DOCUMENT RESUME

ED i38 472 SE 022 492

AUTHOR Roche, Ruth L.TITLE The Child & Science: Wondering, Exploring,

Growing.INSTITUTION Association for Childhood Education International,

Washington, D.C.PUB DATE 77NOTE 50p.; Not available in hard copy due to copyright

restrictionsAVAILABLE FROM Association for Childhood Education International,

3615 Wisconsin Avenue, N.V., Washington, D.C. 20016($2.75)

EDRS PRICE MF-$0.83 Plus Postage. HC Not Available from EDRS.DESCRIPTORS- Elementary Education; *Elementary School Science;

Evaluation; Instruction; reschool Education;*Science Activities; *Scienc *Teaching Guides

ABSTRiCTIncluded in this publication for parents and teachers

are over 30 anecdotes that serve as suggestions for varied scienceactivities for young people. The first section presents.theobjectives and organizing the learning environment. The secondsection presents a variety of ways to help children explore theirenvironment. The last section suggests methods for evaltiating,childrenls science achievements. A selected bibliography is included.(RH)

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* via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). EDRS is not* responsible for the quality of the original document. Reproductions ** supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original. *

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TheChild &Science

Wondering, Exploring, GrowingBy Ruth L.Roche

Ruth L. Roche, Professor EmeritusSchool of EducationCalifornia State University, Northridge

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Bonnie Baron, Associate Editorfor Special Publications

Sara Hadley, Editorial Assistant

Association for ChildhoodEducation International3615 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20016

Acknowledgements

Educators Who contributed to this bulletin:Dianne Coambs, California State University, NorthridgeElizabeth J. Hedges, Santa Monica Unified School District, Calif.Carol Kelly/ California State University, NorthridgeJoan Larimore, Culver City Unified School District, Calif.Janice Mead, Los Angeles Unified School District, Calif.

ACEI Staff Members who provided assistance:Monroe D. CohenNelth E. HeadleyLucy Prete Martin

Photographs:Susie Fitzhugh, Baltimore, Md.: cover, 40Jane D'Alelio, Washington, D.C.: iv, 8, 34Donna J. Harris, the Merrill Palmer Institute, Detroit,

Mich.: 3, 17, 20, 23, 25, 3,/Montgomery County Public Schools, Md.: 6, 24;29He Ila Hammid, Los Angeles, Calif.: 13Doug Andrews, Evening Outlook Santa Monica, Calif.:15William Mills, Montgomery County Public Schools,

Md.: 27, 37, 38Phyllis Marcuccio, National Science Teachers Association,

Washington, D.C.: 33

Copyright © 1977Association for Childhood Education International3615 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20016

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Roche, Ruth L. 1912-The child and science.

Bibliography: p.1. ScienceStudy and teaching (Elementary)

I. Title.LB1585.R52 372.3'5'044 76-55313

ISBN 0-87173-080-4

1976-78 Biennial Bulletin Order

Designed by P. Douglas MangerCenter for Graphic Concepts, Towson, Md.

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Contents

Part 1 Venturing into Science

Identifying Objectives 2

Gaining Confidence and Acquiring Information 4

Organizing the Learning Environment 5

Part 2 Helping Children Explore 9

The Internal Environment 10

The External Environmen1 16

The Expanded Environment 25

Part 3 Evaluating Children's Growth 35

Process Skills 36Concept Formation 37'Interaction 38

Selected References 41

Curiosity

Tell me, tell me everything!What makes it WinterAnd then Spring?Which are the childrenButterflies?Why do people keepWinking their eyes?Where do birds sleep?Do bees like to sting?Tell me, tell me please, everything.

Tell me, tell me, I want to know!What makes leaves growIn the shapes they grow?Why do goldfishKeep chewing? and rabbitsWarble their-nose?Just from habits?Where does the windWhen it goes away go?Tell me, or don't even grown-ups know?

From WINDY MORNING, copyright 1953, by HarryBehn. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt BraceIovanovich, Inc.

2Children bring their natural curiosity to

science. They seem to have an unendingstream of questions to ask as they go ex-ploring: feeling the texture of damp soil,seeing an earthworm wiggle, feeling the wet-ness of water or the push of the wind, tastingthe spray of the ocean: hearing the sound ofthunder, watching changing cloud patterns,smelling new mown hay, seeing televisedscenes of marine life.

How can we help children explore andthereby foster their curiosity and develop-ment? How can we create environments inwhich children feel eager and free to inves-tigate? What can we do to overcome hesitan-cies about teaching science? In what wayscan we, as adults, become informed andinvolved in science? How can we evaluatechildren's achievements based on the ob-jectives of science experiences?

Identifying Objectives

Studies, have identified processes such asobserving, classifying, comparing, explain-ing, verifying, creating, hypothesizing, an-alyzing and predicting as important scienceskills. It is critical that we understand theseprocess skills and encourage children todevelop these skills as they explore theirworld.

Through science, children can alsodevelop their ability to discover meaningsand develop concepts. The process of con-cept formation, continuing throughoutlife, is an oper ,=mded process in which oneconcept builds upon another. It begins inearly infancy as children ;nteract directlywith things around them. When we providea variety of learning opportunities, a con-cept becomes the child's idea through rein-forcement. In th- child's mind, the idea nowhas a strong power: when confronted witha new and different observation the idea cari

explain the observation or can become trans--formed into a new idea.

Among the more significant contribu-tions to our understanding of cognitivedevelopment is the work of Jean Piaget.He and his associates at the University ofGeneva propose that cognitive developmentoccurs in four developmental stages, eachstage characterized by the acquisition ofparticular concepts. Piaget identified thestages as the sensory-motor stage (ages 0-2),the pre-operational sage (ages 2-7), theconcrete operation stage (ages 7-11) andthe formal operation stage (ages 11. . .).

Interest in the cognitive developmentof children has accelerated over the pastclecade and has made an impact on manyScience curriculum projects. These includethe Science Curriculum Improvement Study(SCIS), the Elementary Science Study (ESS),the Illinois Studies in Inquiry Training, andScienceA Process Approach (SAPA).These, as well as other federally-funded,experimental projects developed during thelatter part of the 1950s and 1960s, influencedtrends in science teaching. Most of theprojects were concerned wj,th\ developingprocess skills and with con;p1--formation;they generally provided open-ended experi-ences in which each learner was involved inthe discovery approach to science content.The curriculum designers often put greateremphasis on the processes, such as observ-ing, classifying, predicting and experiment-ing, than on the science content. Developingmathematical skills, such as graphing,measuring and recording data, was integralto many of the projects. For the most part,however, the new programs developed se-lected science concepts, such as interaction,change, energy, matter and organisms, andincluded-subject matter from both the lifeand physical sciences.

Many elements of these innovative scienceprograms are found in today'-s classrooms.Recently, science educators have been draw-ing subject matter from environmental prob-lems of concern to their students. Science ex-

7Let's see how nttrch water goes in this time.

periences are increasingly individualized andpersonalized. Science curricula have as ob-jectives the acquiring of science concepts, thelearning of process skills, and the develop-ment of attitudes conducive to positive inter-aCtion with others and with the environment.

Gaining Confidence andAcquiring Information

Today's objectives for science curriculapresent an awesome challenge to many class-room teachers. It is not surprising that teach-ers feel uneasy about teaching the subject asthe following dialogue suggests.

"What are you planning to do with science? Ihave never understood what it's all about.Planning science lessons makes me feel soinsecure."

"But science is happening all the time. Justbeing alive is science! Look, you just put aspoon in your coffee cup before you filled itwith hot coffee. Isn't that science7"

"Can't you see me taking 30 cups and spoonsinto the classroom? That's a bit ridiculous!"

"I was just pointing out that we use scienceeveryday."

"I don't have the time or energy to read andmaster all I need to know."

"But look at what you already knowyour backyard garden is science; cooking isscience. And you don't have to know every-thing; yOu can explore with the children."

"What do you mean explore? When thechildren ask questions, I'm supposed to havethe answers."

"Much of what's important in science is theprocess of finding out. We need to encouragequestions, help the children see that we don'thave all the answers and guide the childrento resources."

"I think I see what you're talking about. Mynine-year-old daughter knows more than I'llever know about space travel. When she

asks me a technical question, I merelysuggest some sources of information. But Icouldn't possibly do that for all 30 childrenin my classroom."

"It's not easy to provide for so many indi-vidual interests. But we have many resourcesright herb in our own communitythe arbo-

fetum, the school district's science center,the National Park Service nature center. Thelist is endless.

"The school district is sponsoring a work-shop on developing self-awareness throughscience. I wasn't going to attend, but nowmaybe I will. I guess I really need it."

After the science workshop

"The workshop was great. It focused on usand things we were interested in. The wholeprocess of e'xploring was what was so ex-citing."

"Well, what kinds of things did you do7" ,

"Oh! There was so much. Tirst we went to anearby park. I noticed/ what I'd been toobusy to see before. It ,was an experience inawareness. I became so involved that I wrotea.poem just for myself."

"You were really getting involved in science.What else did you do7"

"We collected natural materials in the parkand later created learning centers with themindoors."

"Did you arrange to have children use thelearning centers7"

"No. The centers were for us. Each one pro-vided an individualized science\ activity thatintegrated a variety of curriculum areas. Weincluded music, art, language and movement,by creating dances, developing art projectsand making puppets. One person even com-posed a poem to accompany a sciencecollage."

"You have just illustrated that science can bea part of everyday living."

"Yes, I understandnow that I've gotten in-yolved. I even have more sell-confidence toexperiment. I can hardly wait to help the

children do the kind of exploring that I'vebeen doing. And I want to encourage otherteachers who may be hesitant."

TO: All interested teachers

FROM: A teacher who discovered the excitement Of science

SUBJECT: Science resources for personal development

Botanical gardensMuseumsArboretumsSchool-district science centersLakes, streams, pondsNational Park ServiceUniversity and college resourcesTide pools, beaches, oceansObservatoriesFilms

Books

National Aeronautics &Space AdministrationNatiohal Geographic SocietyNational Wildlife FederationAudubon SocietyTV documentariesLocal industriesPicturesSenior citizens\LibrariesRecords

and Children

Organizing the Learning Environment

Warren, aged 5, seemed negative, asocial,private and uncooperative. However, heloved reptiles, especially dinosaurs, turtlesand 'snakes, and had a large collection ofbooks, records, pictures and models of rep-tiles.

The kindergarten teacher was perceptiveand encouragced Warren's interest. She evenobtained a real live snakethe ultimate re-sourcefor Warren. Warren responded byshowing social leadership. He involvedeveryone, in building a cage of blocks tohouse the snake. When the children askedwhat kind of snalqe it was, Warren pointedto a small labeled picture in his reptile book.Warren turned to the teachei, "Here it isthe name of my snake! Please read it to me!"

The teacher's understanding of how chil-dren grow and develop provided the basisfor her organization of the learning environ-ment. She provided activities that wouldpromote the total development of each child.

Integrated Curriculum The teacher inte-grated science with reading, math and socialdevelopment. Warren "read" the pictures ofsnakes and asked that the teacher read thewords. Constructing the snake's cage re-quired mathematical problem-soing.Warren's leadership role and the cooperationof his classmates were directly related to thescience activity.

Individualized and Personalized LearningWarren's interest in reptiles provided thecatalyst for the learning experiences. Theteacher encouraged this interest byintroducing Warren to a variety of resources

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including the snake. Warren's interest in thelearning situation allowed him td develop athis own pace and in a positive manner. As aresult, the other children learned aboutsnakes, too, and accepted Warren as a part

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of the group.

One morning the urban 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds noticed the tadpoles in the aquarium."What are. those?" "Where did they comefrom?" "Do they have to stay in the water?""What will they eat7" "How do they move7"',Why is the body so big and the tail sopmall?" "How big will they get'?"

Days passed. Observations continued., Finally there was a change! "The tadpole's

; got its back, legs!!!" How did the classroomorganization facilitate this enthusiasticprocess of inquiry?

Multi-age Grouping The children sparkedeach other's enthusiasm; their cooperative

I work sustained this interest. The 7-year-oldsprovided leadership and, gave the younger'children individual attention. As they madeobservations and asked questions, theydeveloped self-confidence.

Learning Centers The tadpoles in 'theaquarium, the many picture books, andother resources composed learning centersthat stimulated the children's open-ended in-vestigations. The children gained an under-standing of metamorphosis beCause theywere able to observe live tadpoles and there-by confirm their own discoveries.,

"New Island in South Pacific! VolcanoErupts." Spurred by this headline in the

\newspaper, a group of 10-, 11- and 12-year-Olds decided to investigate volcanic activity.The children had many questions. "Howdoes 'a volcano make an island7" "How doyou predict an eruption'?" "What othervolcanic islands are there in the world'?" Theteacher allowed the children to design theirown investigationsi the approach of theteacher and children created an open en-vironment in the classroom.

How hot is lava' What maices it cool7Will anything grow on lava?

Multiple Organizations The classroomwas the scene of "volcanic" learning experi-ences. The teacher creatively combinedmulti-age grouping, learning centers, inte-grated curriculum and team teaching toCreate an environment in which currentevents, and science were integrated. Thechildren used a variety of resources: books,magazines, films and photographs. Theyoung investigators visited a sciepce mu-seum and consulted with geologists andother knowledge;:ble professionals. Workingtogether, the children constructed a model ofan erupting volcano from papier-mache,paint, vinegar, baking soda, food coloring.

SUGGESTED' GUIDELINESPreparing for Science Adventures

Get ready to yenture into science teaching byEl letting the "whys" and "hows" of your sciencef

teaching emerge from your philosophy of, education.

El obtaining a foundation of scientific informa-tion drawn from community and other re-sources.

El identifying desired objectives, suitable activi-ties and methods of evaluation that assess theextent to which the children achieve theobjectives. (Also be aware of unanticipatedoutcomes that are so important to children'slearning.)

0 selecting activities that foster chridren's de-velopment of attitudes, concepts and processskillsfrom the life and physical sciences.checking that the activities include multi-agegrouping, learning centers, integrated curric-ulum, team teaching, as well as individual-ized and personalized learning.

1.iowing an attitude of inquiry, of eagernessto, learn, and encouraging this attitude inchildren.

El recognizing that learning about science trendsand innovations is an ongoing process thatcontinues through workshops, inservicemeetings, books, films and television.

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HelpingCiiildien

lorePart

Children should be led to maketheir own investigations and drawtheir own infetences. They should betold as little as possible.

Herbert Spencer, EDUCATION: INTELLECTUAL,MORAL AND PHYSICAL (Akron, Ohio: Werner Co.,1860), P. 120.

Men must, as far as is possiOle, betaught to become wise by studyingthe heavens, the earth, oaks, andbeeches: . . that is to say, they.must learn to know and investigatethe things themselves, and not theobservations that other people havemade about the things.

John Amos Comenius, THE GREAT DIDACTIC OFJOHN AMOS COMENIUS, 1650, edited and trans-lated by M.W. Keatinge. (London: A. & C. Black,Ltd., 1907.)

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The child's world is filled with a greatvariety of objects and events that stimu-late, almost cornp,er, exploration and learn-ing. The learning goes on inside the child.Each young investigator reacts individuallyto the surrounding environment, adjustingthe response to his or her interpretation ofthat environment. The child's senses and in-telligence help in making these interpreta-tions. Emotions, too, play a part as the childgains an awarenesi of self and of the world.

We can think of a child's world as a seriesof,separate environments to be explored. Weknow that the world exists as an unsegment-ed whole, yet this perspective may help us tounderstand the child's viewpoint. Central tothe child is his or her own body, the internalenvironment bounded by the skin from birthto death. Beyond the body is the familiar en-vironment in which the child lives, continu-ously encroaching upon the child. The twothe child and the external environmentconstantly interact. The degree of interac-tion 'depends on the meaning the childderives from the environment and has muchto do with the person he ,or she becomes.Eventually the child explores the environ-ment that extends beyond the immediate sur-roundings, and begins to see interrelation-.ships among all three environments.

We can help children learn about them-selves and the world by providing oppor-tunities for science adventures ,that encour-age exploration. The episodes that follow aredescriptions of such adventures; they aremeant to encourage you to create similar op-portunities for children. The episodes focuson some or all of these objectives: the acqui-sition of science concepts, the learning ofprocess skills, the recognition of values andattitudes, and the ability to work alone andwith others.

Each episode may feature the developmentof a variety of process skills. For simplicity,however, only those skills that receive themost emphasis are identified at the beginning

of each episode. As used here, the terms thatare used to identify some skills have specialmeanings. Creating may imply not only self-expression through art, music, poetry, prOseand movement, but also the designing ofexperiments and equipment. Observing mayrequire the use of one or more of the senses:seeing, hearing, tasting, smening and touch-ing. Discovering occurs when children findout something new to them, investigatingrequires more probing ard experimentinginvolves a structured approach including thecontrol of variables.

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The Internal Environment

What's Inside Me?Gaining Information, Investigating, Creating

"You can trace around my body. Then I'lldo yours." These were among the commentsheard one day when a group of 6-, 7- and 8-year-olds became involved in finding outabout themselves. Their questions led totrips to the public and school libraries forbooks, pictures and other information.Jamie's father, a dodor, gave the children amedical book. The children discovered thatthey could lay one of its transparencies onanother to reveal the location of the lungs,the heart, stomach and kidneys. Thechildren were amazed at the size and shapeof the liver. It became a much talked-aboutpart of the body.

Tracings on white paper took the shape ofeach child's body. Someone suggested thatthey glue "arteries" and "veins" to theirpaper "bodies." Red yarn represented the,arteries and blue yarn, the veins. Afterfurther use of the source books and a myriadof questions, Jamie's father helped the chil-dren find out about the importance 'of thevarious organs in the body. Then paper cut-outs representing the various organs wereglued to the "bodies."

Next the children decided to study thehuman skeleton. The many sizes and shapes

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of bones created wonder and amazement.The children wanted to create their ownskeletons from paper. Lacking the ability todraw them to scale, the children tracedteacher-made patterns of the major bones.The paper bones Were cut out and "hinged"into proper location with brass fasteners. Bymoving their paper skeletons, the childrensimulated their own movements. The young-sters recorded their observations andfindings in booklets entitled "About Me."These became proud possessions and were,shared with the children's families.

Relating the Self to an Object

Measuring, Decision-making, Model-making

A group of 10- and 11-year-olds decidedto make scale models of objects, each modelto the same scale as the owner's body. Whenfinished, the models could be worn asHalloween costumes. Sara wanted to make amodel of a can of bath powder; othersselected a wheel, a pencil, a book, a tube oftoothpaste, a spool of thread.

To begin, the children made models oftheir objects to actual scale. Careful mea-surements were made; suitable materialswere selectedcardboard, wire, woodendowels, yarn, masking tape, glue. Ratio andproportion were discussed and made mean-ingful when each child built two moremodelsone smaller and one larger in scale.The children identified and classified thedifferent geometric shapes contained in theirobjects. They discussed how the shapes werearranged to make the whole.-

Finally, each Child built a model to "bodyscale." Of course, the scales varied accordingto the size of the child and the way the childplanned to wear the object. Sara', can ofbath powder had to be increased in scalesufficiently for its 'diameter to exceed thedistance across her shoulders, "Will thematerial I ,choose be strong enough7 Will itbe too heavy7 Will I be able to move within

my model7" Theseproblems and others werediscussed and decisions made.

The finished models had the same propor-tions as the original objectsand the samelabeling and trademarks! After a schoolparade, the Halloween costumes were thesubjects of some creative writing: "I Am aWheel." "How It Feels to be a Pencil." "HowIt Feels Inside the Environinent of a Book."

An Awareness of Self

Communicating

Who Am 17

I am a boy, 11 years of age and my nameis- Jeffrey. My eyes are brown, my hair is red,I am 4 feet 10 inches high, and I weigh 76pounds. This is my outer description, but Ihave an inner being also.

My inner being is my thoughts and feel-ings that I have. There are things I like dndthings I don't like. I have my good and badpoints, each which I learn from.

A4p feelings help me get along the road oflife without needing, a tow truck to pull thearound.

You may fit part of this, but you willnever be me.

Developing a Sense of CaringWondering, Observing, Questioning.

One day Sharon learned that her familywas going on vacation. She wanted someoneto Care for Tammy, her cat, who was soon tohave babies. Hurriedly, she ran to herfriends Kari, a 3-year-old, and Sean, a 5-year-old. "Will you take care of Tammywhile I'm gone?" -The children assured herthat their mother would help too.

Each day Kari. Sean and their mothervisited Tammy. Their mother p?inted outthat Tammy's belly was getting lpigger andbigger. They touched it genk! They ob-served that Tammy was having- more andmore,difficulty moving about. I

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12One day they called to Tammy, but no

Tammy appeared. "Where do you think sheis, Mommy7 Do you think she is having herbabies?" The Children asked With great con-cern. They looked everywhere, but noTammy.

Later in the day, Sharon and her familyarrived home. Sharon immediately ran toTammy's box and to her surprise discoveredthat some of the kittens had been born.Excitedly Sharon called Sean and Kari tocome see. With wonder and amazement, thechildren observed Tammy licking her babiesclean. With their eyes closed, the squirmingkittens instinctively searched for Tammy'snipples. After watching in silence, thechildren began to ask questions; theirmothers gave thoughtful explanations.

Day after day the children observed the,kittens' growth and their behavior. Moreand more questions! Then came a time whenTammy would allow her babies to be held.The gentleness Of the children! Caring!Feeling and interacting to the closeness of lifein their hands.

Developing Sensory AwarenessObserving, Identifying, Communicating

"I smell popcorn!" exclaimed David.as heentered the room. And he was right! Thiswas just one of the experiences provided fora group of 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds who weremaking discoveries with their five senSes.The children listened to the kernels pop, ob-served the white, fluffy corn and tasted it. Ata learning center, each person smelled aseries of capped bottles to identify their con-tents.

Each child made a "My Touch and FeelBook" in the shape of a large hand. Everyoneglued real objects into their books as the'ywere asked to find the soft, fluffy cottonballs; the pieces of "bumpy" cloth; the soft,squishy, squashy pieces of sponge; the

pieces of :sticky, yucky tape; the feathersthat felt "ticklish"; the rough, scratchypieces of sandpaper. The children had funtrying to describe the textures in words."Can you think of some things that reallyhurt when they touch your skin7" "Doesyour skin feel like your friend's7" "Couldyou guess it was Jason when you played theblindfold game7"

Everyone took a "listening walk" aroundthe neighborhood: "Let's stop a moment.Close your eyes! What do you hear7" Thenonto another place to stop and listen. "Doyou all hear the sai P sounds7 What doesthat sound (a siren) tell you7" Back in theclassroom, we identified daytime and night-time sounds: pleasant ones, loud ones thathurt your ears and scary ones. We listened toa record. "How does the music make youfeel7 Make your body move to show howyou feel."

At learning centers, the children had"tasting and smelling parties." They dis-covered that some foods taste sweet whileothers taste sour or -salty or bitter; somemade simple graphs to show their findings.."What happened when lemon juice touchedthe tiny taste buds on your tongue7 Can youtaste your favorite food when you have acold7" The children learned how difficult it isto separate the tastes and smells of foods.Finally they discussed foods they liked nowbut didn't like when they were younger."

"Oh, I can see the rainbow colors!" ex-claimed Susan as she held a prisni betweenher hands. Turning it this way and that, shesquealed with delight as she focused .on dif-ferent colored objects in the room. Then thechildren decided to sort many objects ac-cording to their colors. Experimenting withcolors was fun! Everyone partly filled emptybaby food jars with water, added drops offood coloring, and sorted the jars by color."How many different colors did we make?"To display their answer, the children beganby coloring small squares of blotter paper by

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'\ dipping one square into each jar. After al-lowing the squares to dry, the children ar-\r nged them in vertical columns, one colorto column, to form a bar graph. Finally the-children counted the squares in each columnto show how many different colors they had

- made.The children discussed how their eyes help

them to see. Standing in front of a longmirror, they named all the things that theyliked about themselves. At a learning center'each child peered into a foot-square mirror:"Look at your eyes, your face, yOur nose,yoUr moufh, your ears, your hair. Drawyourself. You are special." The children'sdrawings were mounted on the bulletinboard with the caption "A Picture of a VerySpecial You."

To integrate their learnings, the 'teacherintroduced a "surprise box" containing manycommon objects. The children took turnsselecting an object and then identifying it byusing their senses. -,

Hearing My Heart Beat!Observing, Discovering, Gaining In f ormation

A group of 6-, 7- and 8-year-olds were fas-cinated when the school nurse showed themhow to use a stethoscope to hear their heartsbeat. Thump! Thump! Thump!

The school nurse showed them a model of'the heart to help them gain some idea of the ."size of the heart, how it works, and its rela-tionship to other organs in the bOdy. She de-scribed the circulation of the blood awayfrom the heart and back again; she com-parea the circulation to a family's routeaway from home along one highway and itsreturn along another.The children noted that their hearts

pumped faster when they jumped up anddown or rap around. Everyone took themodel of the heart apart to examine its struc-tures. Books and films provided additionalinformation that the children synthesized bydrawing pictures and writing descriptions.

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Why Smoke Cigarettes?Investigating, Gaining Information,Recording Data

"You can see the tars from the cigarettehere in these transparent luni cavities," ex-plained the officer from the county drugabuse center to a group of amazed 11- and12-year-olds. They were observing "Smok-ing Sam, a smoking machine with a person-ality." After witnessing the dramatic effectsof smoking just one cig-..ette, they askedmany questions pertaining to the effects ofsrn oking on health. They became aware thatthe air in a rooM could become polluted ifseveral people sm ked. "Whai might happen ,

to non-smokers?" he children queried.

Previously some of the children had inter-viewed smokers and non-smokers who werewilling parents, relatives and neighbors. Thechildren discussed interview techniques anddeveloped questions such as, "Why dopeople start to smoke? How do you thinksmoking affects health? How can someonestop smoking? How do non-smokers feelabout people who smoke?" The findingswere tabulated and reported to the class.,

Some children made graphs showing thenumber of cigarette packs some smokersused in one week and the, costs involved.Others collected cigarette advertisements,suggested reasons for their effectiveness, and ,

determined whether the ads appealed toemotions or reason. The children suggestedreasons why the.'Surgeon General's messageis printed in,cigarette advertisements.

The Fhildren.gathered information from awide variety of sources: photographs oflung tissues affected by smoking, pamphletsfrom health 'agencies, models of the lungs.The children discussed this information withreference to their own bodies, especially totheir respiratory systems. They listedreasons ,for saying that smoking is a- healthhazard.

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Finally the children wrote to the student-teacher's father, a smoker. The lelteis out-lined the hazards of smoking and urged himto stop. The father wrote to the children tothank them for the information. During thesemester, the children repeatedly asked"Would he stop?" and "Did hestop?"

Looking at Our Teeth

Observing, Discovering, Investigating,

"Open wide! O000h, you have gold teeth!Why do you have gold teeth? I have fillingsbut they're not gold." One 6-year-old ques-tioned another during a dental student's visitto the class.

The student introduced the children tomodels of teeth and questioned them to learnwhat they already knew. They discusSed thevarious types and uses of teetH. Working inpairs, each child used a small hand mirror toexamine his or her partner's teeth. EaFh child,carefully observed the upper and lovier teeth,with the mirror. Discoveries! Many dis-'\coveries! Then ail the mirrors were s t eril-izedanother learning experienceand 11

partners traded places, the examiner becom-ing the examined. Differences in diet anddental care became apparent as the childrenasked questions. /

The dental student used the overhead pro-jector to show pictures of teeth and ex-plained how they grow. The children wereinterested to learn about plaque formationand cavities; they learned new vocabularywords. Good dental hygiene was stressed.There was great'excitement when each.childreceived a new ,toothbrush to take home.

Filmstrips, pictures and stories reinforcedthe leamings. The models of teeth left by thedental student gave everyone oppprtunitiesto study teeth more carefully. The childrendrew pictures of good foods to eat andproper care of the teeth. The study of teethfed to an interest in other parts of the bodyand a study of the ear, eye and heart.

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Celebrating the Senses

Observing, Identifying, Communicating

Everyone in our neighborhood, childrenand adults of every age, participated to-gether in these activities:

L-Finger painting with chocolate pudding,yogurt and whipped cream.

Tasting and smelling batches of pop-corn each seasoned with a different flavor,such as garlic butter, barbecue sauce andcheese.

Instructing someone to draw by givingonly verbal directions without naming whatis to be drawn.

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Identifying sounds: a bouncing ping-pong ball, air gushing out of a bicycle tire.

Feeling a variety of textures while blind-foldedJello, bread dough, corn meai, rice,salt and ice water; describing the sensationsand attempting to identify the items.

The children and adults alike became ab-sorbed in the projects. Of course, individualexperiences differed: what was experienced,how it was perceived and what was learneddepended upon the developmental level ofeach individual. Nevertheless, everyoneagreed that a Celebration of the Senses was abeautiful way for the neighbors to jointogether.

Uhmm1 Chocolate pudding tastes as good as it feels.

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The External Environment

Charlotte, Our SpiderObserving, Creating, Sharing

A scream from the back of the roombrought the teacher and other childrenrunning. Kai, 7-years-old and obviously ter-rified, stood pointing 'at the easel. The objectof her concern was a small, green gardenspider. As-we watched, it dropped from theedge of the easel and hung suspended on aninvisible dragline.

"Oh," whispered the teacher. "Do youthink it's Charlotte who has come to visitus?" Quietly the children observed thespider. Gathering in. its line, it rose swiftly,then dropped almost to the floor once more.In a few moments, the spider touched thefloor, scurried into a corner, -and disap-peared from view. One of the girls goton her hands and knees to investigate. Loand behold! The spider had a beautifullyconstructed web under the cupboards. Theyoungsters watched the spider over the nextfew days and recorded its behavior.

Gently inducing it to climb,aboard a panepf glass, the children viewed the spider'sstructure without injuring it. Of course thespider was returned to its web, over whicha sign now proclaimed, "Charlotte Liveskere." The children agreed, "If you knowone, spiders aren't so bad."

After being introduced to poetry aboutspiders and their webs, many children wrotetheir own poems and stories. The childrenlearned about many kinds of spiders andhow they make their homes; they drewpictures to show where different kinds ofspiders live. The children shared theirfindings and discoveries with thekindergarten and first-grade children.

E.B. White, Chartotte:,5 Web (New York: Harper &Row, 1952).

Being BotanistsObserving, Predicting, Experimenting

A large jar filled with soil and some seed-lings was sealed with plastic wrap; it permit-ted a group of 7- and 8-year-olds to observechanges over a period of weeks. "What doyou think will happen?" queried the teacher.A 7-year-old predicted, "They'll all die." Aslightly wiser but less certain 8-year-oldstated, "They won't die, but they won'tgrow." Other children's predictions were re-corded to be checked against future observa-tions.

When moisture appeared inside the sealedjar, the children read extensively to discoverwhy. Their readings led them to experiment-with those factors essential to plant growthwater', soil, air, sunlight. The childrengrew control and experimental plants to testthe effect Of the various factors. Some ex-perimental plants were even given "polluted"water. The children recorded their observa-tions and displayed them on a graph. Theycompared their experimental and controlplants. Through discussion, the childrengained an awareness of the impact of pollu-tion on plants and the importance of plantsto man's survival.

Making Bread and Butter

Observing, Discovering

A group of 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds werestudying foods that are important to goodhealth. They tasted several raw foods andthen observed the change in taste and texturewhep the same foods were cooked.

One day they watched as bits of butter"appeared before their very eyes" in emptybaby-food jars partly filled with whippingcrearn. Around the room, pairs ot childrenwere saying, "Now you shake it five times.It's your turn now." And finally an excited,"I can see butter!" Others gathered around tosee. And sure enough, tiny bits of butter

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were visible. The teacher suggested thatshaking the jar more would make the tinybits come together to make larger pieces.Soon all the children discgered pieces ofbutter in their jars. Encouraged by theteacher and the aides, some children tastedthe buttermilk. The butter was refrigerateduntil the following day when the childrenmade breads

The children identified the ingredients formaking bread, then briefly observed theircolors and other properties. After theymeasured the ingredients and mixed themtogether, the children observed that none 'ofthe ingredients could now be identified.

Small groups were responsible for knead-ing the dough; they observed its size.Someone marked the dough's height with aspot on the outside of the bowl beforeputting it in a warm place. Sometime later,the children were amazed to discover whathad happened: "The dough is almost at thetop of the bowl. It's bigger." The dough was

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Heymy turn to mix the flour!

shaped into loavies and baked. After muchanticipatioik the/children were able to touch,smell and tastó the freshly baked bread.What feelings of self-achievement!

Light, Colors, and RainbowsDiscovering, aperimenting, Communicating

While working with water colors, Dean, a9-year-old with an ever-curious mind, won-dered where colors came from. The otherchildren were curious tool The next day theteacher used a flashliiht and a prism in thedarkened room to flash the colors of therainbow on the wall. Repeating this pro-cedure, the children discovered that thecolors of the rainbow were mixed together inthe light from the flashlight. The prismseparated the light into its many colors.

The children experimented with the prism,turning it in many diiections to see whatwould ha-Ppen to the rainbows. "Would thecolors always be in the same, order'? Could

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they always make rainbows in every part ofthe room'?"

The bOys and girls searched the schoollibrary for books about light and color. Asthey used the references, the children foundexperiments that they could duplicate in theclassroom. "Can you 'catch' a rainbow inyour hand'?" The children did! They placed amirror at an angle against 'the inside of adeep pan of water, then set the pan in thebright sunlight. One child brought an inex-pensive polaroid lens for doing moresophisticated experiments. Another childbrought a black light. More and more ex-periments! More and more discoveries!

The culminatiOn of the study was a light-show produced by the children and present-ed at a school assembry. To accompany thelight-show, the children read poetry andprose that they had selected for the occasion.

Will This Seed Grow?Classifying, Graphing, investigating

"An avocado is a huge seed," announcedKaren to herlriend Lisa. Groups of 7- and 8-year-olds were sorting and classifying theirseeds by size, color and shape. Some child-ren made simple graphs to display theirobservations. For example, the children whoclassified seeds by size placed big seeds onone strip of paper and small ones onanother; then the children counted thenumber of seeds in each column. The graphswere discussed and compared.

A discussion of seeds and their growthstimulated many questions. "How long willit take my seed to grow'?" "Will thig seedgrow'?" The children decided to try toanswer some of their own questions. Eachchild planted seeds of one kind and kept arecord of observations. Both the kind of seedand the type of recorda graph, picture orstorywas the child's choice. When some ofthe seeds did not germinate, the children dis-

cussed the probable causes. One child ex-plained to another, "You forgot to tell them'you loved them!"

Exploring a MarshObserving, Creating

Two sisters, 5 and 7 years old, were ex-ploring their new neighborhood with their.aunt. They came upon a marsh and, to theirdelight, saw lots of little green hoppingfrogs. Watching for a long time, they ob-served one frog catch a bug on its long,sticky tongue and heard another call outriv it, riv it .

The three investigators talked about whatfrogs eat, how they move, where they like tolive; and how they hatch from eggs inth tad-poles and then grow into frogs, As the threeexplored the marsh, they captured a fast-moving frog, inspected it at close range andfreed it. Upon returning home, the children'sencyclopedia was used to learn more. Thetrio completed their science venture by writ-ing the following poerri.

Cribet

There once was'a frog named Cribet.All it would say is "rivit."It saw a big fly. . .

Said, "Can;t let it go by!"Out came its sticky tongueAnd the fly was no more among.Cribet liked-td jump, jump, jump.It was.moving so fast. . . kerplunk."It was in the hands of a little child.And afraid it would never again see the wild.The child was curious but kind, you see.And after watching Cribet, set it free.

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Learning about CookingObserving, Measuring, Discovering

"Squishy, stickwrough, smooth, yummy,white, slippery" were among the descriptivewords used by 6- and 7-year-olds as they

tasted, touched, looked at the ingredientsthey would use in making peanut buttercookies. This activity was one of a series inwhich the children observed changes causedby mixing, heating, freezing and melting in-gredients.

"Make the sugar come to this line." "Nowyou have one cup." "How much peanutbutter do we need?" "Which spoon is

marked one-half?" "One-half looks likethis." The children observed the effect ofmixing the ingredients. "Now you can't seethe sugar." "Or the flour!" "I can smell thepeanut butter." With hands scrubbed clean,each child rolled a piece of dough into asmall ball. "How does it feel?" "What do you

_smell?" Each ball was placed carefully on'-agreased pan and pressed flat with a fork. Atoy clock was set to'show when the cookieswould be baked. Some children watched asthe hands of the real clock moved slowly. Atlast, it was time to taste the cookies and dis-cuss the effects of heating and cooling them.

On another occasion, the children madeice cream. Individuals measured the dry andliquid ingredients, then mixed them.Everyone learned how to use an ice creamfreezer to change the liquid mixture into asolid one. After putting ice and salt in thefreezer, individuals took turns turning thehandle of the freezer. When the dasher wasfinally removed, everyone tasted the ice

cream, sensed its coldnesi-and described thechange that had taken place. "Ice made theliquid freeze." "It's clifferent now." "It's coldand solid."

Still another changemeltingwas ob-served by the children when they madecheese sandwiches. Everyone saw that heatmade the cheese "bubble" and melt on thebread. "Be careful!" "It's hot!" "Don't burnyour tongue!" After eating the sandwiches,individuals discussed other examples ofmelting that they had observed. Everyoneobserved what happens when you hold/anke cube in your hands or in your mouth.,

Learning about Si\ailsGaintng Informati7, Experimenting,Observing

"Who has seen \-21ne of these lately?" Hold-ing up a tiny garden-variety snail and amagazine article on snails, the teacher stimu-lated and challenged a group of 10- and 11-year-olds to begin a study of snails. Search-ing che article many times, the childrengathered suggestions for designing their owninvestigations.

The children brought snails to class fromthe school yard and their home. gardens.Each owner identified his or her snail bymarking its shell with colored nail polish.The snails were kept in aquaria, each con-taining a layer of fallen leaves about threecentimeters in depth, potting soil, a fewtwigs and a shallow container filled with '

water to a depth of about four millimeters.The children placed a clamshell or a piece ofbone in each aquarium to provide thecalcium used by the snails as building mate-rial for their shells. Each snail's weight,coloring and distinctive markings were re-corded.

The young investigators made discoveriesabout snail structure and movement. Using asheet of clean glass or clear plastic, somechildren observed how the snail is, pushedalong by its foot on a mucous pathlhat itleaves behind. When the sheet was heldvertically, the snail moved upward; whenthe sheet was slowly rotated back and forth,the snail turned and continued moving up-ward. The magazine article explained the ob-servations: snails can sense changes-in theirposition relative to the direction of gravity.By listening carefully, the children couldhear a snail eating hard materials such ascrisp lettuce and carrots. They learned thatthe radula is a toothed, filelike muscle insidea- snail's mouth, functioning much like teethand a tongue. To feel a snail's ractula, thechildren allowed snails to "eat" thin films c`,

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honey or jam from their finger tips. Otherchildren tested the movement of snails awayfrom a light source and over a distance mea-sured in centimeters. The children also testedthe snails' reaction' to light. These investiga-tions provided the children with opportuni-ties for graphing and comparing data. Snailraces were even organized!

The children became totally involved inthe study; they lost their initial feelings ofrevulsion and became "fond" of their snails.The study led to an appreciation of andinterest in other living things.

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See! I can make my tower taller.

Balancing TowersConstructing, Discovering, Creating

"How high can you make a tower fromblocks?" The towers rose, collapsed amid thegroans of the 4- and 5-year-olds and soaredagain, each time with sturdier bases. Some 7-and 8-year olds used drinking straws andstraight pins to build their towers. "Howwide can you make your tower?" "How didyou balance it7" Within a short time, thechildren w6re able to apply the knowledgegained from both successes and failiAres.

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Eentually, four children woriced together tobuild a tower by pooling their experience.

The children were proud of their struc-tures and shared them with their families.Snapshots were taken. Some individualstontinued the activity for days. One childmade a tower out of toothpicks fastenedtogether with bits of orange peel. Anothermade a colorful mobile from spray-paintedtoothpicks.

From Natural Site to Learning CenterObierving, Experimenting, Comparing

"We can put frogs near the pond. Theyneed to live near water and where there'splenty of insects for them to catch." A desertsite adjacent to the school was being de-veloped into a learning center by adults anda group of 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds. Thecommunit§ waS involved in the project ;many children, parents and other interested'adults gave of their time over weekends tohelp in developing different aspects of theMaster Plan. The site was to become a placewhere children of various ages could interactwith the environment in a constructive man-ner and develop positive attitudes regardingthe environment.

The children's activities varied. Some tooksoil samples to deteimine the water-holdingcapacity of soils at different places. Theseplaces were marked on a map of the site. Ex-mining the soil for its contents, other child-ren found that it contained parts of deadorganisms, bits of leaves, and bits of rock.The temperature of the soil-Lin shady spotsand, open placeswas recorded on variousdays.

Some children used soil samples to experi-ment with plant growth. "Will plants otherthan cactuses grow in the soil? What kinds ofsoils do wild-flower seeds and Californiapoppy seeds need? Should fertilizer beadded to the soils? What food chainS can we

discover? Which, plants require shadyplaces? Open places?"

As they\ developed the site, the childrenand adults asked questions, rnade predic-tions, and tested hypotheses; they consultedbooks and resource specialists. Data fromexperiments and observations were recordedin charts and displayed in graphs. Whenfood chains were represented pictorially, thechildren learned about the plants andanimals that inhabited various areas at thesite. Through their direct involvement, thechildren understood one ecosystem : a pondand its community of plants and animals.

Garage Science

Observing, Gaining Information

"Daddy, what are you doing?" asked acurious 6-year-old, watching her fatherworking under the hood of the family's car."I'm checking this battery on a voltmeter tosee if it needs to be recharged. Let me showyou." Joined by an 8-year-old sister, thefather used simple language to explain.

The girls were introduced to several con-cepts : Electric current is caused by chemicalaction inside a battery ; the combination ofwater and sulfuric acid starts the flow ofelectricity between positive and negativeplates inside. The father drew a diagramshowing the inside of the battery, pointedout its parts, and explained them. The fatherwarned that sulfuric acid is very strong andcould be dangerous. . . could even burn ahole in clothing!

The girls learned that a battery consists ofone or more units called cells and that, byconnecting several cells, the electric currentcan be made stronger. "Electricity ismeasured in volts. See the needle moving onthe voltmeter? That indicates how strong thecurrent is. . . how useful the battery is."Thus, the question, "Daddy, wl.:st are youdoing?" resulted in a lesson on electricity in afamily's garage.

26

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Big Wheels, Little Wheels,

Observing, Classifying, G-raphing

"This wagon is hard to pull!" "See, thevItheels won't turn much." Mike, Susan andjohn were using small wagons having"wheels" of different shapes. Some wheelswere squares, others were triangles, whileothers were round. These 7- and 8-year-oldsdiscovered that the roundness of the wheelson the small wagon made it easy to pullalong the floor or up the ramp. Thetriangular and square "wheels" just went

.Thumpety, bump, bump."

Previously, the children had classified acollection of objects as wheels or non-wheels. Now they displayed the total num-ber of objects in each category by making agraph. They discovered that round, flatobjects, such as metal washers, woodendisks, and wheels from broken toys, wouldroll and usually fall over; but sphericalobjects, such as. balls and beads, would con-tinue to roll.

One day the children and their teacherstood on a busy corner near the school andwatched wheels moving past them along thestreetwheels on trucks, cars, a street clean-er, a bicycle and a motor scooter. They dis-covered that wheels turn on axles. At a gaso-line service station, everyone gatheredaround a car mounted on a hoist andwatched as the attendant spun a wheelaround and around on the axle. Later theypointed out wheels moving around axles onbicycles, on roller skates, and on skateboards. The children discovered that manyfamiliar objects are wheels; they were sur-prised to find out that doorknobs are wheelsand axles.

"What if there were no wheels in theworld7" The children's imaginations andspeculations helped them become aware ofthe importance of wheels to everyone.

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Hatching Baby ChicksVerifyitig, Measuring, Interpreting

'Look there! It's a baby chickr "I can seeanother one coming out of the shell! It can'tstand up! See, it's all wet." The!t wereamong the exclamations made by a group ofexcited 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds as they ob-served six baby chicks, \vet and weak, pecktheir way out of their shells. Each chick's eggtooth looked just like the one they had seenin their reference book.

"How many days did it take our chicks tohatch?" "Yes, it was 21 days." The childrenrecalled that each day they had addedanother yellow, paper egg to the calendar.The children consulted an illustrated chart tofind out how the embryo looked from theday the eggs were placed in the incubator tothe day they hatched.

The chicks, each coded with a spot of foodcoloring, were weighed at two-day intervalsby using a balance scale. The young investi-gators found out Fiow many rods wouldbalance each chick; they recorded theirfindings. A simple graph helped the childrento observe the growth of each chick.

How Much Do Our Chicks Weigh (in rods)?

. Chick Day 1 , Day 3 Day 5

"Red" chick 5 ' 7 9

"Green" chick 5 8 10

"Blue" chick 6 7 9

Observations led to _more questions, ex-'planations and pictures. Through bodymovements the children pretended to be de-veloping chicks, crouching as though insidethe egg, using the egg tooth to peck out ofthe shell, emerging wet and weak, gainingstrength and finally becoming a fluffy babychickwalking, pecking and running.

Do you think this egg will become a chial

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Learning about ErosionModel-making, Demonstrating, Cornmunicating

Red flames of fire moved along the ridge.A plane zoomed down to drop a "waterbomb" on the fire. The sirens of a fire enginecould be heard coming along the highway. Agroup of 9- and 10-year-olds anxiouslywatched the brush fire move down the otherside of the hill and away from their com-munity. Excitement! Anxiety! Fear! Relief!

During the following days, everyoneshared news items and pictures of the fire.The discussion ranged through many topics:safety precautions regarding the use ofmatches and campfires, the "no smoking"signs posted at many natural sites, and thedryness of the vegetation due to little rain.The children discussed some consequences offiresthe destruction of valuable watershedareas, mudslides, erosion of soil, destructionof animals and their homes.

Discussions, questions and predictionsled everyone to study erosion and ecology.

ireurr

that fire damage a ead

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The boys and girls explored the devastatedarea and the adjacent area that escaped the.effects of the fire. Afterwards; the childrenconsulted many sources of information, in-cluding environmental agencies.-----___

The students organized committees to in-vestigate various problems. One groupdemonstrated what would happen to adenuded hill if a heavy rain fell. Some of thechildren built a hill of soil about one meterhigh in a large aluminum foil pan; othersmarked bands one-centimeter wide along thelength of Popsicle sticks; still others usedcrayons to color the bands in this order: red,green, orange, blue, yellow, purple. Withthe red ends out, the. children pushed thesticks into the hill at various placeg and atright angles to its surface. The sticks wereinserted until the line betWeen the orangeand blue bands was at the surface of the hill.Then someone punched tiny holes in thebottom of a can, poured water into the canand made it "rain" on the hill.

The children used the colored bands to

ZO

demonstrate where erosion took place,where the soil washed away and where itbuilt up. They observed canyons, landslidesand streams forming. Then a few individualsshowed what happens to rain when vegeta-tion is growing on a hill.

The children developed some understand-ing of how fires can change an environment,and pose immediate and long-term dangersto a community. Some individuals madeposters illustrating their findings and feel-ings. Since the camping season was not toofar away, the children carried on a school-wide campaign to alert everyone to fire-pre-vention methods.

Visiting Farm AnimalsQuestioning, Observing. Communicating

"Does chocolate milk come from browncows'?" "Where does butter grow'?" "Howbig are cows7" "Do pigs really stink?"Drawing on the children's questions andnatural interest in farm animals and 'theirproducts, the teacher had prepared the 3-and 4-year-olds for a visit to a nearby agri-cultural college. Since young children learnthrough direct experience, a field trip to afarm or agricultural college is a valuable op-portunity. The children learn from whatthey touch, taste, smell and see.

"It stinks!" "Look at the baby pigs eating!Doesn't that hurt the mother pig7" "They areso wiggly." "The milk just squirts out." "Isthis where eggs from the store come from'?"The children drank milk from the cows,churned butter from the cream and ate eggsfrom the chickens.

Everyone had the opportunity to ask ques-tions and correct misconceptions. "Is thepiglet soft?" "Does it bite?" "How fast will itgrow'?" "When was it born7" "Did you seethe piglets drinking from their mothers?"The children's observations led them to newquestions that extended their knowledge ofthe world and its inhabitants.

But where are the eggs?

The Expanded Environment

Learning about Weather

Observing, Recording Data,Predicting, Mapping

Red, yellow, blue balloons filled withhelium gas floated upward over the play-ground and the school. The boys and girlsreleasing the balloons observed them risehigher and higher over the houses and treetops. The balloons all moved in much thesame direction, then finally disappearedfrom view into the atmosphere. The groupof 10- and 11-year-olds were studying air

.currents, part of a unit on weather. Astamped postcard dangled from the length ofstring attached to each balloon. One side ofthe card described the balloon's purpose andrequested that the finder record the date andplace when iound; the other side gave thename and the school addresi of the sender.

After releasing the balloons, the childrenrecorded their directions; they discussedtheir other observations, recorded them and

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predicted 'where the balloons might befound. The predictions were plotted on amap of the state. As each postcard wasreturned, the date and place were recordedon the map and the air currents plotted. Thechildren discovered that the wind carriedsome of the balloons many miles from theschbol and in directions opposite from thosepredicted. Further reading and investigatingled the children to hypothesize that someballoons were lifted into the troposphere andcarried by air currents moving in differentdirections.

The children constructed baromciters,wind vanes, rain gauges and humidityindicators. Using these instruments, every-one collected and recorded data aboutweather conditions in the community. Afterattempting some weather forecasting, theycompared their predictions with those ofprofessional forecasters, gaining an appre-ciation for their work. The boys and girlslearned that weather is the result of the inter-action of many environmental factors, suchas air pressure, temperature and the amountof moisture in the air.

The Cause of ShadowsObsertnng, Measuring. Recording

"I could step on 'Kermit's head thismorning but now it's not there," statedSusan, a puzzled 7-year-old. The childrenwere playing a game that involved steppingon each other's shadows. The childrenvolunteered their ideas in response toSusan's observations. Realizing that thiscould be a means to making the concept oftime more meaningful, the teacher asked asmall group to measure their shadows, hourby hour, and record the results. One childvolunteered to measure the shadow cast by ayardstick; another used a meterstick.

Soon the boys and girls were investigatingthe sun's apparent positions throughout theday due to the earth's rotation. Some 8-year-

olds who had studied the four time zones ofthe United States and Earth's movement inspace were asked to serve as resource people.Using a globe of Earth and a flashlight, theydemonstrated Earth's rotation in spacethecause of day and night. They helped the 7-year-olds simulate Earth's rotation.

With the help of a 12-year-old, someinterested children continued to measuretheir shadows for one month and thencharted their data. The children becameaware of the way shadows are formed andlearned that the sun's apparent position inthe sky could help them tell the time of day.

Everyone had fun playing at differenttimes of the day. Now the children could ex-plain why their shadows were long some-times and very short at others. The boys andgirls also had fun making shadow pictures.A piece of white construction paper wastaped to the wall and a light was focused onthe paper. While some children madeshadow shapes with their handsotherstraced around the shapes. The childrenunderstood that their hands, too, could stopthe light to make shadows.

Space ExplorationInvestigating, Measuring, Creating

A group of 8-, 9- and 10:year-olds becamefascinated with outer space. They wereintrigued by rockets and space travel; theywondered whether life exists on other'planets and.whether we might be able to liveon other . planets. Everyone shared maps,globes, charts, rocket models, books andother materials related to the solar system.Individuals investigated such variables asgravity, temperature and atmospherepresent on the known planets.

Applying what they had learned, thechildren designed a "space walk" on theplayground. The distances of the planetsfrom the sun were represented, using areasonable scale. On the playground the

31

How many meters to Mercury?

children placed standards with flags labeledthe "Sun," "Mercury," and so on for each ofthe other known planets. The children thenwalked through their solar system andacquired sorhe feeling about the distancesbetween the planets.

Later, each child chose a planet and usedhis or hei knowledge of the planet's atmo-sphere, temperature and gravity to design acreature that could live on that planet. Avariety of materials was used in highly crea-tive ways. Each creature was displayed withan explanation Stating how it could live onits planet.

Designing a City .

Problem-Solving, Mapping, Model-making

"Having a fire station nearby is good." "Aplace near my house has lots of trash every-where." "A freeway is good if you haye a carand want to go somewhere fast, buOs alsobad because it produces noise and pollu-tion." The..;e were among the evaluationsmade by 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds as theyconstructed a model city reflecting the needsof their community ten years into the future.The year-long project integrated all cur-riculum areas.

The children explored and photographedtheir neighborhoods. Individuals surveyedthe topography of the communityhills,canyons, a river. Some children used ,avariety of resources to compile informationabout these and other natural features.

The bulletin board displayed maps of theircommunity draWn to scale, drawings repre-senting structures in the new city, plans forindividual parcels of land, and graphs ofpopulation changes. Individuals conferredwith architects and regional planners. Thechildren's plan for the city began to takeform. A large floor-model made to scale wascarved from squares of Styrofoam. Variousmaterials were used to . create factories,transportation systems, land-use patterns.

"Is there adequate housing for the popula-tion? What kinds of transportation will beused? How will waste materials be treated?Where will schools be located? Industries?Recreation areas?" After much discussion,the children interyiewed their parents andother adults. An overwhelming number ofthose surveyed preferred single-familyhomes. The children,, however, pointed outthat cluster housing is a better use of land.Reviewing their data, the children dis-covered that the adults opposed any law re-

. .

quiring trees on residential'property. Againthe children disagreed. They included thatprovision in the community's ordinances.

Having developed their model arid plan,the children and their, teachers assessed thestrengths and weakness of their design forthe future. The project's high point occurredwhen the -children presented their plan andmodel to the community's regional planningcommission.

Space Stations and AlgaeInvestigating, Gaining Information,Communicating

"Algae as food?" This was the topic select-ed for study by a committee of 10- and 11-year-olds. They became interested afterseeing a film that discussed the possibilitythat algae would be grown in space stationsto supply food for people living ih that en-closed ecological system.

Each committee member assumed a task.Some members searched for information inthe school and public libraries. Otherssecured samples of algae from a nearbypond, from the aquaria of several friends,and from the pet stare. Everyone observeddifferent algae under the microscope, madedrawings of their observations and notedlikenesses and differences.

From their readingS, the boys and/ girlslearned many interesting facts: Today, as inthe past, algae are'a source of high-protein

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Draw the river to-the east of the hill.

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food in people's diets; algae remove somecarbon dioxide from the air and replace itwith oxygen. Thus algae would be ideal forgrowing in a space station and a good sourceof lood for people living on Earth. One corn-mittee member found a recipe for makingcookies from algae.

Chlorella Cinnamon Pinwheels

4 tablespoons Chlorella powder2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt3 teaspoons baking powder, 4 tablespoons shortening

3,4 cup Milkmelted butter

sugarcinnamon

Combine first six ingredients. Spreaddough with melted butter ; dust doughwith svgar and cinnamon. Roll like ajelly roll, cut into half-inch slices, andbake at 350 degrees until brown.After a meeting with the teacher, the com-

mittee agreed to make the cookies. "Whereto get powdered algae?" One of the mothersfound it in an organic food store in the com-munity. The committee decided to distributethe cookies as a surprise when giving theirreport.

The report was presented and the cookiesWere distributed. "Did you make them?" "Itdoesn't taste too bad." "They look sort offunny." "I like it." The children agreed thatthe cookies weren't favorites, but realizedthat maybe, just maybe, they would have tolearn to like foods made from algae.

Solar EnergyGaining Informatioq, Constructing,Communicating

A group of 8- and 9-year-olds began tothink about ways they could save electricalenergy at home and at school. Their ideaswere recorded on chart paper. One child

,mentioned that a television program suggest-

ed thatsunlight could be used to heat homesand to make electricity. How could this bedone? Ideas were suggested. The term solarenergy was used and inquiries made as to its .

meaning.

Searching for more information at home,school and public libraries, the childrenfound a variety Of books and current maga-zine articles (some simplified by parents) ,about the energy shortage and the uses ofsolar energy. Soon the classroom had aviewing area where a.small group could lookat filmstrips; a listening center where otherscould listen to tapes (made by the teacher) toaccompany some pictures; a center forbrowsing, reading resource materials, andinterpreting pictures.

After sharing information and ideas, eachchild "invented" a "solar, machine" thatwould use the energy of the sunmaybeeven heat homes. A variety of materialswere used to construct their inventions. Foreach device, the "inventor" wrote a brief de-scriptiOn of how it would work. The inven-tions were displayed and the informationshared' with children from another class. Ahighlight of the study was the "'solar oven"made by a boy in a nearby junior highschool. He demonstrated the oven so thatthe children could sea how it worked. Therewas much excitement when everyone ate hotdogs cooked by solar energy!

3 5

Designing KitesConstructing, Observing, Investigating

Colorful kites fluttered successfully in theair or trailed woefully on the ground. Toculminate a study of Japan and to celebratethe Japanese holiday Boys' Day, the childrenhad constructed the traditional fish-shapedkites from tissue paper. The 9-year-olds hadtried a variety of fish-shapes and sizes.Everyone soon learned that certain shapesbecame airborn more easily. Those childrenwhose kites would not fly called upon their

more successful peers for the necessarymodifications.

The young investigators discovered thatcertain forces act on a kite. To fly, the forcepushing upward on a kite must be greater

, than the downward pull of gravity. Theyalso learned that the forward thrust on a kitemust be greater than the backward force, ordrag, due to the kite's tail or shape. If thedrag is greater than the thrust, the kite takesa nose dive. Many children changed the,shapes of their kites to take advantage of theforces acting on the kites.

During a week of calm days that groundedall the kites, the children studied local windconditions and visited a meteorologist at theweather station. When the wind conditionsimproved, the children again flew their kiteswhich, having been redesigned, were easily,lifted by the air currents.

What Causes Fading?Predicting, Experimenting, Creating

A conversation between two 7-year-oldgirls about their blue-jean slacks, one pairmore faded than the other, led to the predic-tion that sunlight caues fading.

For'two weeks the girls conducted an ex-periment to test the prediction. First they ob-tained two pieCes of printed fabric, identicalin size. The girls stapled squares of blackpaper onto one piece of the fabric; each daythey placed it in direct sunlight and removedone scivarelEvery day they washed the otherpiece of fabric in soap and water, and hung itin the room to dry. The washed and un-washed pieces were compared daily. Aftertwo weeks, the girls had visual proof thatsunlight could cause fading. The soap andwater caused some fading but not as much asthe sunlight.

The girls apphed what they learned aboutsunlight to create lovely designs on coloredconstruction paper. These papers were thenused as covers for the children's writtenstories and illustrations of their experiment.

Making Salt Water Suitable fur Drinking

Gaining Information, Experimenting,Interpreting

"Can we remove salt from sea water tomake it good to drink?" Two 12-year-oldboys wanted to investigate this problem incdnnection with a study of the ocean and itsresources. The children searched for infor-mation at the school and public libraries.From Magazine articles and newspaperitems, the boys learned that ocean watermight-be needed for drinking purposes in thefuture; they found out about a desalinatiohplant in a nearby community.

After designing an experiment to test theirhypothesis, the children collected and set uptheir equipment/ an intricate assemblage offlasks connected by rubber and glass tubing.The distillation system was successful afterdays of experimentation, failures andchanges in design. The boys became totallyinvolved; thiey even, tasted the ocean waterto test that it was free pf salt.

The two investigators discussed their ex-periments with their classmates, shared theirfindings, and answered questions. "Would, itbe practical to use your system for removingsalt frorth ocean water?" This was asked indifferent ways by the class. The answerseemed to be conclusive: distillation is anunsatifadory way to supply water in greatquantity. Other ways would need to befound! "You should help find these wayswhen you are older." The boys were reward-ed by the encouragement of their classmates.

Studying Stars and PlanetsInterpreting, Observing, Creating

"What does sign" of the zodiac mean'?"queried the 11-, 12- and 13-year-olds. Forher birthday, Jennifer had received apendant with the sign of Pisces on it. Wheneveryone else found out their signs, the classbegan a study of astrology and astronomy.

36

The children- learned about the beliefs ofthe early' people who developed the ideas ofthe zodiac. As the children read their horo-scopes and those of their friends, they beganto question and analyze them. "How couldthe statements be true. about everyone bornbetween those dates7" The children hadmany ideas. Some decided to interviewpeople about statements in their horoscopes"to see whether ttley fit." Others began tosearch in scienc books for informationabout the stars land planets. Informationgained from the interviews and readingswere shared. Tile children concluded that the,horogcopes and stories about the effect ofstars and planets on people's lives were un-scientific. Some children thought that thestories were fun to read but unacceptable asscience.

Further activities involved the children inmaking see-through star maps, using plasticsheets and colored dots for stars. The mapsshowed some of the constellations visible tothe children in the night sky. At night withthe aid of a flashlight and star maps, thechildren searched the sky for various starsand constellations. The children learned thatthe constellations seemed to move from hourto hour and week to week because of theearth's rotation. On one evening the princi-pal, children, teacher and parents viewedsome of the stars and the planet Venusthrough a telescope brought to the schoolgrounds by a high school student. This ex-perience encouraged more questions andfurther investigations.

The children applied their learnings to avariety of creative experiences. They wrotetheir own legends from the star patterns thatthey imagined they saw in the sky. Usinga§trological and astronomical designs, thechildren made pendants and other objectsfrom clay, then fired them in the school kiln.They wrote plays complete with sound ef-fects, that featured interplanetary and inter-stellar space travel.

What Animal is That?

Observing, Investigating, Comparing

"That shell moved! What is it7" "Will itbite me7" "Does it pinch7" "The.colors arebeautiful!" A group of 11- and 12-year-oldswere full of comments and questions as they

, observed a land crab for the first time. Theircuriosity soon led to a search for informa-tion. They compared the land crab,with thewater crab, identifying similarities and dif-ferences in appearance, structure, habitat'and life cycle.

The children's research uncovered manyinteresting facts. If a land crab does not havea shell it will burrow; if it has a shell it willshed it and grow a larger one. Crabs aresc'avengers and will eat almost anythingliving or dead. In the pacific Islands, somecrabs can get through the shell of a coconutto eat the meat.

37

Exploring an EnvironmentObserving, Gaining Information

My Trip to Carlsbad Cavernsby Kendall, age 12

1UNE 22--,My family a-nd I flew from L6sAngeles to Albuquerque, then over .theChihuahuan Desert to Carlsbad. We had lotsof turbulence caused by hot-air rising off thedeseit and meeting the cooler upper air.,

JUNE 23Today we drove to Carlsbad Na-tional Park, At the caveths we took the.3-_mile trip in at the natural entrance antl 850feet to the bottom'on a switch-back trail. Wewalked through lots of rooms and _chambersand learned how they formed. They weremade about 200 million years ago when allthe area was a shallow sea. The water seepedinto cracks in the Capitan Reef (most of it isstill buried), dissolving the limestone. Thewater level dropped slowly and air took itsplace. Lime water dripped down forming

stalactites.' Where there was no water on thefloor, stalagmites built _up. The formationstook many beautiful shapes like drapery,cave pearls, soda straws and helictites.

JUNE 24We went back to the cavernstoday where the temperature is about 56degrees all the time. We stayed until eveningto,see about 4500 bats spiral out at one timefrom the natural entrance. The bats are theMexican Free-tail which migrate to thecaverns each summer. The hat colony caneat Z half ton of insects each night. The batdroppings, or guano, used to be mined forthe citrus orchards of California. We learned

. that the natural entrance was known to theprehistoric Indians 4,000 years ago. TheIndians left paintings on the cave walls.

JUNE 25:We left Carlsbad today, flying; over the Chihuahuan Desert again and got a

good look at the Pecos River which runsthrough Carlsbad and northeast of theGuadaloupe Mountains, the exposed sectionof the reef where the caverns are located.The trip was fun and we want to go again,

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What observations can you make?

SUGGESTED GUIDELINESExploring with Children

As you participate in science adventures with thechildren/ask yourself if you are-O guiding the children's development of process

skills, attitudes and conceptsfrom the lifean'd physical sciences.

O providing opportunitis for children to workindependently and-with others.

O allowing children to try ideas, pose questionsand make mist,akes without being ridiculed.

O extending activities when the spontaneous be-havior of the children suggests this.

O making available many and varied materials,since children learn through direct experiencewith them.

O using human and natural resources in thecommunity.

O fostering children's creative expressionsart,melodies and songs, constructions, poemsand stories, body movement.

O looking for opportunities to individualizelearning, integrate the curriculum, use teamteaching, set up learning centers and usemulti-age groupings.

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Growth3

Me

' As long as I liveI shall always beMyselfand no other,Just me.

Like a tree.

Like a willow or elder,An aspen, a thorn,Or a cypress forlorn.

Like a flower,For its hourA primrose, apink,Or a violetSunned by the sunAnd with dewdrops wet.

Always just me.

From BELLS AND GRASS by Walter de la M 'are. Copy-right 1941 by Walter de la Mare, (c) renewc1 1969 byRichard de la Mare. Reprinted by permission of TheViking Press.

40

OU

A sense of self lies deep within a child. Todevelop this awareness, children require anenvironment in which they can become self-directing and self-disciplined, time to dis-cover their own identity, encouragementfrom others, and evaluation regardinggrowth and behavioral change. Evaluation isa particularly strong motivating force forself-development. In school, it is a continu-ous, cooperative process by the teacher, thepeer group and the child. Essential to thisassessment is a recognition of the child'suniqueness.

Evaluation is an integral part of the teach-ing-learning process because it reveals readi-

, ness for instruction and progress towardobjectives. The teacher needs to find outwhat children have learned and how theyhave learned this. The assessment is basedon the teacher's objectives for the childrenand information about the children'sachievement of these objectives.-To assess a Child's achievement, the

teacher may use many sources of informa-tion: diaries, reports, anecdotal records,children's records of their volk, writtentests, examples of creative expressions.These sources are evidences of an individ-ual's learnings.

What sources of information can be usedto evaluate students' achievement resultingfrom science experiences? Many examplesare presented here to answer this question.The examples are keyed by page number tomany of the episodes, featured in Part 2. Theinformation used for evaluation reflects thechildren's process skills, understanding andapplication of scientific concepts, and abilityto work alone and with others. A set ofguidelines for evaluating each of these areasis also provided with Part 3. Qf _course,other areas of evaluation might include anassessment -61-Children's communicationskills--listening, speaking, reading and writ-ingand ability to express attitudes regard-ing their interaction with the environment.

Process Skills

Developing Sensory Awareness (p. 12)

The "My Touch and Feel Books" werevaluable tools for assessing the children'sability to identify specific objects bytouching them. When asked to identify asoft, fluffy object, a child had to select theappropriate item from a collection of itemsand glue it onto one page of the book. Thisprocedure continued for the remainingobjects':

Learning about Weather (p. 25)

After the ascent of the balloons, thechildren recorded their observations: thedireCtions that the balloons floated in theatmosphere. Each child predicted where hisor her balloon would be found. Then all pre-dictions were plotted on a .map. As thepostcards were returned, the new data wereplotted on the map and compared with thepredictions. New hypotheses were made andinvestigated. Since the children could notadequately test their hypotheses, they usedbooks and other sources to find some plaus-ible explanations. The extent to which thechildren applied this knowledge was a wayto aSsess their achievement.

The Cause of Shadows (p. 26)

As they measured their shadows, thechildren eollected and recorded data thatcontrituted to their development of a moremeaningful .concept of time. Two individualswere resourceful and used a yardstick end ameterstick as measuring tools. The accuracyof the children's records aided their interpre-tation of the data. Later, when the children

, played shadow tag, they could apply whatthey had learned about the cause ofshadows.

4 1

Making Salt Water Suitable for Drinking (p. 31)

The children selected a problem of socialconcern involving science and .technology.

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In addition to their application of newlyacquired concepts, their use of well devel-oped process skills was apparent throughoutthe investigation. The boys collected infor-mation, selected a hypothesis and tested itby designing an experiment. They assembledappropriate apparatus, but had to changethe way it was assembled and to modifytheir precedures. The boys repeated the ex-periment several times to find out whetherthe results were the same each time.

SUGGESTED GUIDELINESEvaluating Process Skills

As you assess a child's skills in using scientificprocesses, observe whether the child is-O proposing and designing investigations and

controlled experiments.O modifying and substituting procedures to

check for consistent results.O making predictions and later selecting data to

check them.O handling materials effectively.O suggesting and using substitute materials for

unavailable ones.O making and recording observations carefully.O interpreting data.

41b..

lit test the hardness of the rock by scratching it.

Conifept Formation

What's Inside Me? (p. 10)

The children showed an understanding oflearned concepts when they selected yarn torepresent veins and arteries, and then gluedit to the paper "bodies." When they laterplaced cutoutslungs, heart and stomachon the "bodies," the children were applyingacquired knowledge.

Relating the Self to an Object (p. 11)

The child applied the concept of scale to anew situation: choosing an object nd thenmaking a model of it so large that h. or shecould fit inside it. In addition, th childdemonstrated process skills, al.& as odify-ing procedures and making new sets of mea-

\surements.

Exploring a Marsh (p. 18)

The concepts that the sisters acquired asthey explored the marsh are reflected in theircreative expressionthe poem, "Cribet."What they learned through their senses atthe marsh and during their search for infor-mation upon their return was communicatedin the poem. Cooperation and mutual re-spect were, of course, other outcomes.

Hatching Baby Chicks (p. 22)

Through body movements, each childinterpreted the sequential development of ababy chick. In doing this, the children ap-plied biological concepts to an.imaginativeevent.

Space Exploration (p. 26)

The children used their imaginations tocreate.their creatures; they used their knowl-edge of the planets to explain why the crea-tures could live on given planets. These ex-planations provided a way to assess writingskills.

42

Solar Energy (p. 30)

The "solar machine" devised by each childwas evidence of the "inventor's" application-of learned ideas. The written descriptions ofthe machines particularly illustrated thechild's ability to communicate new concepts.

Exploring an Environment (p. 32)

Kendall's diary reveals that he applied sci-entific concepts to explain and interpretwhat he observed during his trip. In addi-tion, thediary provided a way to assess Ken-dall's writing skills.

SUGGESTED GUIDELINESEvaluating Concept Formation

As you assess a cbild's understanding and appli-cation of an acquired concept, observe whetherthe child-O draws a picture or diagram to illustrate the

concept and/or its application.O creates an object that illustrates the concept

and/or its application.O applies concepts during creative activities

such as body movement, creative writing,arts and crafts.applies conceRts to imaginative events.

O applies concepts to new situations.

Those are oysters? My mother makes oyster stew.

4 3

Interaction

Making Bread and Butter (p. 16)

Many opportunities arose for the childrento become aware of the importance of work-ing together. Self-evaluation with guidancefrom the teacher occurred as problem, situa-tions arose.

From Natural Site to Learning Center (p. 21)

Children and adults discussed the bestsolutions to problems encountered as the sitedeveloped. Adults respected children'sideas; children listened to adults..Workingtogether, a small group of children and anadult drew diagrams and sketches to com-municate ideas; they gained respect for eachother. When a problem arose during theadults' .Weekend work session, the childrenwould look for information and drawsketches to help find possible solutionsduring the school week. These were pre-sented in conference with the adults duringthe' following weekend session. Other out-comes included, df course, the developmentof environmental concepts.

Designing a City (p. 28)

The children developed skill in workingtogether and were involved in a varietyof self-evaluation procedures. With some/guidance from the teacher, they developed/achecklist to indicate whether behaviors, suchas solving problems through discussion, re-specting others' ideas and cooperating, wereshown "sometimes," "often," or "manytimes." The checklist and "anecdotal rec-ords" of their own behaviors often becamethe basis for conferences with the teacher atthe child's request. The children often ini-trated group discussions that assessed studyskills and interpersonal behavior. In addi-tion, the children demonstrated the use ofinquiry skills and the ability to apply ac-quired concepts to model-making.

V V

Desigping Kites (p. 30)

The children learned from each other:those whose kites would not fly utilized thesuggestions of,those who did. Some childrensought help from classmates; others rede-signed their kites after being challenged bytheir peers. Cooperation and mutual respectwere outcomes that the children identifiedwhen they evaluated their experiences dur-ing a group discussion.

SUGGESTED GUIDELINESEvaluating Interaction

As you assess a child's ability to work inde'pend-ently and with others, observe whet/fer thechild-O works independently to carry out, ttrocedures

for solving a problem.O works well with others on a group project.0 suggests ways to work with ythers.O is willing to settle problems through discus-

sion.O respects the ideas of others in a group.

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What happens if I stir the bubbles?

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Selected References

Mthouse, Rosemary, & Cecil Main. Science Ex-

periments, for Young Children. New York:Teachers College Press, Columbia University,1975. A set of paperbacks, each introducingchildren to a different area of exploration: grow-ing, seeds, pets, air, water, food, color, magnets,wheels. Suggested concepts, materials, proce-dures and possible behavioral outcomes are listedfor each activity. Some activities are appropriatefor preschool children.,

!Rough, Glenn 0., & Marjorie H. Campbell.Making & Using Classroom Science Materials inthe Elementary School. New York: Holt, Rine-hart & Winston, 1954. Detailed descriptions ex-plain how to construct and use a variety of teach-ing materials, such as simple weather instrumentsand simple machines.

Blough, Glenn 0., & Julius Schwartz. ElementarySchool Science and How To Teach It, 5th ed.New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1974.Highlights the objectives, concepts and principlesessential to the teaching of science. Describesmethods for guiding inquiry, especially those thatinvolve learners .in the discovery process.Content areas include the earth and the universe,living things, and matter and energy. The authorssuggest ways to introduce children to the natureand use of the metric system.

Carin, Arthur, & RObert Sund. Teaching ScienceThrough Discovery, 3rd ed. Columbus, Ohio:Charles E. Merrill, 1975. Applies Piaget's theoriesto science teaching and describes the impact offederally funded science programs. Defines goalsand objectives of science education, giving arationale for learning through discovery. De-scribes activities in the physical, biological andearth sciences, each activity focusing on processesof inquiry such as observing, inferring and classi-fying.

Craig, Gerald S. Science for the ElementarySchool Teacher, 5th ed. Waltham, MA: Ginn-Blaisdell, 1966. A source of scientific informationand activity ideas. Science teaching is discussedwith regard to child development and the child'srelationship to science. Science content includesthe earth and the universe, the life of the earth,and the energy of the universe. A section onevaluating behavidr is especially useful to teach-ers.

Hill, Katherine. Exploring the Natural WorldWith Young Children. New York: HarcourtBrace Jovanovich, 1976., Description of oppor-tunities that adults can provide for. children tofoster their firsthand exploration of the worldaround them. includes suggestions for developingchildren's process sklls, such as observing andclassifying, and for' evaluating learning. Aparticularly excellent source of ideas for pre-school children.

Piltz, Albert, & Robert Sund. Creative Teachingof Science in the Elementary School. Boston:Allyn & Bacon, 1968. Concise, lucid anecdotaldescriptions of science activities that foster,children's creative abilities and promote problem-

' solving both in and Out of school.-Piaget's stagesof cognitive development and their implicationsfor science teaching are discussed. Techniques toguide teachers in selecting curriculum materialsare suggested.

Polland, Barbara. The Sensible Book, A Celebra-tion of Your Five Senses. Milbrae, Calif .: Celes-tial 'Arts, 1974. Questions, statements, andphotographs skillfully guide children and adultsin sensory explorations. The suggested experi-ences serve to increase the communicationbetween adult and child as they relate their ex-periences, clarify their thoughts and challengeeach other's ideas. Beautiful photographs capturechildren's activities as they see, touch, smell,listen and taste.

Rowe, Mary Budd. Teaching Science as Continu-ous Inquiry. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973.Provides a conceptual framework for thinkingabout biological and physical phenomena. intro-duces techniques for fostering inquiry, such aspacing of rewards, organizing teams andquestioning students. Emphasizes evalbationthrough diagnosis and decision-making skills.

Schmidt, Victor E., & Verne Rockcastle. Teach-ing Science With Everyday Things. New York:McGraw-Hill, 1968. Emphasizes investigationthrough direct experience with familiar objects.Each of the chapters includes a point of view, ob-jectives for making science teaching effective andpleasant, and suggested activities in many scienceareas. Provides sample questions that might beasked of children to encourage the developmentof their process skills.

Selberg, Edith; Louise Neal; & Matthew F.Vessel. Discovering Science in the ElementarySchool. Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1970.Discusses ways to help children learn scientific

46'

'PG

concepts and develop process skills. Reviews thecontribution of research to the selection of ap-propriate concepts. A detailed chart indicatesscientific content and process skills appropiiate tochildren agEd 5-8 and 9-12. The authors suggesta variety of activities, pointing out process skillsthat might be developed and evaluative tech-niques that might be used. The role of the teacheris described as guide and facilitator of learning.

Sund, Robert. Piaget for Educators. Columbus,Ohio: Charles E. Merrill, 1976. Detailed discus-sion of Piaget's theories of cognitive developmentand their implications for science teaching. Manyexamples give meaning to each developmentalstage described.

Selected ACEI Publications

BibliograpV of Books for Children. Annotated list;titles arranged by age level and subject; major awardsnoted. Invaluable reference to science literature, sciencefiction. 1974. 112 pp. $2.75. ISBN 0-87173-008-1.

Bits & Pieces-Imaginative Uses for Children's Learn-ing. Recycling of finds, left-overs, giveaways andthrowaways for creative learning in dass and at home.Includes ideas for science curricula. 1967. 72 pp. $2.00.ISBN 0-87173-014-6.

Children and Drugs. Offers guidelines to teachers forworking with drug-using children and their parents.Suggestions for drug educalion that could be incor-porated in science curricula. Award winner. 1Q72.64 pp. $2.00 ISBN 0-87173-015-4.

Children's Views of Themselves. By Ira J. Gordon.Lively and sympathetic look at children through neweyes and deepened perception of their feelings and ego-building needs; how adults can develop sensifivity.1972. 40 pp. $2.00. ISBN 0-87173-019-7.

Cooking and Eating with Children-A Way to Learn.Stresses the need to provide children with healthfulfoods and the importance of eating in a pleasantclimate. Recipe section; guide on child input. Sugges-tions for learning about science, including nutrition.1974. 48 pp. $2.50. ISBN 0-87173-006-5.

Creating with Materials for Work and Play. Portfolio oftwelve leaflets. Learning through the use of variedmedia and materials. Practical ideas for art, dance,science, drama and more. 1969. $2.00. ISBN 0-87173-053-7.

Good and Inexpensive Books for Children. Selectionschosen for quality and price. Classified by fiction, bio-graphy, hobbies, science, etc. Includes author and titleindexes: list of publishers. 1972. 64 pp. $2.00. ISBN0-87173-022-7.

Guide to Children's Magazines, Newspapers, ReferenceBooks. Annotated list designed to acquaint parents and

4 7

teachers with excellent literature. Quality scientificperiodicals and references included. 1974. 12 pp. 50ceach, 10 ccipies $4.00. ISBN 0-87173-007-3.

Involvement Bulletin Boards. The place of bulletinboards in learning experiences; ideas for sciencecurricula. Brightly illustrated. 1970. 64 pp. $2.25. ISBN0-87173-024-3.

Learning Centers-Children on Their Own. Combinestheory and practice. Describes models of individualizedteaching: Discusses roles, organization, evaluation,helpful hardware and open space. 1970. 84 pp. $2.50.ISBN 0-87173-026-X.

Play: Children's-Business. Defends importance of learn-ing through play; play for the convalescent child. Ih-dudes toy/play materials guide, suggested films. 1974.56 pp. $2.95. ISBN 0-871 73-005-7.

Selecting Educational Equipment and Material's forSchool and Home. Aid to 'selection, procurement anduse of quality materials to meet growing/learning needsof children. Thoroughly treats sdence items. Manu-facturer/distributor list. 1976. 108 pp. $3.50. ISBN0-87173-010-3.

Teaching About Spaceship Earth-A Rok-Playing Ex-perience for the Middle Grades. Practical ideas forteaching science and a valuable tool for peace educa-tion. November issue of Intercom by Center for War/Peace Studies. 1972. 68 pp. $1.50.

Teaching for Social Values in Social Studies. Looks atvalue clarification and information as essential elementsof social studies, environmental instruction. Manythought-provoking exercises. 1974. 72 pp. $2.75. ISBN0-87173-009-X.

Testing and Evaluation: New Views. Confronts ques-tions of why traditional evaluation procedures are in-adequate, what tests do and don't do. Outlines a newframe of reference for meaningful evaluation. 1975. 64pp. $2.50. ISBN 07-87173-000-6.

Transitional Years-Middle School Portfolio. Specificideas for working with inbetweeners (ages 10-14).Class-room organization, curricula, evaluation covered infourteen leaflets. Leaflet VIII entitled "Science: MiddleSchool Years." 1968. $1.25. ISBN 0-87173-061-8.

Prices, effective January 1977, are Subject to changewithout notice. Current publications catalog will be sentfree upon request.

These publications may be ordered directly from. theASSOCIATION FOR CHILDHOOD EDUCATIONINTERNATIONAL, 3615 Wiscotisin Ave., .N.W.,Washington, D.C. 20016. Please include check ormoney order payable to ACEI for cost of publicationsplus 10 percent for postage and handling. Only ordersover $10 may be billed.

ACEI Publications

How to OrderIndicate number of copies de-

sired and total cost for eachpublication. Add 10% for

postage and handling to totalorder. Orders amounting toless than $10.00 must be ac-

companied by check or moneyorder payable to ACEI or the

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not send cash, stamps orCanadian currency. Pleaseallow 4 weeks for delivery.

Prices, effective !anuary 1977,are subject to change. Prices

given are for single copies.

Discounts are available onquantity lots of same

publications.

10% discount on 10-24 copies20% Iiscount on 25-99 copies

25% di count on 100-500 copies

No. ofCorties

CHILD AND SCIENCE

Price Total

$2.75

Other Selected ACE! Publications (described on p. 42)

Bibliography of Books for7Children 2.75

Bits & Pieces 2.00Children and Drugs 2.50Children's Views of Themselves 2.00

Cooking and Eating with Children 2.50Creating with Materials for Work And 2.00

PlayGood.and Inexpensive Books for 2,00

Children'Guide to Children's Magazines, News- .50

papers, Reference Books(10 copies for $4.00)

Involvement Bulletin Boards 2.25Learning Centers: Children on Their 2.50

OwnPla,y : Children's Business 2.95Selecting Educational Equipment and 3.50

'Materials for School and HomeTeaching About Spaceship Earth 1.50Teaching for Social Values in Social 2.75

StudiesTesting and Evaluation: New Views 2.50Transitional YearsMiddle School 1.25

Portfolio

TOTALAdd 10% for Postage/HandlingAmount enclosed or please bill

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