Explore the Outdoors at Your Local Conservation Land!

About a month ago, #elemsci participants were sharing the virtues of taking science out of the classroom and exploring the outdoors. At that same time my partner, Wendy Pavlicek and I were gearing up for our annual spring field trips to the local Mill Pond Reservoir with Burlington's third graders. Our classroom teachers do a great job exploring scientific topics in their classroom that don't always present easily indoors. That being said, sometimes the inter-connectivity of their life, physical, and earth science units are best met in the place where they all come together!

The "Reservoir Field Trip" had about a dozen scripted stops and another half-dozen unanticipated learning opportunities over the course of our quarter-mile nature hike. Planned stops included:

• Learning about the natural characteristics and food webs of the reservoir, field, forest, and vernal pools.
• The five things all habitats provide the living creatures that reside there.
• The difference between producers, consumers, and decomposers.
• Examining and formulating hypotheses over the weathering of a large boulder.
• The difference between hibernators and "winter sleepers."
• Local endangered animals and plants such as the Black Rat Snake and Lady Slipper Wildflower.
• The adaptations of owls, turtles, frogs and crayfish to their habitats.
• Observing glacial striations in large rock outcrops as a result of glacial progression and the difference between weather and climate.
• Exploration of a decomposing log.
• Common rock and mineral identification review.

For teachers who do not have a pair of "science specialists" to rely on, outdoor learning can pose a set of challenges that, if not properly addressed ahead of time, can spoil the educational value of an educational outdoor experience. Such challenges include:

• Behavioral flare-ups as a result of new environment
• Weather conditions
• Unexpected discoveries in nature (from dead animals to trash)
• Finding volunteers to help with small student groups
• Time

These challenges are all unique to each teacher's school setting conditions and vary in degree of difficulty, but are also addressable. To structure an outdoor lesson or activity with these challenges in mind, consider the following:

1. Do a dry run first. You already knew this, but walking out an outdoor field-trip ahead of time will give you a better sense of how much time the trip will take and any unforseen obstacles. If props or tools are needed, put them in small boxes or cases that can be carried by a pair of students (trust me on this, your K-5 students will want to volunteer for such an important job!) 
2. Set expectations clearly and before-hand. Once students are out and about in the outdoors, it will be difficult to get them to adjust which is why students should understand that bringing class to the outdoors doesn't change the expectations. It may help to have a tool such as a whistle or bell that can be used should small groups expand beyond the typical classroom size. As fifth grade teacher Sara Allen stated, "since many students simply associate outside with recess, it's important to be patient when helping them learn how 2 learn outside."
3. Be prepared. An old boyscout that can be the difference between a great day of learning and turning kids off to the outdoors. If students are not comfortable they can not stay focused and learn. Send letters home days in advance and reminders the day before that students will be out and about. It will be important to wear appropriate footwear, have a jacket handy, and have bug spray or sunscreen already on before the adventure begins. Uncomfortable students mean students are not focused on their surroundings, only how they are feeling. As science coordinator, Fred Ende stated: "Out in bad weather is often more intriguing than in good."
4. Go with the flow. Unexpected discoveries are part of the learning experience! Finding trash is an important opportunity to discuss natural preservation. A dead animal is a gateway to a conversation about decomposers. Use what students discover as a learning opportunity that will be just as relevant as any learning goals you set to achieve on the outset. There is always risk that things won't go according to plan, but as fourth grade teacher Deirdre Bailey stated, "risk management is NOT risk avoidance!"
5. Put out the call - on the first day of school! Knowing what kind of volunteers you have available to you all year round will give a boost to your classroom in and outdoors. Add to your start of the year contact form for parents questions that include whether they are willing to help with classroom trips outdoors and typical availability. It might not hurt to add "profession" to their list. You might just find some experts willing to skype your class or join you for special learning events!
6. Don't force your experience into a schedule. Make it a field trip. Not every school field trip needs to be a costly journey to a museum or show. Consider a field trip down to nearby conservation land or an urban park. "Field trip" designation helps teachers, students, and administrators get over the time crunch hurdle and focused on what is really important, the learning opportunity!

Related links:

• How to Use the Outdoors to Teach Science from @TFScientist
• Elemsci twitter chat

Introducing #elemsci

With so much attention being brought to reading and mathematics in our elementary classrooms, time for science (among other subjects such as social studies, art, music, and physical education) is being squeezed, and with it, the opportunities for professional development in elementary science.

Fraught with this dilemma, a core of educators from the #4thchat discussion brought it upon themselves to take action and shore up this empty niche in the twitterscape, bringing a new hashtag, #elemsci, to the forefront of elementary educators on and observing twitter. My newest PLN All-stars, Bill Krakower, Nancy Carroll, and Jessica Bamberger have graciously included me in the co-moderation of our bi-weekly, Thursday evening discussions.  Our first #elemsci chat played out as a 'getting to know you' sort of event, with over thirty educators sharing their education environments, the types of tools and resources they commonly use, and "what their science classroom looks like." The next #elemsci chat is scheduled for April 19th at 9:00 EST. A poll is currently open for general dialogue questions that will help us cast as wide a net as possible to bring teachers across the nation and world together so we may share our questions, successes, struggles, and support with others passionate about science education in their elementary classrooms.

It is my hope that this discussion blossoms and reaches many more teachers moving forward. I also hope that #elemsci will inspire me to share more detailed thoughts and ideas that spring from our discussions right here on this blog! If you are interested in learning more about #elemsci and joining the ever growing network of teachers involved, check out our #elemsci wiki and join us for our next conversation!

NSTA Resource Wrap-up!

With my new focus on elementary science this year, the National Science Teacher Association's National Conference in Indianapolis was the perfect opportunity to pick-up some alternative perspectives and styles to teaching my new curriculum. I did not leave disappointed. The conference not only sent me back to Boston with over a dozen new, easy to implement demos and class activities but also a range of new connections from across the nation with passionate, eager science educators.

Before returning to the Science Center and the collection of back-up emails, resource requests, and programming, I thought it important to more firmly connect myself with some of the more stand-out lessons and people I learned from. So in no particular order here we go!

The Council for Elementary Science International's "Elementary Extravaganza" was by far the most fantastic ninety minutes of professional development I've personally experienced. With at least fifty teachers from across the world sharing their favorite activities I moved from one table to another finding new takes on great lessons. "Squishy Circuits" gave kids the opportunity to make simple circuits with conductive and insulating play-dough (recipe included.) "Birdseed Mining" gave kids unfamiliar with the mining process a frugal, hands-on activity that left students better understanding the difficulty and economics of finding rare-earth minerals. "Body Building" turned old pizza boxes, toothpicks, and yarn into the different system models of the human body. A fascinating demonstration turning a simple pie tin into a stereo speaker got my mind turning for an electromagnets application activity and this model toilet called "Flush and Flow" had a great engineering connection for any K-5 water science unit.

Hats off to kindergarten teacher, Katherine Poindexter and her fabulous work integrating children's stories into her science curriculum. Her use of story to introduce units around seed development, weather, and seasons just to name a few were extremely thoughtful and better still... documented! Her blog can be found at http://kpoindexter.wordpress.com. I'm a follower now!

Continuing with the children's literacy piece, I was fortunate to sit in on a portion of a panel discussion and small group breakouts with a collection of children's book authors, including Massachusetts native Loree Burns and college level educators Juliana Texley and Suzanne Flynn. Juliana's roundtable gave greater perspective to the "NSTA Recommends" process and the painstaking evaluation thousands of books go through each year to bring the best to the forefront of the science education community's attention. Later in the conference, Loree and her publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt was gracious enough to sign a free copy of her book on flotsam, jetsam, and the science of ocean motion, "Tracking Trash" to the children of Burlington.

Ruth Paglierani's of UC-Berkeley shared some of the resources from Project FIRST's "Eye on the Sky." Her success with developing an understanding of the scale of the sun, constructing simple sundials, and using pizza box solar cookers inspired me to think bigger with our own early elementary units on the sun and energy.

The final session I attended also shared some excellent use of the creative tools found on the iPad (and its apps) designed by Pennsylvania teachers in conjunction with Penn State. Their presentation included kindergarteners documenting living and non living objects in their classroom with the camera and higher level elementary students creating informative "zines" using Skitch, iBooks Author, and the ePub feature in Pages. Collaboration through Google docs was also noted as an important tool in the creation process.

The list goes on and I hope to highlight some of the great takeaways in future blogposts as I adapt them for use in the Burlington science curriculum. Perhaps the greatest lesson of all comes from my reinvigorated sense of purpose and the alternative perspectives gained from the conference. It was a reminder of the importance of ongoing professional development in educators to keep our teaching at the highest level possible for our next generation of scientists!