Teaching ScienceIdeas and help for trainee Science teachers

Border Crossings is designed to explore the opportunities for science and mathematics teachers to cross their traditional subject borders and explore the potential for outdoor learning. It builds on the success of earlier projects such as Let’s Think Through Science (aimed at teachers of science at KS2), London Outdoor Science, Thinking Beyond the Urban Classroom and Trailblazers.

Border Crossings is funded by the AstraZeneca Science Teaching Trust.

Border Crossings have produced a pack of 8 teaching resources incorporating best practice in terms of assessment for learning and cognitive acceleration which can be used by both mathematics and science teachers in ways which promote cross-curricular work.

You can download all the lesson ideas from the Border Crossings website here:

http://www.field-studies-council.org/projects/bordercrossings/index.aspx

Becta, the government agency that developed the innovative use of technology throughout learning, closed on January 31, 2011.

Thankfully, the ASE have archived some of the science education resources produced by BECTA.

You can download them here. There are guides for both Primary and Secondary Science covering different aspects of ICT in Science

Four years ago I produced a pack of Smart Notebook files for Steljes, the distributors of Smartboards over here in the UK. They formed part of a teachers pack that was distributed to schools around the UK.

The files were also available via the Steljes Software site. That site had a revamp a while back, and the files are no longer available online.

I have copied the files onto my Think Bank website so that Smartboard users can still access them. Each file has a corresponding teachers’ guide in pdf format.

The six lesson packs cover the following topics:

• The Blast Furnace (KS4)
• Cells (KS3)
• Forces (KS3)
• Metals (Ks3)
• Muscles and Joints (KS4)
• Reflection and Refraction (KS4)

To download the files, and the corresponding teachers guide, click here.

If you don’t have a SMARTboard  – you can open them via Smart Notebook Express  http://smarttech.com/notebookexpress

Getting Practical - resources and materials for supporting practical work in Primary, Secondary and Post-16 Science

The Nuffield Curriculum Centre with Biosciences Federation and CLEAPSS run three different sites for the three separate sciences:

• http://www.practicalbiology.org/
• http://www.practicalchemistry.org/
• http://www.practicalphysics.org/

Each experiment on the sites list practical information for technicians and teachers – apparatus lists, health & safety notes, and instructions about how to set up and run each experiment. It’s aimed at those who think they’d like a bit of advice so there is quite lengthy information. The initial focus has been on GCSE but there’s also KS3 and A Level material.

Top 10 Flash Bang demos – produced by the Why Not Chem Eng site, shows 10 experiments guaranteed to capture your students interest, along with  links to the instruction sheets and accompanying videos. Health and safety guidance is also provided. Make sure you read it!

Also don’t forget to check CLEAPPs for ideas, but also for more safety guidance before you do any experiment. Please make sure you do a risk assessment!

Google is looking for the brightest, best young scientists from around the world to submit interesting, creative projects that are relevant to the world today.

To help make today’s young scientists the rock stars of tomorrow, in partnership with CERN, The LEGO Group, National Geographic and Scientific American, Google is introducing the first global online science competition: the Google Science Fair. It’s open to students around the world who are between the ages of 13-18. All you need is access to a computer, the Internet and a web browser.

Find out more on the Google Blog here, or check out the Google Science Fair website. You have until 4th April to enter. Even if you don’t enter, there are some useful resources in the teachers area for teaching investigations.

Here’s a link to a great blogpost by Frank Noschese on his Action-Reaction blog which lists 15 different ways to use digital cameras in Science teaching. Go take a look!

This is Ricky. Ricky is very lucky in that he will soon be going on an expedition to Antarctica alongside a teacher called Lisa Woods, sponsored by the Fuchs Foundation.

You can follow Ricky’s adventures via his blog : http://antarcticapuppet.primaryblogger.co.uk/

Teachers could use Ricky’s problems as a stimulus for talk and investigations, as well as to encourage children to raise questions.

There are two main sections to the blog – both of which will of interest to teachers who want to use Ricky in their lessons.

“Ricky’s Diary” – this is Ricky’s record of his preparation and his trip. He started writing his blog entries over the summer holiday and will add to these when he gets responses to his problems or new things happen to him. You can help to solve the problems in whatever order you wish, either by following Ricky’s posts in date order, or dipping into them as you choose. You might decide to focus on one issue such as what Ricky should eat or how to keeping warm. You might choose something that could help Ricky even though he hasn’t yet thought about it.

You can post questions for Ricky, and ideas for investigations to be carried out before he goes or during his Antarctic adventure. He will try to respond to most ideas or questions. He will also choose some of the interesting ideas and questions from children to explore when he goes on his adventure in November.

“How can you help Ricky?” – this section contains idea for how to solve Ricky’s problems linked directly to the posts in Ricky’s Diary. There are also links to other support materials where relevant.

The Fuchs Foundation arranges for young teachers of science and geography to undertake scientific expeditions to the Antarctic and Arctic. The charity was re-launched in 2005 to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of Sir Vivian Fuchs’ Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1956-58, There is more information about the Fuchs Foundation expeditions on the Fuchs Foundation website. www.fuchsfoundation.org and you can watch teachers on the 2007 expedition recorded by Teacher’s TV – click here to watch the video.

If you’re looking for a way to make Primary Science a little more fun and interesting then you might like to incorporate Ricky and his antarctic adventures into your curriculum. It would be a nice way to introduce investigative work and become a stimulus for talk, as well as to encourage children to raise questions. It would also have some fun cross curricular activities such as creative writing.

Good Luck to Ricky and Lisa on their expedition. I look forward to reading more about it.

http://antarcticapuppet.primaryblogger.co.uk/

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