Science: To Know

"Many of us are familiar with the science format, which has the student progress from hypothesis to procedure to observations to conclusions. It may be a neat, clean organization, but not one that mirrors how people actually learn. Our minds do not separate our observations from meaning-making structures. The students are constantly making observations, conclusions, and hypotheses all at the same time. Our attempts to separate thinking into subskills may result in losing important aspects of a scientific study" (Sakai & Leggo).

I envision a Prezi presentation with multiple circular paths to explain the scientific process. Some paths take you right back to where you started; some lead you to new inquiries. As students journal, they synthesize new meaning based on their observations, prior knowledge, and collaborations with peers and teachers. Can't these journal entries be stories? poems? paintings? comic strips? We need to help them to see science as fun, as social and personal and as an exploration. Despite what the text books or FOSS kits reveal, the answers to the unit may not be known ahead of time. How many of you have encountered questions from your students that puzzled you? Wow... that's a great question. Let's find out. For me, it seems to occur almost always during our science lessons. 
I like science. I like to teach science, but if it had been equated to story-telling and infused with choice and creativity, I would LOVE it. Summer goal: explore the TEKS with my colleagues and create interdisciplinary lessons that facilitate inquiry and exploration. It's never too late. When I love it, they'll love it. 

Mathematics of Light by David Morley

The wavelengths of daylight 

register on bright equipment:

flutterings across a spectrum

from infra-red to ultraviolet.

Discover me at an ice age,

at a midnight of colour,

in a place where rainbows

unbind themselves completely.

But you stand in the noon.

Shadows are inventing themselves

over your quickening retina;

the day moves on to shade

when spires are like pen-strokes

in the heat haze… It’s

like Newton’s gold trances

as he skimmed slates on the sea,

like Einstein’s chatter over tea,

borealis, wispy cigarettes. It’s

down to the human to live it, take

it in. Keep my sunlight warm for me.

 "A Harvard research team, headed by Jeff Lichtman, has duplicated the way that a television monitor uses varying amounts of just three colors (red, blue, green) to produce a huge array of resultant hues. They have applied this technique in the brain using fluorescent cyan, yellow, and red pigments--varying amounts of which can produce 90 possible color combinations to label individual neurons" (Batts, 2007).  How pretty. 
"Ages ago, educated people were often artists AND scientists (like Leonardo di Vinci) and the pursuit of knowledge and fact fed into their desire to understand aesthetic beauty and the creative process" (Batts). 



Batts, S. 2007. The technicolor brain: science and art. I found at this website: http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/11/the_technicolor_brain_science.php, but it's no longer there. Search 'Shelly Batts'.

Sakai, A. & Leggo, C. 1997. Knowing from different angles: language arts and science connections. Voices From the Middle, 4(2), 26-30.