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Hello, my name is Andrea. I am a preservice teacher at Wartburg College. From my experiences in the classroom, I have noticed that most elementary classes have a very small amount of time each day or even each week that is dedicated to science. I have also noticed that this science time mainly happens at the end of the day when students are burnt out and ready to go home. Since most schools prefer reading, writing, and math to be at the beginning of the day, how do you make sure your students are still getting the most out of their science time? Are there any activities or strategies that inservice teachers are using in their classroom's that are helping your students develop their science skills?

Andrea, 

Your concern about the lack of science instruction time in the classroom, is a concern that many preservice teachers have. It is unfortunate that schools are not allowing time for science, as science helps students grow in so many ways. I am a preservice teacher as well, at the University of Northern Iowa. We have discussed this issue and I can share with you what I have learned so far. The best way to teach your students about science, when the school is not alloting time to do so, is to integrate science into your reading, writing, and math. Find literature science books and discuss science vocabulary, etc. Have students write a short story about animals, with a background of a science topic. You can integrate science into math by having students use data from a science topic while creating graphs, line plots, etc. Teachers should take the time to find or create lesson plans that have science integrated into them, to ensure that students are learning about science as well as reading, writing, math, and social studies, as they are all important for students to learn about. 

Check out Besty Rupp Fulwiler’s book, Writing in Science in Action.  Great resource!  If you do your fun hands on labs during your short science block you can bring the writing and data analysis into your ELA block.  You must learn to maximize every instructional minute!

As challenging as it may seem, there are many ways you can integrate science into other subjects. For example, if you are doing a science unit about honey bees, you can tie that in with literacy by having students read about bees. You could do math activities that pertain to bees.. students can do a writing project on bees. It doesn't all have to be going on in science. There are lots of fun ways to integrate it in other subjects. 

A good way to integrate science into reading or writing would be to read books that relate to science and have them complete a writing assignment over the science material in the book you read.