Teaching ScienceHelp for trainee Science teachers

For new student teachers embarking on PGCE’s this year, you might want to brush up on your Science subject knowledge. There’s some good resources on the internet to help you.

One that’s worth bookmarking and working through is the bank of self-study materials produced by SCIcentre hosted by the University of Leicester. These materials have been specifically produced to support trainee teachers developing their own science subject knowledge and understanding.

You can find the materials here : http://www.le.ac.uk/se/centres/sci/selfstudy/selfstudy.html

Good luck!

From BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/10522188.stm

Primary schools in England do not have enough specialist teachers to provide youngsters with a high quality science education, a report says.

A Royal Society study of UK science and maths teaching for five to 14 year olds said every school should have a teacher with a sound scientific background.

The study said England’s testing regime “stifled creativity” as teachers “drummed” facts into pupils’ heads.

The report also called for maths tests for 11 year olds to be scrapped.

Key Stage 2 tests in science, taken in the last year of primary school, have now been abolished and were sat for the last time by pupils in England in 2009.

The Royal Society, which champions science in the UK, called for a move away from “teaching to the test”, a major new drive to recruit specialist science and maths teachers, as well as a greater emphasis on practical work to help youngsters understand the subjects.

The society found testing in England’s primary schools became high-stakes when it was used by central government to compare schools and drive up standards.

But the focus on targets had had “little effect” on pupils’ results, with any improvement more attributable to “teachers becoming increasingly adept at, and focused on, teaching to the test”.

The study said this caught up with pupils when they went on to secondary school.

“Their [pupils'] ability to perform in the tests masks an inadequate conceptual understanding of these subjects that is exposed at secondary level when science is disaggregated into biology, chemistry and physics.”

It went on: “Science is a practical subject and it needs to be taught and assessed as such and greater emphasis placed on building understanding of how science and mathematics work than on rote learning of ‘facts’.

“Achieving this depends on developing a workforce that is confident in teaching these subjects.”

Prof John Pethica, vice-president of the Royal Society, said: “Early education is a particularly formative time for young people, when they can either be inspired by the way that science helps them to understand the world around them, or switched off from exploring it.

‘Raising standards’

“It is essential that we ensure that children have positive experiences with science education, from teachers that are qualified to provide it.

“The UK government must increase the number of science specialist teachers at primary level to ensure that all children have the best start in science.”

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said the government would take the reports findings into account as it developed plans for curriculum and qualifications reform.

“This government is committed to raising standards in maths and science – one of the main reasons we are not proceeding with the previous government’s planned primary curriculum is that it risked moving away from traditional subjects like these,” Mr Gibb said.

“We also want to go further in recruiting excellent science and maths teachers and are looking at how we can encourage even more maths and science graduates to come into teaching.”

Read the report here

The ASE has collated some guidance on Outdoor Science – making use of the school grounds and beyond to teach Science.

You can find the guides, including links to some ASE journal articles, here:

http://www.ase.org.uk/htm/teacher_zone/outdoor_science/outdoor_science.php

Here’s an interesting animation that will help to illustrate Night and Day as well as phases of the Moon on your interactive whiteboard.

http://www.ictgames.com/dayNight/index.html

I’ve also put together a quick animation that demonstrates how the moon rotates around the Earth. The Moon always keeps the same face facing towards the Earth (and so the same face pointing away). This down to two important facts.

1. The moon rotates on its on axis, it takes approximately 28 days to make one full rotation

2. The moon orbits around the earth. It takes approximately 28 days to make one full orbit.

In the animation below, I have coloured the moon to make it clearer. This is the view from above as it rotates.

View Full Screen

As the moon rotates, it is also travelling around the Earth. The Moon has become locked into a pattern – the time it takes to orbit the Earth is the same as the time it takes to make one full rotation – approximately 28 days.

View Full Screen

As you can see, as the moon travels around the Earth, it is also rotating. The Red/Yellow face is always kept facing towards the Earth. If we were standing on the Earth looking at the Moon we would only see the Red/Yellow face. We would never be able to see the Blue/Green face.

Another animation that may be useful can be found here: http://www.edumedia-sciences.com/en/a213-earth-moon-system-1

You are probably already aware of the problems with Sparklebox following the imprisonment of its creator

Here are three websites that are filling the gap left by Sparklebox – all of them provide free printable worksheets and display materials that teachers might find useful.

Twinkl : This is a brand new online resource centre created just for teachers. Resources for Literacy and Numeracy are already online, I’m hoping they’ll start to cover Science and other subjects to follow soon.

Primary School Teaching : Primary School Teaching is a platform for sharing and ranking teaching resources and ideas. Lots of subjects covered and a useful search facility.

Teachers Pet : Another new website with a growing bank of PDF resources to download. It was only launched this week – so give it time to grow. IWB resources are on their way apparently.

Heres a link to a great lesson starter/plenary idea from the ICT Games website. Science Bingo. It uses the Primary Science vocab words from the Kent Scheme of work, which will suit most Primary Science classes.

Download a pack of Bingo cards to photocopy for the children – then use the Word generator to select words to cross off the bingo grid.

It’s a simple, fun idea  to help with keyword recognition.

Thanks to Jason Dilling (@jasondilling) and James (@Wigglemyears) on Twitter for coming up with the resource!

Just a quick post to flag up this fun little resource site for Science called Science Storybooks.

It contains a stack of Flash animations that can be used to introduce many different science concepts, some include songs that would provide a fun way to start a lesson.

The resources are completely free, and also contain links to lesson notes and other information. Well worth taking a look at.

Thanks to the iLearn Technology Blog for the heads-up on this resource.

Thanks to fellow twitterer Sophie Bessemer for tipping me off about these science resources from BP Educational Services, the education department of the energy company.

For Primary Science, there are some very useful resources in the Young Science Investigators series aimed at KS2 pupils. These resources include the following modules:

• Energy
• Our Environment
• Online Experiments

All these resources are free, but you do need to register with the site to get them although registration is also free.

It’s also worth taking a look at the free resources that you can order and have sent to your school such as posters and CD-ROM materials.

Take a look at these resources and see what you think. Could they be used to support science on your Interactive Whiteboard?

Here are 10 websites that will prove useful to any teacher of Primary Science looking for things to use on their interactive whiteboard:

The Children’s University of Manchester. Several excellent interactive resources for Primary Science.

NGFL Cymru : Early years, KS1 and KS2 Science resources from the Welsh Grid for Learning.

Simple Science : I love these excellent science song videos. Great for lesson starters or reinforcement of key facts.

IWB.org.uk: KS1 and KS2 interactive science resources (and other subjects)

BBC Bitesize. Always worth a visit, some excellent resources here for Ks2.

BBC Learning Zone - lots of videos to use in Science and other lessons.

Birmingham Grid for Learning – some excellent resources here, and links to other sites.

Crickweb – great flash-based games for KS1 and Ks2 Science.

Fossweb - US site with some interesting interactive science activities.

Primary Resources – Home to some great resources – IWB files, powerpoints, links and more! Also worth checking out is Teaching Ideas, which is on very similar lines.

Don’t forget, if your school subscribes to Espresso, there are some excellent resources for EYFS, KS1 and KS2 in there. (OK, so that makes 11, but Espresso is well worth a look)

Image Credit : Kevin Dooley

To mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, commissioned and funded by the Wellcome Trust, has created The Great Plant Hunt. This project will encourage Primary school children to explore the natural world around them and join other schools in the biggest ever school science project.

The Great Plant Hunt invites primary school children to follow in the footsteps of Darwin by going on nature walks in and around their school grounds. They’ll find out more about plants and in the process learn key scientific skills. There is a lot more information, and links to resources in the Teacher Area of the site.

In addition to the activity ideas, there are also interactive resources to use on an IWB such as Plant or Not?, Herby Havoc and Sunflower Survival.

All teaching materials and resources are available to download – so you can make your own Treasure Chest of resources to run The Great Plant Hunt completely free.