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Hello to my Elementary Science Methods Pre-service Teachers and anyone else who would like to join in!  Our face-to-face sessions have been postponed, but the learning goes on here.  Everyone can find a copy of the instructions my students received Friday morning attached. 

Please join in the discussion; please watch the webinar (which is OUT OF THIS WORLD and presented by PLANETARY EXPERTS!)  When you reply to this post, do so by entering a NEW post by clicking on the 'Post Reply' tab and not by reply to this particular post frame.  (That way others can respond to your individual post.)

Choose one (my students will choose two from the four) of the following questions to respond to.  (My students will also do at least one more post that responds to another participant.)

1.     Why is it NOT okay to continue to teach what is in science textbooks if we know the information is outdated/no longer factual? Justify with evidence. 

2.     How is that cutesy song/ mnemonic we learned (and then relearned with only 8 planets) limiting/stifling our students’ understanding about the number of planets in our solar system? (My Very Educated Mother Just Serve Us N…)

3.     There are other pieces of scientific knowledge that you learned in school that have turned out to be incorrect or misleading.  Depending on your age, there may be a LOT of them – especially involving planetary science and astronomy in general!  If you can think of one, share it here.  Use the sentence starters:  I used to think…. Now I know….This is because…

Going a bit beyond:

4.     So many interesting stories can be told about how our scientists before us came up with theories that they couldn’t explain at the time.  New technologies, new discoveries, and amazing math skills provide evidence to support the claims of our scientists sometimes many, many years later.  Pick one below (or choose another one) and give a short synopsis of the story of that scientist’s contribution to science.  Some examples:

a.     Darwin’s orchid and the  hawkmoth’s proboscis: https://www.calacademy.org/explore-science/darwin%E2%80%99s-hawkmoth

b.     Alfred Wegener and the rocky history of plate tectonics:  https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/geology/techist.html

c.     How Isaac Newton finally explains gravity: https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/08/29/how-isaac-newton-figured-out-gravity-with-a-little-help-from-his-friends/#88ca92347341

d.     Mendeleev’s Predictions of Elements not yet discovered on his Periodic Table: https://corrosion-doctors.org/Periodic/Periodic-Mendeleev.htm

e.     Do you have another story? What example can you share?

It is important that we include the NOS in our curricula!  It is important that we share our scientific genius’ mistakes, discoveries, errors in thinking, progression of scientific thought in the absence of evidence to back it up, great discoveries, etc. Students need to know that it is okay to think beyond the box!

Attachments

Remote_Learning_The_Nature_of_Science_What_is_a_Planet.docx (0.02 Mb)

2.     How is that cutesy song/ mnemonic we learned (and then relearned with only 8 planets) limiting/stifling our students’ understanding about the number of planets in our solar system? (My Very Educated Mother Just Serve Us N…)

The mnemonic for planets is limiting the students because they are only learning 8 or 9 planets that are easy to remember and that only helps them think there are that many number of planets in our solar system. However, we have many more planets they should know of. As they keep doing research they will probably find even more planet that students should learn of. Listening to the video you provided us there are many new things I did not know of. Things that are different from when I was in Elementry School have changed and students should not be learning the same things I learned many years ago. The only reason I do remember us having 9 planets was because of “My very Educated Mother, crying Just Served Us Nine Pizzas” I never thought there was more planet than the ones I was taught to memorize. We have to keep up to date on what is going on in our systems. Based on the video I learned there are 3 zones and in these 3 zones, there are more than 100 planets and more that we probably do not know of.

a.     Darwin’s orchid and the  hawkmoth’s proboscis: https://www.calacademy.org/explore-science/darwin%E2%80%99s-hawkmoth

This article talks about how Darwin's contribution to science was when he was one day was sitting in his office inspecting an unusual Star-of-Bethlehem orchard that was sent to him by a colleague. The plant had a foot-long nectar spur with the nector pooled to the very bottom and so he thought what insect could suck the nector.  The species that could do that was the African hawkmoth that demonstrated Darwin's theory of coevolution which was the development of two species that is driven or modified by other people.  They now keep Darwin's Hawkmoth alongside a star orchard to be able to discuss the coevolution of plants and its pollinators. 

How is that cutesy song/ mnemonic we learned (and then relearned with only 8 planets) limiting/stifling our students’ understanding about the number of planets in our solar system? 
            Having a little tune to teach students the order of the planets does not rally help them learn any content about the planets. A memorization technique is best suited for simpler things or to memorize concepts of order. For example, the webinar talks about how teachers would not use a tune to teach the students all the elements of the periodic table, but they could, however, teach the students a way to memorize and understand how the periodic table is organized. Teachers could show the students that the periodic table is organized by number of protons which will then make it easier for students to understand where the different elements go. For the solar system, having the students know how it is organized, the 3 zones, will help them understand where the planets belong in the solar system. It teaches them more content about the planets about their characteristics which also helps the students understand why the solar system is categorized the way it is. Memorization of a song does not help the students with their pedagogical learning, so teaching the reason behind the organization and the characteristics of each zone is the best way to help your students.
 
What do you know now to be different from when you were a kid?
             When I was in school, we were taught that there were nine planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. We were taught a little jingle to go along with it that must have been drilled into our heads because I still remember it all these years later. I did not really know why they went in that order. I knew it couldn’t be organized by size, I knew it wasn’t by color, so I really did not know why they were in that order. I now know that the planets are organized in that order based on the temperature characteristic they have from the distance from the sun they are. I now know this because the webinar explained to be that when the planets are close to the sun like in zone 1, they are hot and their matter is more concentrated, in zone 2 the water is always frozen because they are giant and are further away from the sun, and zone 3 being the Kuiper Belt. Along with this, I now know that Pluto is a planet. I know this because the scientists consider a planet to be mass that is round and has not undergone nuclear fusion. So, with this being said pluto IS still considered a planet in the Kuiper Belt even though it is a dwarf planet. 

1.     Why is it NOT okay to continue to teach what is in science textbooks if we know the information is outdated/no longer factual? Justify with evidence.

From the webinar we just watched, it emphasized how we should not teach our students to memorize the solar system, which may be outdated information in textbooks, but to understand how it was formed. I can picture how many textbooks have a picture of just the planets, along with their names, when in reality their is so much more. Some textbooks that are outdated, may have not updated their graphics, teaching approaches and newest discoveries, especially in topics such as Science, Social Studies and technolody. It is important to review the textbooks to make sure we are not teaching misconceptions, or passing our own, to our students.

Elaine,

I agree with you in both the things you said. I do not want to teach my students just how to memorize they will learn more if they can get more out of it. It's funny how you thought the sun made the seasons change. I use to think the North Star was the brightest and if I followed it, it would take me home. Knowing we all have misconceptions does make me think about how I can make sure my students do not have the same misconceptions and teach them up to date scientific information.

3.     There are other pieces of scientific knowledge that you learned in school that have turned out to be incorrect or misleading.  Depending on your age, there may be a LOT of them – especially involving planetary science and astronomy in general!  If you can think of one, share it here.  Use the sentence starters:  I used to think…. Now I know….This is because…

I use to think that the reason why it is hotter or colder is due to the proximity of the Sun to the Earth, and not the Sun angle or due to the tilt of the Earth axis. 

I also use to think that the hotter the water, the more kinetic energy it used, but once water reaches it's boiling point, it uses a difference energy since it started to change its state to from liquid to gas. 

1.     Why is it NOT okay to continue to teach what is in science textbooks if we know the information is outdated/no longer factual? Justify with evidence. 

From the webinar, I have learned a LOT of new things. My idea of the solar system and our planets was much different before watching the webinar. Just like myself, students create ideas and construct knowledge about the solar system based on what they are learning about it at school, many times from old textbooks. Now that advanced in technology have been made and new information has been collected, it is important that students learn about these up to date concepts. By learning what is in old or outdated textbooks, students will grow up learning about thinking about science in a way that is different from the reality of it. In the future, this can cause many misconceptions and can even make it difficult for students to change their way of thinking in the future. A few weeks ago in class, we learned about the scientific method. This brought back information and memories of when I learned about it in school many years ago. From this lesson now that I am older and years have passed, I realized that the scientific method is not the only way that science should be taught. Students should learn about the specific features and ideas which science. In the same way, I learned that learning about the plants should focus on specific zones in which planets can be found on and not so much on just the names and order. Students should also learn about the new information we have learned about through time and new technological advances. Learning science through a textbook that is no longer factual puts students at a disadvantage of learning the real facts and creating their understanding based on the newest information.

2.     How is that cutesy song/ mnemonic we learned (and then relearned with only 8 planets) limiting/stifling our students’ understanding about the number of planets in our solar system? (My Very Educated Mother Just Serve Us N…)

I personally learned a mnemonic in elementary school to memorize the planets and their order. I work in daycare and during circle time we also sing a song from youtube that only focuses on 8 of the planets. Now that I've learned more about planets and how many there actually is, I'm thinking about how I'm limiting my students from learning about planets in general. By only teaching students about 8 out of more than 100, they are constructing knowledge that can then lead to confusion and misconceptions. Personally, I am going to try to explain to students that although our song only focuses on 8 planets, there are many many more. The younger the students, the harder I think it is for them to understand more detailed information about our solar system. If students grow up thinking there is ONLY 8 planets in our solar system, we are limiting them on the truth and up to date information about planets. 

1. Why is it NOT okay to continue to teach what is in science textbooks if we know the information is outdated/no longer factual? Justify with evidence. 

While watching the webinar there was something that caught my attention. One of the speakers talked about how students learned about the solar system. He mentioned that most of us had been taught to memorize the planets but nothing much besides that. This is very true. I remember learning about the names of the planets but not learning much about them. We as educators know that memorizing things is not the best way to learn since often students forget what they memorize after they take a quiz or test. Teaching students things that are outdated or no longer factual can lead to misconceptions.

2.How is that cutesy song/ mnemonic we learned (and then relearned with only 8 planets) limiting/stifling our students’ understanding about the number of planets in our solar system? (My Very Educated Mother Just Serve Us N…)

While watching the webinar I felt that I learned a lot more about the planets than I ever did in my elementary years. Learning about the 3 zones was something I don’t remember learning about. From song like these you only learn the name of the planets and maybe the order but have zero clue as to how they are formed or what even considered a planet. From watching the webinar I quickly learned that I was wrong about a lot of things about our solar system. I wish it had not taken me up to my junior year in college to learn this information and I hope to take the time with my future students to teach them more valuable information about our solar system so they don’t have the misconception I’ve had. 

1.    Why is it NOT okay to continue to teach what is in science textbooks if we know the information is outdated/no longer factual? Justify with evidence. 

During this webinar, I learned so much information and facts about planets that I did not know before. I learned that the definition of a “planet” that I think of is not that actually that factual to planetary scientists. When I learned about our solar system in grade school, I learned about the 8 planets and not much else. In the webinar, I learned that the planets and our solar system is incredibly diverse. There is much more that makes up our solar system than the 8 planets that most teachers teach. This is why it is not okay for teachers to continue to teach the outdated information in the science textbooks. Just like a presenter in the webinar stated, K-12 textbooks and curricula needs to be updated to reflect the diversity of planets in our solar system. My biggest takeaway from the webinar is that Science is always changing and very diverse. Also, not all scientists will agree on things such as the definition of a “planet” and that is ok!

2.     How is that cutesy song/ mnemonic we learned (and then relearned with only 8 planets) limiting/stifling our students’ understanding about the number of planets in our solar system? (My Very Educated Mother Just Serve Us N…)

Growing up, I have heard many different songs that I have been taught about our solar system. I always thought of our solar system being a rather simple topic of discussion. I knew the names of each planet in our solar system. I knew the size and order. After watching this webinar, I now know that our solar system is so much more diverse than I could have ever imagined! I think teachers teach those cutesy songs because they’re a simple way for kids to memorize. But memorization is not the way our students should be learning anymore! I learned that there are more than 100 planets in this webinar. I did not know that before. I really like what one of the presenters said about teaching all the planets. The presenter said it’s ok to not teach every single one of the 100 planets, but it’s important to tell the students that there are that many. The concepts about our planets is key and most important. We don’t have to tell our students every single name of every planet and they do not have the memorize them. We do not have to make up a new cutesy song with over 100 planet names in them. Our students should be learning the real, important concepts about our solar system

1. Why is it NOT okay to continue to teach what is in science textbooks if we know the information is outdated/no longer factual? Justify with evidence. 

After watching the webinar I have learned so much new information that I did not know about our solar system and the planets. It is not okay to continue to teach what is in the science textbooks because the information is outdated and no longer factual. In the webinar that we watched it had many new facts that are not being taught to the younger children. One of the presenters in the webinar stated that  K-12 textbooks and curricula needs to be updated to reflect the diversity of planets in our solar system.There are so many misconceptions about science because we are not teaching the children everything they need to know about the solar system. When giving students information from outdated textbooks you are not teaching them the accurate changing information that has continued to be found about space and the planets, and everything that is in it. 

2. How is that cutesy song/ mnemonic we learned (and then relearned with only 8 planets) limiting/stifling our students’ understanding about the number of planets in our solar system? (My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us N…)

When I was in elementary school I think it was third or fourth grade the musical that we had that year was based on the solar system, or what I remember the planets. The only song I can remember singing is the planet song that I still say in my head today when putting the planets in order from the sun to the outer ends of the solar system. This is still happening in schools, and children are being educated in the wrong ways about the solar system. When singing this song, and learning about the planets I thought that these are the only planets in the solar system, but now I know that there are hundreds of billions of other planets out there that we just have not discovered yet. In our solar system alone there are over a hundred planets, but the only ones we are taught in elementary school are the eight or nine planets that are in a line from Mercury to Pluto and are orbiting around our sun. Children should be learning about the entire solar system and the zones of the solar systems not just the nine planets.

2.     How is that cutesy song/ mnemonic we learned (and then relearned with only 8 planets) limiting/stifling our students’ understanding about the number of planets in our solar system? (My Very Educated Mother Just Serve Us N…)

If I were asked this question before watching the webinar my response would have been entirely different than it is about to be now. The cutesy song/ mnemonic way we learned the planets when we were younger seemed like a harmless and smart way to learn them. Thinking back on it now, I learned nothing but the names of the planets and the order that they are in from the sun onwards. When I was answering the questions that went along with the video I was honestly stumped trying to answer 'What is a Planet?' The fact that I can resite the names of the planets in correct order but not tell you what a planet actually is, is a perfect example as to how it limits and stifles  our students' understanding. It is also innaccurate. I answered the question that there are now only 8 planets in our solar system, but in reality there are upwards of hundreds of planets in our solar system. The most important thing for us to teach our science classes is the fact that there are different characteristics and qualifications for the planets in our solar system and there are different types. Rather than memorizing whatever, or however many, planets we decide our important to know, we should emphasize on how to distinguish a planet, from a moon, or a dwarf planet.  

4.     So many interesting stories can be told about how our scientists before us came up with theories that they couldn’t explain at the time.  New technologies, new discoveries, and amazing math skills provide evidence to support the claims of our scientists sometimes many, many years later.  Pick one below (or choose another one) and give a short synopsis of the story of that scientist’s contribution to science.  Some examples:

c.     How Isaac Newton finally explains gravity: https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/08/29/how-isaac-newton-figured-out-gravity-with-a-little-help-from-his-friends/#88ca92347341

Issac Newton is a common name for figuring out gravity. It was interesting to read that he actually had some help in this dicovery. Newton was interested in studing how planets going around the Sun are seen to obey Kepler's three laws of planetary motion. Those three laws of motion are that the orbit of a planet is an ellipse, with the Sun at one of the two foci., a line segment joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time, and  that the square of the orbital period of a planet is proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit. Issac Newton was using Keplers laws to justify and establish his law of universal gravitation as true scientific knowledge. He used the calculus he had created (infinitesimal calculus) and used a formula to in orbital geometry, allowing him to describe mathematically the motion of bodies acted upon by various force laws. This allowed him to demonstrate in a mathematically rigorous way that all three of Kepler’s laws follow from an inverse-square law for gravity. Newton went on to show that the same law for gravity could explain the orbits of comets, the tides, and the Earth’s axial precession. 

Hello Everyone! 

The planetary scientists and experts in the field of astronomy would be happy to hear that viewing just one 56 minutes webinar really helped those of us who watched it to understand how scientific information can change as new knowledge is uncovered/discovered. That is THE NATURE OF SCIENCE:-)

I end my beginning post with this: It is important that we include the NOS in our curricula!  It is important that we share our scientific genius’ mistakes, discoveries, errors in thinking, progression of scientific thought in the absence of evidence to back it up, great discoveries, etc. Students need to know that it is okay to think beyond the box!

Here is an excellent resource providing ideas and techniques to enhance your science teaching as it relates to helping our youngest students learn about the nature of science:https://common.nsta.org/resource/?id=10.2505/4/sc18_055_05_78  This is an article from Science & Children (Jan 2018).

1.    Why is it NOT okay to continue to teach what is in science textbooks if we know the information is outdated/no longer factual? Justify with evidence. 

Science is always evolving, and as new technology exists, we understand and discover new aspects that may change what we once thought. I think that we should still teach it, however, for different purposes. I think we need to show students how theories and discoveries happen and that it is ok to continually change or build onto what we know. We should talk about how we use to teach this and how we now have discovered something different. We should point out how all parts are important, and they help us progress to the next step. For students to be fully competent in a particular area they need to know how it came to be and what to compare it to. This process also teaches students to think for themselves and question things that they see or hear.

2.    How is that cutesy song/ mnemonic we learned (and then relearned with only 8 planets) limiting/stifling our students’ understanding about the number of planets in our solar system? (My Very Educated Mother Just Serve Us N…)

I think this song is still fine to teach, however, we need to tell students that these are not all masses/planets that exist and that they are just the known ones closest to our planet. I also think that we should not teach the song and believe we have done enough because they know names of just a few. That only goes so far. We want them to develop deeper connections like what planets are made of, why they are different, why we debate the definition, and why we could not live there. Teaching students just a name is a disservice to them.  

1. Why is it NOT okay to continue to teach what is in science textbooks if we know the information is outdated/no longer factual? Justify with evidence. 

Knowing the information is outdated, why is there a need to teach it?  Science is always changing and new things are being discovered while old things are becoming obsolete.  Teaching the history of science is one thing, but teaching the outdated aspects in science is unnecessary.  For example, when I was in elementary school, Pluto was considered a planet, however, nowadays Pluto is considered a dwarf planet and is not counted as an actual planet in our solar system.  Teaching students from a science book that was used when I was young will tell students that Pluto is in fact a planet in the solar system.  With today’s studies, scientists have determined that Pluto is not, so why teach students the wrong thing from the current times?  Teaching students the history of Pluto would be more acceptable because it was in the past and just like most history in the past, it changes.  Also, if we know the information is no longer factual, why would someone want to teach that to their students?  To me, that is just as crazy as teaching students the colors wrong or the names of the letters wrong.

    2. How is that cutesy song/ mnemonic we learned (and then relearned with only 8 planets) limiting/stifling our students’ understanding about the number of planets in our solar system? (My Very Educated Mother Just Serve Us N…)

I think this information is limiting the students’ understandings of the number of planets in our solar system because there are more than just 8 planets in a way.  There are 8 major planets in our solar system, so the mnemonic is correct and I believe okay to teach, but there are also dwarf planets in our solar system to consider.  I think teaching just the mnemonic for the main planets is okay, as long as we teach the students that there are other “planets” out there.  Pluto, Cres, Makemake, Haumea, and Eris are the known dwarf planets in the solar system, along with a Planet X that scientists still think is out there.  While there is a mnemonic for the 8 planets, I would teach a similar mnemonic for the dwarf planets to my students.  Maybe it would be

P luto - People

C res – Can

M akemake - Marry

H aumea - Humans

And - and

Eris – Elves

1. Why is it NOT okay to continue to teach what is in science textbooks if we know the information is outdated/no longer factual? Justify with evidence. 

Firstly, schools tend to have a habit of reusing textbooks year after year when in the younger classrooms, and just because the text is the same doesn’t mean it reaches everyone the same. Some students don’t benefit from reading the same thing as everyone else, some are advanced or struggle and having an average reading will not reach those children. In the wise words of Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, “Be very, very careful what you put in that head, because you will never, ever get it out.” That leads me to my second point, children tend to absorb everything they’re told from a young age which leads to misconceptions that last as they get older. The issue with textbooks is that they often contain information that may have been presumed to be correct at the time, but later on gets disproven. Science is a study that is always changing and moving and needs to be taught in a way that can be adapted when new information is released.

3. There are other pieces of scientific knowledge that you learned in school that have turned out to be incorrect or misleading.  Depending on your age, there may be a LOT of them – especially involving planetary science and astronomy in general!  If you can think of one, share it here.  Use the sentence starters:  I used to think…. Now I know….This is because…

I’ve heard a lot of false information that was mostly supported by sayings like “You’ll get a cold if you stay outside when it’s cold or raining out”. I’m sure that’s probably because that’s what you say to children who want to play outside when it’s cold, even though getting hypothermia it a real possibility. The one specifically I can think of related to outer space is related to the moon. I used to think that the far side of the moon is the dark side of the moon. Now I know that the far side of the moon is lit up by the sun just as much as the side that faces us. The reason we don’t see the dark side of the moon is because it is tidally locked with Earth. (My younger brother actually showed me a video about this topic not too long ago, which is pretty cool)

2.     How is that cutesy song/ mnemonic we learned (and then relearned with only 8 planets) limiting/stifling our students’ understanding about the number of planets in our solar system? (My Very Educated Mother Just Serve Us N…)
 
            When students learn the mnemonic song they are only learning the names and order of the planets. They are not learning anything more in-depth about them or even a single fact to distinguish one from another. The webinar discussed how it is important that we do not teach students to memory the solar system but to understand how it is formed. Just like you would not teach students a tune about the elements of the periodic table but rather teach the students the way that the periodic table is organized because that will help students understand and navigate it better when looking for elements. What educators should be doing instead of teaching a song is to teach them also how the solar system is organized. The solar system is organized by three zones. The inner zone which is composed of rocky terrestrial planets, middle zone which has gassy icy planets and the outer zone which is composed of the Kuiper belt. By knowing the three zones this will help them understand where the planets belong and the characteristics about them.
 
3.     There are other pieces of scientific knowledge that you learned in school that have turned out to be incorrect or misleading.  Depending on your age, there may be a LOT of them – especially involving planetary science and astronomy in general!  If you can think of one, share it here.  Use the sentence starters:  I used to think…. Now I know….This is because…
 
I used to think that the earth was closer to the sun in the summer because it is so hot and farther away when it was winter because of how cold it gets. Now I know after taking a college astronomy class that the sun is actually closest to earth during the winter and farthest from the sun during the summer due to its axis tilt.

1.     Why is it NOT okay to continue to teach what is in science textbooks if we know the information is outdated/no longer factual? Justify with evidence. 

It is NOT okay to continue to teach what is in the science textbooks because we know that the information could be or is outdated and no longer factual. A textbook pulishing company only comes out with a 'new' edition every 3 to 4 years; a lot of things can change and be updated during that time period. But another issue with this, is how often the schools pay to update their textbooks for their students and by the time they receive said textbooks the information may already be out of date or not completely factual anymore. As a teacher, you should conduct your own resource via the interenet and fact check the information you have used from the sources, to make sure that what you are teaching to your students is correct information and that you are setting them up to be successful in their education career using the information that you have taught them. You can only do that though if the information is accurate/correct and modern information unless dealing with history. 

2.     How is that cutesy song/ mnemonic we learned (and then relearned with only 8 planets) limiting/stifling our students’ understanding about the number of planets in our solar system? (My Very Educated Mother Just Serve Us N…)

A cutesy song/mnemonic using only the 8 planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) is limting/stifling our students'understanding about the number of planets in our solar system because these mentioned above are the 'only' planets that are textbooks mention because they wanted it to be easier for the students to only have to remember 8 to 9 planets when really there is 147 and counting planets out past Pluto in our solar system. This would be to much information and names for any student to know and learn about in a textbook or a cute little song. By using this cute little song, students believe that those are the only planets in our Solar system and that there is nothing else out there because they dont learn about it. 

Hi, Carolyn and future science teachers!

This is a fascinating forum, I love all the thoughts I’ve been reading, what a cool learning group you all have!

I thought you might like to hear my perspective, based on a 25+ yr research career in earth science, now 10+ years “back” in the K-12 classroom.

1. Why is it NOT okay to continue to teach what is in science textbooks if we know the information is outdated/no longer factual? Justify with evidence. 

The devil’s advocate in me has to ask, who (still?) uses textbooks to teach science? 

Imo, that’s not K-12 Science Framework (and derivative NGSS)-compatible at all!

I have taught everything from K-5 environmental science to AP Biology and honors Chemistry and Physics, and have never taught from a textbook, except for perhaps AP Biology.  

Rather, the “textbook” in my classroom is always a composition notebook, ideally graph rather than lined paper.  It becomes the record of the learning that a student has constructed during the year.  How to set up that the notebook certainly varies by teacher, grade level, and subject, but the key is to emphasize that students own the heavy lifting of the learning that is science.  Highlighted by the explicit practice that they literally own the artifact of that construction, and get to take it home at the end of the year!

That is not to say reading in textbooks, readers, and assorted media is not a valid learning tool / reference source. It is (!) -- but sensemaking of phenomenon has to come first.  I do sometimes even printout critical reading passages to glue/tape into student notebooks, when I think the passage is particularly important (one tip: printing 2 per page in landscape, then cutting in half saves a lot of paper, and is the perfect size for most composition books).

I’m also going to disagree a wee bit with one aspect of this question in the first place:  

Text books can be outdated, but RARELY are the FACTS in them wrong. 

To examine this in a bit more depth, perhaps the most important skill in scientific reading -- whatever level -- is drawing a line between facts/observations themselves, and how we put them together to make sense of the phenomenon we are trying to understand.  That’s why it is so important to separate “results” from “discussion,”  whether in an elementary lab report/science fair project, or a professional contribution to the literature -- the “author” probably has the best initial perspective on drawing that line. This can be hard -- a lot of scientists are not very good at it!

Of course, this is all partly a function of one’s working definition of “science,” which I think needs to be defined for any class we are teaching or taking.  For me, it’s always explicitly something like this:

Science is the social construct of making sense of the natural world, with the emphasis on the social construct.

And I find that referring back to this working definition really helps set the stage for the goal of learning in my classroom, whether for students, parents t, or administrators.

OK, another pet peeve of mine:

2. How is that cutesy song/ mnemonic we learned (and then relearned with only 8 planets) limiting/stifling our students’ understanding about the number of planets in our solar system? (My Very Educated Mother Just Serve Us N…)

Naming/classifying by itself is not science.  

However, how those names or classification system came into place, and how and why we use them MIGHT be! 

For example, whether Pluto is a planet or not is NOT a question of misconception, nor is it a question of fact or mis-fact.  

Pluto is Pluto, and what we call it doesn’t change what it is.  It has some pretty cool characteristics:

• It’s big enough that its own gravity pulled it into a round shape!
• It has a frozen solid nitrogen glacier!! 
• Methane is mainly frozen solid there, too!!!
• Wait, aren’t both of those are GASES on Earth?  

Those facts aren’t going to change, but how we use those observations to make sense of the solar system might evolve.  Part, but only part, of that evolution is how we define the words that we use to construct our understanding.  As with using any language, we have to allow that definitions can evolve over time, too. 

Btw, this is why context-driven vocabulary is so important in science as well as ESL.  This is very different than what I was “taught” in ESL classes only 10-15 years ago -- we were supposed to pre-teach vocabulary (NOT!)!  I let my classes develop their own (draft? working??) definitions, then compare them with “accepted” definitions.  I sometimes even let classes keep/use their own definitions, as long as we are clear what and why we are using them.  For example, for years I have let classes develop/use imo a perfectly good definition “a planet is a rocky or icy body that is big enough to pull itself into a roughly round shape,” even though that is not the “accepted” IAU definition.

Of course, in the OUT OF THIS WORLD webinar we heard that most PLANETARY scientists today [as opposed to astronomers as a whole?] are using a definition very similar to the one my classes have developed themselves. And how empowering it is when I let my students know that!!

[The webinar was also very explicit that “Voting is not a legitimate process in science,” which also I love.]

Language is critical with respect to diversity and equity, too. Let kids start with the language tools they already have!  To me, this seems a natural extension of context-driven language acquisition.  I am certainly no expert at this, but a good place to start might be the Feb 2 Teacher Tip Tuesday Webinar that Bryan Brown gave on “The Meaning Beyond The Words: How Language, Race & Culture Impact Science Teaching & Learning” -- recording here and resources here.

Finally, note that we can not only use the Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) to help us make sense with scientific classification, but these Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs) are particularly helpful, especially when we look at the solar SYSTEM (like, one of them is even its name?):

• 1. Patterns. Observed patterns in nature guide organization and classification and prompt questions about relationships and causes underlying them.
• 4. Systems and System Models.  A system is an organized group of related objects or components; models can be used for understanding and predicting the behavior of systems.

The facts about Pluto seen thru these CCC lens should lead to more questions, like:

• What happens to all that frozen nitrogen and methane when Pluto’s orbit takes it inside of Neptune's orbit?
• Shouldn’t a lot of those solids start to melt or sublimate? 
• Is Pluto then a Zone 2 rather than Zone 3 planet for part of its “year”?
• Wait, do I need to update my classification system?

Asking and addressing these Qs, now that’s Science!  ;-)

(Btw, imo one can “teach” a helluva lot about NOS implicitly simply by explicitly modeling the range of SEPs and CCCs every day in the classroom.)