well, we are two thirds done with curriculum writing this year.   I think we are getting a little better each time.  How do I know?  During the reviews, we give each table a composition book to record suggested changes or concerns they have.  The number of comments drastically dropped between  the first review and second.  Not a scientific study but a point of data nonetheless.

As often happens, a discussion with the field test teachers led to an inspired project for me.  Each of the major curriculum offices create their own implementation calendars.  Mine is a suggested sequence by unit.  The reading office has their calendar by week.  The idea that came about was a combined calendar showing all the curriculum at once.  

I am still gathering input on the layout, but it has been met with a lot of interest from the few teachers who have seen the draft.

Moving ahead, I prepare for curriculum writing this summer.  As stated earlier (A Five Year Mission),  this summer we start work on grades three through five.  This summer will be a little different.  I started with teams of five teachers working on one unit.  That was a little ungainly and presented a curriculum draft with lots of voices to sort out and homogenize.  This summer the teams will be smaller with only three writers per unit.  Also, I solicited middle school science teachers and Gateway to Technology teachers.  As I look at the performance expectations, much of the content at grades four and five is currently taught in middle school.  Whats more, I really want the insights that the Gateway to Technology teachers bring.  They manage engineering projects with students everyday.  That kind of pedagogical knowledge will be worth its weight in gold.  

Stay tuned. Over the next few weeks.  I will give you some ideas about the storylines we are planning for this summer.  Here are a few hints:

Learning the Engineering Design Process in Kindergarten: Just Add Mud and Sticks

My apologies for not posting lately. Curriculum writing takes a lot of time.  As described earlier,  the first kindergarten unit focuses on "Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems: Animals, Plants, and Their Environment".  The storyline that evolved centered on our native insect, the Baltimore Checkerspot, and its relationship to the White Turtlehead.  Using these two species as the backdrop, the needs of plants and animals are experienced.

Toward the end of the unit, we delve into how plants and animals change the environment to meet their needs.  As the Turtlehead lives in wetlands that are sometimes created by the actions of beavers, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to tie some of the dimensions together.  Reaching back to my previous life as an outdoor educator, I resurrected a lesson I used to do with fifth grade students.  Construct a beaver dam to hold back as much water as you can.  When I first wrote this lesson, I figured on a squeamish response to the traditional materials of mud and sticks.  To this end, I wrote it so students would use clay and wooden coffee stirrers.    You will imagine my surprise when all of the field test teachers insisted on using mud and sticks.

Earlier today, one of the schools in the system decided to give this lesson a try.  I forgot how much fun this lesson was and had fun watching many of these students experience the wonder of mud for the first time.  Beyond the absolute engagement mud and sticks present, it was very clear from the first part of the lesson, that the students understood the connection of beavers to the Checkerspot.  What's more, they applied the engineering design process.

Refinements centered on adding sticks vertically.  Some of the dams looked like porcupines 

Note the tarps on the floor.  Have to keep the custodian sane.  

 Many hands make mud work.

Students had to imagine what their dam would look like in order to develop a plan prior to building.  Shortly after this, the interactive notebooks had to be put away to avoid being encrusted by mud.

   

NGSS Assessments and the Sword of Damocles

Inevitably the question of assessments come up when I talk to teachers, parents, and administrators about the NGSS.  We have lived with the education world's variation of the  "Sword of Damocles" hanging over our heads for the last 12 years so it only natural to be concerned about the next iteration.  However, my response to this may seem flip but it is none the less accurate.

For elementary science, the ultimate assessment is called middle school.  

Far more than ever, the standards are developmental.  The physics instruction which starts at Kindergarten, builds through third, middle, high school, and then life.   Without the base knowledge at Kindergarten, it becomes more difficult to catch up with each iteration.   I then step off my soap box and start talking about what I know and what I suspect.

The National Academies Press released a report earlier this year entitled "Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards."  Before this was released, I participated in a webinar where details regarding this report were the focus.  Perhaps the most salient detail was that our "current assessment model was a non-example."   So, what is our current model?  Like everyone else, the ubiquitous #2 pencil plays an essential role.

 

This type of assessment was what it was- a means to an end.  Does it really measure what students "knew and were able to do" or just what they could memorize?

Now, I told you that story to tell you this one.  Once upon a time in Maryland, we had the Maryland State Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP).  According to the state website, the assessment measured three things:

1. How well students solved problems cooperatively and individually.
2. How well students applied what they learned to real world problems.
3. How well students could relate and use knowledge from different subject areas.

At the time, most teachers did not like them because they required a lot of set up and management.  However, with a few exceptions, they would also say that it really did measure what students knew and were able to do.  The downside was individual accountability was difficult.  

Reading between the lines of the NAP report, it feels like an assessment focused on performance will be the focus, but will be done in the digital world.  

Earlier this week, I stumbled across the Technology & Engineering Literacy Assessment (TEL).  Given the proliferation of computers in schools and the gauntlet that PARCC and Smarter Balance have dropped to be fully digital, I would start looking at the TEL as an example of what an NGSS based assessment system will look like. 

Finally, the future of science education comes down to one brutal question.  Will any science assessment count?  No mater how well the assessment is developed, if schools do not see it on an equal level with Common Core assessments, then will it really mater?  Unfortunately, we have moved from an intrinsically motivate institution to one extrinsically motivated.  In the end, do we want the Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads or not. 

A Very Spatial Opportunity

Well, one unit down and eight to go.  The first "official" NGSS unit is loaded into our learning management system.   The unit is based on the kindergarten "Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems" performance expectations.  As you saw from the previous post, students learn about the Baltimore Checkerspot and its dependence on the White Turtlehead.  As part of the performance assessment, students have to locate a place on their schoolyard or community where they could plant the White Turtlhead.  To do this, the teacher gives students a printed copy of map generated by a simple mapping application I created using ArcGIS Online.

Shown below, the teacher can choose to use the aerial view or an abstracted view depending on the level of detail available.  All they need do is slide the bar in the middle back and forth to see what they want.

Link to application

Developing maps and apps like this are available to every school across the U.S. because of the ConnectED initiative launched by the Whitehouse last year.  These are powerful tools.  In years past, these tools were confined to complex desktop applications, but the cloud movement has pushed a lot of their capacity to the online world.  Everyday, new maps and applications are created by users all over the world.  These can be brought into your classroom and used by your students to explore BIG DATA in unimaginable ways.  What is really amazing is that students can be the creators of these maps and applications as well.  

To get started, go to the ConnectED website and sign up for an account.  I would also recommend visiting the Esri EdCommunity page.  You will quickly find out that you are not alone.  If you need help, you should find the closest GeoMentor to you.  These are GIS zealots who love working with GIS and with kids (I have a dot on the map myself).  

Good mapping!