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Growing up I loved science classes. It was one of the most hands on classes that I had next to art. I loved that we were always able to do experiments, research, and explore our world. After taking this course and learning more in depth about the concepts that I will be teaching my students. I wonder what can I do to get my students to be more interested in science? Is it because we are pushing science off to the side and spending most of our time on just teaching language arts and math. I feel like the students at our school are not being exposed enough to science and are not given opportunities to explore the world around them. Also with the pressures of passing HSA I know a lot of teachers have to put science on the back burner. Especially since science is only tested in 4th grade at our elementary schools here in Hawaii. I want my students to have the opportunity to become a scientist some day. What can we do to encourage their growth and interest in the sciences? I guess that I am just frustrated with what my students are able to produce in the lessons that I have taught so far. All of their observations are short and lack the details that I expect from them. I don't know if it is disinterest, lack of back ground knowledge, or just plain laziness. Is it just me or am I expecting too much from my 4th graders?

Reid, One of the secrets to getting your students more interested in science is to show them your love of science!! If you read about or hear about some new development in science happening right now, share it with your students. That shows them how interested you are personally. Challenge them to share it with their parents. Also stories about how you became interested in science from your childhood (when they fit in with whatever you are teaching) shows your students how kids (like you were) can be interested in science.

I sympathize with you! I teach science for late elementary and middle school during the summer, and I find that the kids come each day excited to take on their projects. In the summer, my approach is more laid-back, and the kids work in groups on projects. I try to take more of a "STEM" approach, and have open-ended activities that allow students to take a problem, design a solution, then build it and test it. We share our projects at the end, and students take time to analyze and reflect on the results of their projects. I think it is more comprehensible than the traditional "PHEOC" approach. Coming up with hypotheses in a world that they are just beginning to learn about is intimidating, but most are quite creative and are developing their problem-solving skills.

Reid, You are not alone! I've also noticed that my elementary level students seem to struggle to articulate detailed observations, make conclusions based on evidence they've collected, and read informational texts. Like Tina suggested, the best method I've found to help my students learn these skills is to model and teach them the skills I expect in class. After a few weeks of scaffolding, the kids will begin to accomplish these skills on their own. I do think that the focus on LA and math is in part to blame for your 4th graders difficulty meeting your expectations, but another problem that I think contributes, at least on my district, is the focus on test taking skills. For instance, instead of teaching young students to write out or verbally articulate their own idea to answer a question, we focus on having them select the best answer out of 4 choices. While these skills help prepare the kids for standardized tests (and are easier to grade! ;) ) I wonder if this also contributes to students' difficulty in making observations and drawing conclusions in science. Your love of science will show through to your kids. They will be excited to learn, because you are excited to teach the material. With a little guidance and modeling, your students will be scientists in no time at all! Maureen

Adding to previous comments I have looked for resources that dicussing modeling science at the elementary level. This article addresses 1) What instructional strategies could be used to create a love for science for elementary school students? 2)What strategies help students connect their backgrounds to scientific ideas?, and 3) What strategies help students learn in “non-routine” ways? http://www.vast.org/_docs/Spencer_Walker.pdf Here you will find strategies for Introducing Models to Elementary School Students http://www.seplessons.org/node/1760 This article is from ASCD's Ediucational Leadership http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_199110_greene.pdf Here researcher's discuss best practices http://www.bestevidence.org/word/elem_science_Jun_13_2012.pdf

Science definitely takes a back seat to language arts and math. As I have seen over and over in my field observations science and social studies are tossed aside. The teachers will only teach if they have left over time. This also means that when they do teach it, it is usually reading out of a textbook and answering a few questions. Science is a great opportunity for students to be hands on, socialize, and be creative. It's very upsetting to see all the learning opportunities that are missed by shutting out science.

Science is extremely important. Our entire world revolves around science. The latest technology, out medical discoveries, the whether, and so much more. As an educator it is our job to promote science in the classroom and encourage student's to learn more about it on their own. I think forth graders are still exploring what they want to do when they get older, so we just present the opportunity of being able to be a scientist. Teachers need to express how important science is and that we need more men and women in this field. I do agree that science is put on a back burner in some schools because of standardized testing. This is very disappointing and needs to change. We need to create more lab activities in the classroom, assign high-level creative science projects, and make more time for science in the classroom.

Earlier in this thread DeAna states that science takes back seat to math and language arts. Reid complains that students struggle to articulate observations. Isn't part of this a language arts skill; being able to articulate. Closer to me area is that students who learn math as symbol manipulation have a very hard time using that math in context. Much of math was developed in order to model physical phenomena in the world. Could we teach it this way and jump start not just math but also science learning. It would seem from this that effective integrated curriculum could help by providing a framework for addressing language math and science in a contextually relevant format???? Now I should confess that I do not teach elementary grades, so I am perhaps speaking (typing) out of turn. The learning that does or does not happen in elementary grades does however have a huge impact on what I can and can not do with students later. I agree with those who have expressed objections to high stakes testing. I have a background in assessment and find that most (but certainly not all) standardized testing fails to give an adequate reflection of anything important; what students can do, teacher effectiveness, college readiness, add you pet objection here ..............Yet while not accomplishing it's stated intention, the mere fact of standardized testing is driving much of what is happening in the name of education and that is a huge problem.

This is something I encounter as well during my observations. Some students just aren't able to make connections. For example a student I interviewed said she did not see herself having a career in science. But when I asked her what she did see herself doing, she said she wanted to be a doctor. I think being able to connect science to everyday occurrences might capture students interest. I also think role playing would be a lot fun and informative. For example, you could have a project where the child dresses up as a famous scientist and pretend to be that scientist and give a mini teach on what the scientist is famous for.

It is hard to get the students motivated on science, as I am one of those students. As we know it always helps to have a hands on activity, but I do agree we need more of it in the lower elementary grades. I am going ot school to be a teacher, and my last class that I observed in I had to observe a science lesson. When I told my CT this she said "oh that means I have to do science now". She did complete a great lesson a vertebrates and invertebrates using a real live tarantula that pulled the kids in, but I did not see much science after that.

Janelle, Have a look at the videos I posted in Diversity on Science http://learningcenter.nsta.org/discuss/default.aspx?tid=c09N5T08bTA_E

Tina wrote, 'So like sentence starters for journaling (I had a few on a poster for them to refer to), handouts in their notebooks on roles for cooperative groups (one for labs, one for discussion groups), reviewing lab procedures for equipment distribution/clean-up before starting labs (and where to find out the roles - don't forget the handout!), etc.'

Hey Tina,
It would be wonderful if you would post your sentence starters so that we could see them. It would also be helpful to see the handouts you mention.
Thanks!

Reid and all, what excellent points. I found it reassuring that I wasn't the only science teacher in the same situation- I feel we have little time to explore science, and although students love the subject, they come to middle school with very little background in science from elementary school so they are unprepared for labs, scientific writing and reading. I agree with the post that discussed having to start with the basics with students- I have found I have to break down the lab reports at the beginning of the year, and eventually by the end of the year I start seeing the work I expect. What little my students have of science (~35 min/day in 6th grade with me) they seem to truly enjoy. I try to bring all of my background in marine sciences to the classroom and since we are in a coastal town, it keeps it relevant and helps them foster excitement for the (local) world around them.

Tina, Thank you so much for posting your sentences starters. I agree with you that these starters could be tailored to an older age group, if necessary. Some times students just need cues to help overcome writer's block.

Tina, Thank you for sharing your sentence starters! At the high school level, these sentence starters can be useful in scaffolding laboratory reports and data analysis. I often observe that students understand the content but have trouble articulating their thoughts and understandings. As mentioned earlier in the thread by Pamela, science is absolutely a language of its own. It seems that a major obstacle for students is trying to overcome the misconception that science is "too difficult" and reserved only for those who want to become scientists in the future. This obstacle may be what is holding students back from participating, or even attempting to participate in scientific discussions. I think that Earth Science is one of the most interesting courses to teach because of the abundance of opportunities to interact directly with the content (weather, rocks, fossils, etc). Still, students will ask the question, "Why do we need to know this?" It boggles my mind that students don't want to know how every day, natural phenomena work. Students often believe that they already know all there is to know about Earth Science because they see it all the time. There is a disconnect between relevance and interest. There have been some great suggestions in this thread such as modeling one's own interest and passion for science, and using current science news. I'm looking forward to using these suggestions in my own classroom!

Thanks, Tina, for the sentence starters! I'll be using them, for sure. This will help me reach my goal of improving the critical thinking/problem solving skills of my students. As I read through this post, it made me think a lot about my own class. I work at an Intermediate school in Hawaii, but in an "in-house" alternative program for at risk students. I only teach 1 science class, but 4 math classes. Often times I feel like I'm doing a disservice to my students because I spend the majority of my time prepping for math, as opposed to science. I have a few students who really seem intrigued by science and I wish I had the ability and/or know how to do hands on experiments that the students could manipulate themselves. We do internet research and poster projects, but nothing really "hands on." I truly believe that the best learning comes from manipulating the variables yourself and drawing conclusions based on your observations. I can teach principles until I'm blue in the face, but nothing will cement those ideas better than performing the experiment and witnessing the outcome yourself. My fear is that my students will lose that natural intrigue for science and asking questions, and my lack of fostering that intrigue isn't helping, either. Can anyone point me in the direction of experiments I could do with my students that don't require many typical "science classroom" resources? Even though I only have 9 science students, they are MY students and I want to give them the best science class I can. Thanks for listening!

Hi Reid. I haven't had much experience teaching science because this is my first year in elementary school, but I would like to share with you what I've observed in other classrooms. I agree with what you've said about student's ability in regards to science, but I don't think that they're lazy. As some other people have said, I think the love for science has to be introduced and then grown in students. If you have a passion for it and you show that passion to your students, I believe it will be a lot easier for them to catch on. If teachers can show students the great aspects of science to students - the discovery of new things, the accomplishment of proving a hypothesis, the excitement of hands-on activities, etc. - they will eventually see what they can do on their own. We need to first teach them how and why science can be fun and exciting. The way I've seen other teachers do this is to teach the science topics but make them relevant to the children themselves. If you can make learning real for them, the students will find value in what they're learning and probably become more motivated to learn more on their own. Poll your students to see what they're interested in and then help them make the connection to science. For example, if I asked my class what they're interested in, they'd definitely say kendamas, video games, movies, etc. So then I could present lessons using those topics as the focus. We could research what parts of the human body respond to using kendamas (muscles, nervous system). We could research movies and how movie companies use science to produce cool effects (computers, chemistry). You could also look at popular movies that have science ties. Watch the movie with the class, which almost all students love to do, and then base your lessons off of the science-related themes. You should try whatever gets the students interested in wanting to learn more, no matter how much they do or don't know about being scientists.