Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 11.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is that I’m a middle child. And, I’m the worst kind of middle child – where I have an older brother and younger sister. The oldest sibling will always be the first (and, in my family, he’s a boy which is a big deal) and the youngest will always be the baby but, in my family, is also the only girl. So, the middle, who’s not the oldest or the baby, who isn’t the first girl or boy – has nothing special. So, he gets neglected. Perhaps, that explains a lot about me. Now, let’s get to work.

This is the last episode of Science Teacher Summer School. I’ve enjoyed making this series of videos. I’m working on a new series of videos right now and my focus is still on better science education. Please subscribe to my youtube channel and email list at realsciencechallenge.com to stay posted on when new episodes will be published.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted this discussion question, “What’s missing from science education” in a Facebook community chat for parents. I wanted to know the parents’ perspective of the science classroom and how I should refocus my practice this year- assuming their concerns, of course, were legitimate or logical. The question received 126 responses. So, what did parents say, and what does this mean for us as science teachers? We look at some of the most popular responses and ask what it could mean for us.

The most common theme coming from parent responses is that parents wanted their kids to learn to think like a scientist. For example,

One parent wrote, “What scientific research actually involves and that it is not equally valid to the “research” you do by googling something while you’re on the toilet.”

Another wrote, “How to find credible information…and developing and honing their critical thinking and reading skills to spot inaccurate or misleading information might well save their lives.”

And another wrote, “Switch focus from learning specific facts and information to learning how to think like a scientist.”

Finally, one of my favourite responses wrote, “On the whole as a society, we are scientifically illiterate, anti-education, and consider science a political tool of the left and acts against God. Like when Bill Nye was booed fiercely when saying “the moon reflects the sun’s light.”

This response is surprising because I think most teachers have the goal of teaching students to think like a scientist or being scientifically literate. That’s why we do lab reports and scientific method, science fair, inquiry projects, etc. Yet, parents still feel it needs to be taught. But, why? I have a few theories:

My first theory is that some teachers don’t teach scientific thinking. But, this is not simply because teachers don’t want to. For example, in the lower grades, the focus for most teachers is still reading, writing, and arithmetic. Thus, science is merely a means to help with reading and, therefore, science skill isn’t really a focus. Also, teachers in elementary school may not have a science background and may feel as though they have the science skills to teach science skills. Thus, scientific thinking may not be practiced or taught. Therefore, the one option is for teachers to get some more pro-d in scientific thinking. Another option is to bring parents who have a science background come in to share their skills for some lessons. But, what about high school science teachers – many of whom have a science background?

As a high school science teacher myself, I think we do teach scientific thinking – but many of us may not do it very effectively right now. Time is the typical reason or excuse we use – like, “there’s not enough time for me to go through all the foundational content and do scientific literacy or science fair” or “there isn’t enough time for me to prep another unit or lab activity”. But, there are teachers who are able to do both – teach science literacy and content – well. And, I think, it’s because they’ve learned how to do content and scientific thinking together. Yes, if we treat both goals – teaching foundational content and teaching scientific thinking – as separate goals – then, yes, we’ll do a terrible job of it and probably run out of time. But, weaving content and scientific thinking more frequently and consciously will save time and allow scientific thinking to be taught. I’m not saying it’s easy to do – but, that’s what needs to happen to have both goals met..

Lastly, we may do a great job of integrating content and scientific thinking together. We do a great job of teaching scientific thinking. But, parents still don’t see it. Then what? I think it’s because parents only see a snapshot of what is going on in the class. We give parents report cards and mid-term reports. We may even call home once in a while. But, they really don’t know what’s going on in class. So, we need to include them in the classroom. For example, we can include parental involvement in some of the tasks we ask students to do. I remember in Grade 7, my science teacher wanted us to track how efficient our family car was. So, everyday, we were told to write down the odometer reading on the car. And, every evening, when my dad got home from work, I asked to borrow the car keys so I could take down the odometer reading. There wasn’t a lot of parental involvement, but the project definitely started more than one conversation between my dad and I about science class.

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please leave questions in the comments section below. As mentioned before, this is the last of science teacher summer school 2021. However, I’ll be starting a new Science Ed series soon and I’m pretty excited about it. More details are to come.. Subscribe and stay tuned!

Thanks for watching. And, remember to science everywhere everyday.

Resources

Handout(s): The following handout is to be used with the movie, Behind the Curve. 52 – Flat Earth _ April Fools Day Lesson Handout

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!

Handouts are available at the bottom of this post.

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 11.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is I have a sweet tooth and just recently, I had half a box of cereal for dinner. I’m not talking about some healthy, high fibre, organic cereal. I had 3 bowls of honey comb – the high fructose, simulated flavored children’s cereal – with whole milk. Although it was tasty, it will not be repeated for some time. Now, let’s get to work.

I’ve been teaching for roughly 17 years and I’m still constantly learning more and reflecting on my craft. I love talking with older colleagues because they give me insights I may not have thought of before. I love talking with fresh teachers too because they help light a fire in my belly again. Recently, I spoke with a colleague who has been teaching for 9 years, and our conversation made me think about how I used to teach as a younger teacher and how I teach now. In this episode, I open up the vault and share what I used to do with students on the first day of school as a younger teacher and what I do now as a seasoned one. So, what have my first days been like?

When I first started teaching, chicken soup books – you know, the ones filled with inspirational quotes for daily struggles – were really popular. At the time, I wanted to offer something similar to my students. So, I created a handout called Mr. Lui’s Chicken Soup. It was filled with quotes on a range of student questions like why do I have to learn this or what do I do if I’m feeling lazy or why should I try my best. I would give this handout to every student to read on the first day, and then have students share their favourite and provide a reason why. Some of my favourite quotes from the list include

“Do. Or do not. There is no try.” by Yoda

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” by Martin Luther King Jr.

“People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up.” by American Poet Ogden Nash.

Check out realsciencechallenge.com/summerschool11 to download a copy of Mr. Lui’s Chicken Soup.

Another year, I wanted to do something related to mindfulness and sensory deprivation chambers – you know, those water tanks in which people float in darkness for half an hour or more – came to mind. I wanted to bring that same experience to my first day with the kids. So, before class started, I had students wait outside my door while I shut off all the lights, set up LED tea light candles around the room, and placed paper grocery bags on each desk. I had students come in without talking, sit down at a desk, and place the paper bag over their heads. I would have them sit there quietly for a few minutes, take some deep breaths, and observe and be comfortable with the silence. Then I would ask them a few questions to answer silently in their heads – such as, what is something you are really good at? What are some of the goals you have for science this year? Imagine you accomplished your goals – what would it look like and how would you feel? Some students felt the experience was pretty cool while others thought it was weird. But, it was definitely memorable, and I explain to students afterwards that I want them to be in the right mindset for science this year – which is why we started with this activity.

For the last few years, I started the year by introducing CER and doing an activity where I show students personal artifacts I have stored in my classroom and then I have them write a CER statement about my personality. Go back to Science Teacher Summer School Episode 2 for a few more details. They need to analyze the artifacts I show them and come up with a conclusion about me. It’s a good way for students to learn about me and practice CER at the same time.

This upcoming school year I’m thinking about doing Chicken Soup again. This whole process of reflecting on what I did when I first started teaching made me want to recapture the spirit of the work I did back then and blend it with my outlook today. Maybe I’ll call it Chicken Soup 2.0.

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please leave questions in the comments section below. Our next episode is our last episode of this series, and I want to end off by talking about what parents think about Science education. You don’t want to miss it.

Thanks for watching. And, remember to science everywhere everyday.

Resources

Handout(s): Chicken Soup 2.0

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!

Handouts are available for download at the end of this page.

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 10.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is that one time, when I was younger, I wanted to trim some extra pounds off my gut. So, I gave up drinking pop and instead, decided to drink fruit juices. Needless to say, I didn’t lose any weight because fruit juices are high in sugar too. I think I may have actually gained some pounds doing it. Now, let’s get to work.

Today’s topic is about setting up your science rubrics – and specifically, the four column rubric. Rubrics are not new to science education; however, they have become more popular since science curricula have shifted towards more skills based and standards based assessment. Here in BC, we use a four column rubric to assess skills according to these four levels of ability in ascending order: Emerging (being the lowest), Developing, Proficient, and Extending being the top. The problem is defining the different levels of ability. When it comes to setting up rubrics, how can we efficiently define ability levels – especially between the top two – or proficient vs extending – levels?

First, don’t worry about having your rubric match exactly what your colleagues have. We’re all science teachers – we all studied science and know what good science looks like. And, chances are, our colleagues are looking for pretty much the same thing from their students as we are from ours. We just happen to word or classify it slightly differently than them. So, don’t worry about getting it “right”. I firmly believe we’re all pretty close to each other – and close is good enough.

However, I will be providing a sample rubric later if you want to see my categorizing in action.

When I start developing my rubrics, I define what “proficient” is. Proficient” is what a student needs to say or demonstrate in order to get an A. For a written test question, the “correct answer” is “proficient”. In a lab, “proficient” could mean, for example, creating a neat data table and taking down the measurements with correct units and significant digits. And, according to BC standards, for me, doing everything correctly is 2nd to the top of my rubric. So, what constitutes “extending” or the top column?

To me, extending means a student makes connections from other areas to this particular context. For example, for a written test question where I ask students to explain a phenomenon or provide an argument, I look for students to bring in examples from areas outside of the one being tested directly.

Finally, I hammer out the criteria for emerging and developing. Typically, it depends on how much stuff I asked for is missing. If most of what I’m looking for is missing, then it’s emerging. If one or two things are missing, then it’s developing.

For example, consider this rubric I have used to mark CER Statements.

First, a proficient CER statement starts with a definitive conclusion or argument, references data from the sources provided, and provides a logical explanation that is grounded in scientific knowledge for the phenomenon. An Extended CER statement would have everything under the Proficient column as well as a related, outside example. A developing CER statement would have a definitive conclusion but might not cite data or provide a logical explanation. An emerging CER statement would perhaps just have a definitive conclusion and nothing else.

Let’s see this rubric be used in a test question on evolution I gave my students this past year. I gave them this diagram on horse evolution; and, I asked them this question: is horse evolution an example of gradualism or punctuated equilibrium? Write an argument using the CER format.

A proficient statement would start with a definitive claim that horse evolution was an example of punctuated equilibrium. For evidence, they would say that the table provided shows hundreds of thousands if not millions of years between significant changes to the physical characteristics of the horse and they would provide specific details. For reasoning, they would say that these long stretches of no change was likely due to the environment remaining relatively unchanged for long periods of time – and, therefore, physical characteristics would remain unchanged. An extending statement may include everything just mentioned but may also compare horse evolution to other cases of punctuated equilibrium.

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please leave questions in the comments section below. Join me next time, when I’ll be sharing how I start my first day of school. I’ll be sharing stuff that I used to do when I first started my career – and stuff I do now. You don’t want to miss it.

Thanks for watching. And, remember to science everywhere everyday.

Resources

Handout(s): Handout – CER Rubric

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 9

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is that I joined a meetup group called the Vancouver Tallperson’s club back when I was young and single. I just met the minimum height at the time of 6 feet 2 inches – which would have made me, the first time in my life, the shortest person in the room. Now, let’s get to work.

Here’s an age old question: What do we teach? Your initial answer may be “I teach science.” Or, “I teach Chemistry 11” or whatever your timetable is during the year. Here’s a quick shout out to Mark McNeilly, retired math teacher, who told me, “Kent, we teach kids.”

Because everything is now on the internet, it’s not so much science content that is the focus of our teaching these days. The focus is on teaching skills – like processing and analyzing data, communicating findings, evaluating bias, and planning and conducting experiments.

But science teachers love the content. And I get it. I love the content too. I love balancing chemical equations and writing chemical symbols for chemical names. I love drawing free body diagrams and the stages of mitosis. I enjoy decoding the mysteries of the Doppler effect and red shift. But, we are supposed to teach skills in areas of science that can be content heavy.

So, how can skills be taught efficiently in areas of science that are fact heavy – like lab safety?

We need to consider what content is essential to teach and what we want students to be able to do with that content. For example, we all teach a small unit on lab safety. But, how do we teach it to highlight science skills? Typically, we talk about lab safety in class, maybe give a short assignment or demo, and then a short quiz where students regurgitate some safety facts. However, is that how we want students to view lab safety – simply a list of rules and something to check off a list? When I teach lab safety, I take a few minutes to summarize the most important points. Then, I have students do a lab where they brew coffee. It’s a simple lab where they use lab equipment to brew coffee. But, the point is that they gain experience doing a lab safely. At the end, I ask them what they felt were the most important safety rules pertaining to the lab. For their lab safety quiz, I give them a table with industry data that shows what injuries are most common in the workplace. And, I ask 1 question: Analyze the injury data and state what you think is the most important safety rule in the workplace? Students are expected to construct their argument using CER.

So, in teaching lab safety, I have students not only practice lab safety skills but also skills like argumentation and analysis. What I’ve found is that content heavy areas of science are really good areas at getting students to practice skills like argumentation, evaluating models and analogies, and forming connections between ideas. For example, for my science 10 quiz on evolution, I give students an illustrated timeline of horse evolution and I ask one question: is horse evolution an example of punctuated equilibrium or gradualism? Please analyze the timeline and write an argument using CER.

To get started teaching science skills through our curricular content, consider the following questions:

1. What are the essential pieces of content and skill you want students to know?
2. How can I evaluate this effectively and, if possible, creatively? The creative part is important because it allows for us to think of fun ways for students to practice and demonstrate these skills. And,
3. How will I know when a student gets it? This question helps me determine what an A would look like in my class.

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please leave questions in the comments section below. Join me next time, when I’ll be sharing how I come up with the 4-point scales on my rubrics. You don’t want to miss it.

Thanks for watching. And, remember to science everywhere everyday.

Resources

Handout(s): 01 – Coffee Lab

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!

Handouts are available for download at the end of this post.

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 8.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is that I’m a huge coffee geek. I’ve got a scale with a timer, a hand grinder, special beans and various types of coffee brewers at home to make the perfect cup. This one I bring to work. Now, let’s get to work.

An age old question in science education is how to get and keep students interested in it. It’s actually something that is included in our curriculum too. However, with platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, it’s made it a bit more difficult because student’s attention are pulled away so easily by flashy things.

So, how might we do it?

To make science interesting, it’s important that we geek out on something, bring what we geek out on into class, and show students how to geek out. Geeking out really just means having a sustained – and perhaps passionate – interest in something. If you think about it, we’re actually a society that values geeks. The Olympics, for example, is just a showcase of individuals who geeked out on a singular athletic pursuit. When we’re sick, we don’t want a generalist doctor working with us – we want to seek the doctor who is the top geek in that field. And, when we read restaurant reviews on yelp or another platform, we trust the food geek who has reviewed thousands of restaurants as opposed to one that has written only a handful.

When we geek out and bring it into our classrooms, we make our lessons more engaging, more applied. And, we show students how to make scientific connections to everyday events and, also, how to take a scientific approach to everyday problems.

Like I said at the beginning of this episode, I am a coffee geek. How do I bring this into the classroom? Well, one thing I do is have students perform a pour over as part of their lab safety lesson. I show them a picture of what a coffee pour over set up may look like in the coffee. Then I ask students how to reproduce the same process here. And, they get something like this. In this lab, students learn equipment names and safety rules – like how to heat and pour water safely and filter a solution using a funnel and filter paper. It’s a simple lab, but so much is learned from brewing coffee.

I also use this vacuum siphon system – which is a super geeky way of brewing coffee – to demonstrate thermal expansion and contraction and how it can be applied to brewing a perfect cup of coffee. I relate how I alter water temperature, grind size, or amount of bean to get a great cup of coffee to the chemistry unit regarding factors affecting reaction rate. And, as for how decaffeinated coffee beans are produced – did you know it’s just a simple application of saturated solutions and filtration? When you geek out on stuff, there’s a lot of cool science that can be uncovered. And because you’re excited about it, your kids will be excited (or, at least, be impressed by your geekdom).

If parents who are doctors have kids who become doctors and parents who are teachers have kids who become teachers, then parents who geek out on stuff will have kids who geek out.

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please leave your questions in the comments section below. Join me next time, when I’ll be talking about standards based assessment and how this can be used for even the most mundane or content driven parts of a science class – like lab safety, for example. You don’t want to miss it.

Thanks for watching. And, remember to science everywhere everyday.

Resources

Handout(s): 01 – Coffee Lab

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!

Handouts are available at the bottom of the page.

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 7.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is that for my first teaching contract, I taught physics 11, planning 10, esl socials studies, esl English, and science 8. That was my “dog’s breakfast” of a schedule. Now, let’s get to work.

Have you ever assigned a project that used some sort of technology – for example, powerpoint, prezi, lego mindstorms, or maybe even 3d printing – sent students to work on it, and then get back something that’s complete garbage? Perhaps, students spent a bunch of time putting together the bells and whistles of their project – making it look cool – but didn’t spend enough time actually fulfilling the core learning objectives. My wife and I call that “polishing a turd.” Like when a student puts in a whole bunch of electronic dance music, animation and graphics into their powerpoint which was basically a cut-and-paste job of Wikipedia. This is the one mistake a lot of students and teachers make: we’re so enamored by the tech that the project ends up being about the tech – when, in fact, the tech is only supposed to be the means through which students demonstrate their learning.

How do we make sure projects that use tech don’t end up being all about the tech?

What I do is I get students to focus on the process as opposed to their final product. I literally give more marks in a project for students to document their process and their thinking than for the final product. This is how it needs to be for students to value the process over the product – by assigning a proportionate amount of marks to it. This is no different from writing drafts for an essay. But, imagine in an essay, instead of your mark being determined by the final essay, your mark represents what you’ve learned on your way to producing the final version of your essay.

For example, I used to use one of these – a 3d printer – in my science class to build models and parts for a bridge project. But the problem with 3d printing is that everyone just wants to print something cool. And that’s what it will become if we don’t put some constraints on it. Kids will just want to print off cool stuff they saw on the internet or they’ll want to slap something together quickly to get it printed off. What I did for this project is that I made it mandatory for students to hand in detailed sketches of what they were going to print off. Then we had to sit down and discuss their design – and this is where I question what they’ve designed and what they’ve produced so far. Then, I get students to redo their designs to incorporate any feedback. This may happen 2 or 3 times. Then, after we’ve gone through their work a few times, I allow them to 3d print. By this time, I’ve been able to see all they’ve learned through our discussions. And, the final printed piece may be just a nice capstone to the project. If this were a project out of 40 marks, I may give 10 marks each to the 3 rounds of discussion and then give 10 marks for the final printed object. This way, students can see that the project really isn’t about the tech.

And, if you think about it, this could be applied to powerpoint presentations as well. Instead of having students just make up some slides and present, make it mandatory for groups to sit down and discuss the contents of their presentation before they present. This way, students won’t just be polishing a turd.

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please leave your questions in the comments section below. Join me next time, when I’ll be talking about why we need to turn our students into geeks in our classroom. You don’t want to miss it.

Thanks for watching. And, remember to science everywhere everyday.

Resources

Handout(s): Handout – Project Guide

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!

Handouts are available for download at the end of the episode.

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 6.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is that writing a song that makes it into the billboard top 10 is on my bucket list. I’m just not sure if it’s going to be in pop, rock, country, or hip hop yet. Or maybe grunge- that can make a comeback. Now, let’s get to work.

A few episodes ago, I talked about the most important skill I teach in my class: CER. It’s a structure students use to communicate their scientific conclusions and arguments. For more, please go to episode 2 of science teacher summer school. Although I teach it every year, I am constantly revamping how I teach it because I still find my students struggling to do it. We go over definitions and examples. But, still, it’s not enough. Some are still stuck.

So, I wondered why students were struggling and what could be done to get then unstuck?

I found inspiration in some of my daughter’s workbooks – you know, the ones you can buy at Costco that say MathSmart or Complete Curriculum. One thing those workbooks are really good at is providing good templates for tackling a problem. I especially liked the prompts and fill-in-the-blank exercises these workbooks had – these really help lead a student to a solution. So, this past year, I developed detailed prompts for each lab we did. The point was to show students one way to structure their statements. And, the prompts were definitely more detailed at the beginning of the year, when students were just learning about CER, and got more open ended during the middle and end of the year.

Consider an experiment where we’re studying how temperature affects how quickly food coloring diffuses in water. We’ve all done an experiment like this before: get a beaker of hot water, drop a drop of food coloring in it, and time how long it takes for the dye to spread. Then, do the same with a beaker of warm water, and then cold water. When it came to students writing a CER statement at the end of the lab, I provided these prompts:

For Claim, I wrote out “When water temperature increases/decreases, the rate of diffusion increases/decreases.” Students would rewrite the statement and choose the words that describe the relationship they observed.

For more advanced students, I would provide a more general prompt like “What is the relationship between water temperature and the rate of diffusion?”

For Evidence, I gave students the following statement to copy and complete: “According to my observations, in hot water, it took X seconds for the dye to diffuse; in warm water, it took Y seconds; and, in cold water, it took Z seconds.”

For Reasoning, I gave students the following prompt: “One explanation for this result is…”

Armed with those prompts, a student could write something like this:

When water temperature increases, the rate of diffusion increases.
According to my observations, in hot water, it took 8 seconds for the dye to diffuse; in warm water, it took 90s; and, in cold water, it was not able to diffuse completely.
One explanation for this result is due to kinetic molecular theory. Since warmer particles move faster than colder ones, when dye is added to hot water, the water particles will move faster and spread the dye faster.

That’s a pretty complete conclusion – one that captures the data and theory together with an experimental observation.

If you’re looking for resources for students to get started with CER, prompts, worksheets, and sample data to analyze, I have an ebook coming out soon that will have a bunch of useful stuff for you. Go to my website, realsciencechallenge.com, and sign up for our newsletter to get updates.

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please write your questions in the comments section. Join me next time, when I’ll be talking about educational technology and the one mistake we all make when it comes to using it. You don’t want to miss it.

See you again soon. And, remember to science everywhere everyday.

Resources

Handout(s): Handout – CER Prompt Samples

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!

Handouts are available for download at the end of the transcript.

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 5.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is I took swim lessons as an adult. Up until that point, I was doing what my mom taught me – which basically meant I was doing it all wrong. The first time I learned how to kick properly, it was like woah! I can go so much faster Now, let’s get to work.

Today, our question comes from a viewer:

“How does one gradually prepare students to do an engineering project on their own? For instance, in writing you might start with asking students to pick a topic and then a thesis and then sources, then an outline, you might then teach transitions and the basic 5 paragraph essay and expand from there. I guess I’m asking what would be the equivalent process for one’s first engineering project?”

Thanks for your question, Fawn. My students do a few engineering projects each year – from calorimeters, to solar ovens, to balloon powered cars, and to something I call physical messaging.

I always follow these 5 steps: Define, Research and Build, Test, Repeat, and Report. First I will define problem for students and the constraints they must adhere to. For example, in the balloon car design project, the problem I define is that students must build a balloon car that travels the furthest straight-line distance. Thus, if the car moves in a curve, we still just measure the straight-line distance from beginning to end. Besides defining the problem, I define the constraints too, like final design must run on land (in other words, it must be a car and not a plane or blimp) and there can be nothing else powering the car besides balloons. And, I also ask students to make cars made of recycling or reusable materials – so no plastic wrap or styrofoam allowed. I find the definition stage to be the most important part of the project: well defined problems and constraints help students create better projects and help me mark it too.

Next, students research & build a prototype. They’ll need to look at materials and plans that already exist out there. For the balloon car, I typically put on a youtube video that already shows how to build a balloon car out of simple materials and, quoila, the students have their first prototype.

Then, students test their prototype. They need to record their results and tell me. But, this is not the end – it’s only the beginning.

After, and this is important, they must repeat the build process and create a new prototype. This is where the real learning starts. Think of the first prototype as a rough draft of an essay. The second draft is still not polished, and it may take me 3 or 4 versions before I’m done. Well, the idea goes into making more than 1 prototype. Students look at the results of their first prototype and then try to modify it to get a better result. Perhaps, they can change the materials used. Or, perhaps they have to change the size of their prototype. In some projects, I ask students to build and test 3 different prototypes – and, I give a small mark for each one to show. This is so that students know that I value the process of iterative prototyping and not just the final product.

Lastly, and this is at the end of the project, I have students report on what they learned. What was their final result? What worked well? What would they have done differently? What prevented them from doing even better? Sometimes, I get students to write CER statements for each prototype just so that they can practice how to communicate their findings effectively.

If you’re interested in some of the projects I’ve done in the past, check out the resource section on realsciencechallenge.com

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please leave your questions in the comments section below. Join me next time, when I’ll be talking about some strategies to get your students to write effective conclusions using CER. You don’t want to miss it.

Thanks for watching. And, remember to science everyday.

Resources

Handout(s): 11 – Sample Challenge – Semaphore | 29 – Solar Oven Inquiry Project | 31 – Mud Battery Inquiry Project

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!

Handouts are available at the end of this post.

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 4.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is that I can solve the Rubik’s cube in roughly 2 minutes. It took me about 3 months to practice the algorithms needed to do it, but i think getting my time below one minute is really going to be a challenge. Now, let’s get to work.

What science videos do you show in class? We all show some in class. And, with YouTube, there’s a lot out there: professionally made videos by media companies like National Geographic or Wired Magazine; videos by so-called science communicators like Smarter Every Day, Veritasium and PhysicsGirl; and, videos by teachers like Bozeman science, amoeba sisters and khan academy.

This past year, I became more aware and selective of the videos I was showing in class because instructional time within the classroom became more precious due to pandemic restrictions. No longer did I want to show videos that just repeated what I had mentioned in class or was just entertaining or funny. I wondered if my videos and their complementary activities were a good use of time and really furthered student learning.

So, I asked, what activities and videos would help my students be better science thinkers and doers?

The solution: first, provide ways that allow students to process and connect with the video, and two, show the right type of video. Let’s start with a couple of strategies that allow students to connect with the videos – I provide a couple of open ended ways. The first way comes from my days being a teacher on call and subbing for a Vancouver teacher – shout out to Christopher Rozitis – for showing me this:

I have students draw a T-chart on a sheet of paper and they write “What I know” on one side and “What I learned” on the other. I ask students to take notes while they’re watching the video – they can take notes on anything that is mentioned in the video on either side of the chart. I’ll ask students to write 10 points or 12 points or 15 – depending on how long the video is. And, these are cumulative points – it can be 5 and 5 or 7 and 3. After the video, I’ll collect the notes and mark them.

A second strategy I give my students to connect with and process a science is a set of 3 questions:

1. What I just saw makes me think about this other thing I learned in another class because…
2. What I just saw makes me think about the time….because…
3. What I just saw makes me think about the future because…

After a video, I’ll provide 5-10 minutes for students to write responses to these questions. Then, we go around the classroom and share and discuss. The discussion is what’s important.

Both these strategies I use with almost all my videos. They’re easy and personable. And, they work in getting kids to connect.

Now, let’s take a moment to talk about the type of science video to show. I like to show more issue-driven science videos and fewer videos that are content- or phenomenon- driven.

Content-driven videos are explainer videos like the ones produced by khan academy. They contain a lot of information, but I don’t like to show them too often in class because I go over many of the concepts in class already. However, if there’s something a video shows that I can’t show in class, then, of course, I’ll show a content-video.

Phenomenon-driven videos are cool demos and builds that people show on Youtube like the ones done by Mark Rober and Veritasium. These are cool to watch, and a lot of kids are hooked to these videos. They’re great at getting students interested in science and engineering, but I don’t show them too often because they often don’t connect with the content. Plus, my perspective on videos have changed. When I first started, I wanted to show how science was cool with explosions and stuff. Now, I want to show science serving a larger purpose and solving larger problems.

Issue-driven videos highlight how science is used to solve a global issue. For example, Business Insider has a mini-series called World Wide Waste, where they highlight interesting solutions to our waste problems – like using microbes to extract precious metals from our computer chips and using coffins made of mushrooms to make our burials more environmentally friendly. These videos take content and apply it to a social issue. That’s the science I like to highlight.

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please write your questions in the comments section below. Join me next time, when I’ll be talking about how I run engineering/inquiry projects so that students actually learn by doing. You don’t want to miss it.

See you again soon. And, remember to science everywhere everyday.

Resources

Handout(s): REAL SC – Activities for Videos

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!

Handouts are available at the end of this post.

Video Transcript

Hi Science Teachers,

Welcome to Science Teacher Summer School, Episode 3.

I’m Kent Lui, and something you may not know about me is that doing stand up comedy is on my bucket list. I’d like to get good enough to get to do a set on a late night tv show and then retire. Now, let’s get to work.

We all ask students the same question at the beginning of the year – that is, “what is science?” – but what is your answer? Some teachers, myself included when I started teaching, would say something along the line of science is a method of exploring and making sense of the world. We’ve all heard or said that before. But, science is not just experimental design and scientific method. If we stop here, then students get the impression that science is experiments and labs. I also want students to know that science is everywhere in our everyday lives. It’s in the smartphones we use to access the internet. It’s in the ice cream and chocolate we eat. It’s in the clothes we wear.

So, how do I answer, “What is Science?” so I can reinforce this notion that science is everywhere in our everyday lives?

The solution: I connect science to universal human themes found in our everyday, our history and our stories. For example, conflict is a theme that is talked about a lot in and out of school. We even learn about it in our high school English classes – shout out to Mr. Macleod, my English 8 teacher, the 3 types of conflict are man vs man, man vs the environment, and man vs himself. So, in my science class, we also say science is conflict. For example, I ask students to name a movie they’ve seen where two groups are trying to accomplish or acquire the same thing. And, as a result, both groups try to sabotage each other during their conflict. We’ve all heard of a story like that from the movies. Of course, this story of conflict also exists in science – most notably, between Westinghouse and Edison in the AC vs DC war. I read that Edison’s company, who supported DC, tried to show that their rival’s AC was more dangerous to the public by having AC used to power the first electric chair. The point is that we make science more relevant and applicable when we tie it to universal themes. Suddenly, science is not just in the lab – but in the world around us.

Two other themes I connect is that science is change and science is patterns. With regards to patterns, I introduce the theme by playing roulette online with the student. I explain the rules and then ask some students to pick numbers to bet on. We play a few rounds. And, over time, students realize that we typically lose money because the odds of winning are slim. However, what if somebody were to win consistently more than they lost? In fact, this has happened before – so, how did people do it? Quite simply, people were able to recognize patterns in the roulette’s results and take advantage of these patterns. But, why do these patterns even exist? Isn’t a roulette’s wheel supposed to be random? Well, that’s where we start talking about things like friction and wear and tear and other scientific concepts that would explain this phenomenon.

As for science is change, I connect it with how scientific theories are always changing. For example, there was a time where people thought gastric ulcers – which are small holes in the lining of your stomach, were caused by lifestyle factors like stress. If you had a gastric ulcer, treatment at the time would be to make lifestyle changes so you wouldn’t be so stressed. Now, we know that they’re caused by a bacterial infection and can be treated with antibiotics.

In a future episode, I’ll share a few more of the universal themes I connect science with.

That’s all the time we have for this episode. Please leave any questions in the comments section below. Join me next time, when I’ll be talking about how to correctly show science videos in class. What? There’s a correct way to show videos? Yes, I think there is. You don’t want to miss it.

See you again soon. And, remember to science everywhere every day.

Resources

Handout(s): Handout – Universal Themes

Our resources are free. We aren’t collecting emails for our resources. However, it would help us out if you liked us on our Facebook page and subscribed to our Youtube Channel. Thanks!