DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Dear Diane,

 

I am excited to begin studying Science Methods with you this fall! This summer, I taught rising first graders at SummerPrep. We created a science unit on building walls from the Engineering is Elementary kit entitled A Sticky Situation. Starting with the “hook” of a bunny stealing vegetables from my teaching partner’s garden, we explored how materials engineers design and build walls through a total of six lessons. First, we took the students on a “wall walk” to introduce the concept of mortar and establish what students already knew about walls. The following two lessons encompassed observing earth materials and testing “sandwiches” made of small tiles and wet earth materials to discover the useful properties of earth materials. The next two lessons involved students designing and building a model wall in pairs using a self-selected mixture of earth materials as mortar. Our final science lesson was a test of these walls using a mock “demolition ball” made from a wooden dowel, string, and a golf ball.

 

The biggest takeaways that I developed from our science unit were the importance of organizing materials and using the right questioning techniques. I found that when I spent time before a lesson organizing and laying out the materials, students could dive right into their lesson with just a brief overview of the expectations for cleanup. Students also seemed more excited to learn when they could see the materials ready and waiting for them. I found questioning techniques to be very important with the science unit because the curriculum from Engineering is Elementary tells teachers exactly what students should learn in each lesson and exactly which materials make the best mortar. I had to develop some sophisticated questioning techniques to help students discover things about the earth materials without giving them the answers that I already knew.

 

This fall, I hope to learn more about science curriculums outside of a science kit. Science is probably the area in which I have the least academic experience and I am eager to learn the ways in which I can learn more about science and design lessons that are exciting and challenging for my students. I enjoyed teaching a lesson where students had to create something, and I also hope to learn many strategies for teaching hands on science lessons. I look forward to working with you and I am certain that I will learn about all of these things and more in Science Methods this fall!

 

Warmly,

Jessica Karpinski

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.