Kara Woods
Midwestern State University

How Do You Know That Science is Going On? Questioning the criteria that determine whether science is taking place

Wed, Apr 29, 2015 11:49 PM
Do the Science TEKS Support Science Learning?

According to the author’s perspective, the science TEKS do not line up with the criteria that she feels are evidence that children are learning science. This is evident in the fact that she states, “I maintain there is no such thing as “science skills”—observing, measuring, interpreting, analyzing, and communicating are all life skills.” The science TEKS list all of the verbs mentioned above with various topics that deal with content. Another statement that the author makes is that science should not be taught using content in the form of unrelated facts, but science actually involves students questioning scientists’ ideas and relating their own interests and understanding with those of the science community. It is clear that the author believes that students should be more involved in the scientific process of inquiry and collecting data rather than fact memorization and unrelated experiments. The science TEKS cover a large variety of topics, some of which involve identifying and memorization and others that involve experimenting and classifying. This is exactly what the author describes in the situations where the teachers thought that students were learning science, but they were not.

Planetary Paths

Thu, Dec 04, 2014 6:14 PM
The Solar System across the Subjects

This article can be extremely helpful for any content teacher due to the fact that it shows a variety of ways to incorporate the Solar System into all subject areas. I really liked a lot of the activities for each of the different classes. I found it interesting that at the end of the article there was an assessment that would incorporate what the students had learned in all of the different subjects into one project. I also found it very interesting that the Solar System could even be incorporated into music and social studies classes. The end of the article also includes very interesting facts about Mercury, Mars, and Pluto that are extremely informative.

The Early Years: Objects in Motion

Thu, Dec 04, 2014 5:06 PM
Great for Young Students

This journal article is extremely useful for teachers who are going to teach the concept of forces and motion to very young students. This concept can be particularly hard for students to grasp due to its more abstract nature; however, the activity provided in the article provides a visual that will aid the students in understanding more about the concept of forces and motion. Students will find the activity fun and engaging, and they may not even realizing that they are learning. It is also important that the activity incorporates an important safety lesson in with the idea of forces and motion. This activity will be something that students can refer back to as their knowledge of forces and motion increases throughout their school careers.