Handouts are available below

Big Idea

How do you start your science storylines so that students are interested? We all use stories to teach science: when we organize the concepts and activities in a specific sequence so that one idea leads logically into another, we’re telling a story. Textbooks offer one type of story – but, best practice is that we come up with our own better storylines – ones based on some of our own interests – because if we’re interested in it, then our students will be interested in it too. Check out this episode to see how we use one type of graph to build interest at the beginning of our science storylines.

Using Engaging Graphs as Phenomena for Science Storylines

NOTE: Our transcript is below. Download handouts at the bottom of our page and follow along! Or, watch the video.

A storyline is simply using a story to organize the scientific concepts a student will learn. In a way, we all tell a story when we teach a unit in science. We organize the concepts and activities in a specific sequence so that one idea leads logically into another. Traditionally, we’ve looked to textbooks for the storyline. But, best practice is that we come up with our own better storylines – ones based on some of our own interests – because if we’re interested in it, then our passions will rub off on the students and they’ll be interested in it. Typically, a storyline starts with a phenomenon and each lesson after that is aimed at addressing and explaining some part of that phenomenon.

One big problem is that many of our colleagues get stuck finding a phenomenon to use for a unit. We think phenomena have to be something in the news, something mysterious or wacky or an odd result or occurrence. These phenomena take time to find and time to fit into what we’re teaching. But, if we’re just getting started using storylines, a simpler and easier phenomenon to start with is that of human history and how it relates to scientific and technological change. And, this is where a graph works so well.

For example, my student teacher is teaching types of energy for the first time and he’s having a difficult time figuring out how concepts fit together. He got this notes package from another teacher that lists one form of energy after another – chemical, hydroelectric, nuclear, solar, wind, etc. And, he’s planning to use this to teach the concepts. Problem is, it’s boring and just feels like a list of facts to know. However, we had a conversation and came up with the idea of teaching different forms of energy generation by tracking how world energy consumption has changed over time. This is what we found online. During our conversation, we also talked about changes in demand over time, the causes for these changes – perhaps due to changes in lifestyle, perhaps due to industry or war. So, I went off and put one of these changes – changes to world population over time – on top of the graph. And here’s what it looks like: in 1804, there was approximately 1 billion people on earth; in 1850, 1.2 billion, and with such a small population increase over 50 years, it’s no wonder there weren’t more energy needs – so traditional biomass is still most popular. However, in the mid 1900s, population growth shot up – 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1987 etc etc – and, as a result, greater energy needs and greater diversity in how we get that energy. Now, we can start talking about each type of energy production and perhaps talk about why we use it, how it’s helped our energy needs, and why there are new types of energy production. Also, consider what other events you can mark on the graph – the advancement of electricity, cars, planes, television, home conveniences like stoves and refrigerators – all this would tell another interesting story. All this came out of a short 10 minute discussion and now I want to teach this unit with this storyline. I’m going to give myself a pat on the back.

Thanks for reading, and let’s talk science education again soon.

Resources

Handout(s): Ep53 Handout – Starting Interesting Science Storylines Using This Graph

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