Nancy Lanyon's Marshians 3rd, 4th and 5th graders at Hawthorne Elementary, Madison, Wisconsin |
| We are lucky to have a wonderful little wet land about 6 blocks from our school. In the first two years of doing I Wonder, we did not even realize that it was there for us to explore.It had a small woods, a thin stream, cattails, redwing blackbirds, frogs, crayfish, squirrels, hawks, circumferences and tree heights, open spaces, urban intervention with a bike path planned right straight through it and a big yellow bulldozer sleeping peacefully on the green open space. | |
In the beginning, I try to lay down the idea that observing is a time consuming process.. not finished quickly. As homework in week one, each day the students have to make a list or a drawing of everything they have seen that is of a certain color. In week two, each night they must pick an area of their home environment that is a different size square ( e.g., 1 sq. ft., 1 sq. m.) and list or draw all the things they are aware of about that area. As the students with very short lists, listen to the ones with the long lists, we begin to understand the basics of patience in observation. Reading the Journals The journals are our principle reading in the beginning of the year. Several of the teachers have created fine forms with different ideas for exploring the journals. ( LINK) We read for ideas, for evaluating the writing, for judging whether the writer answered their own question. By thoroughly exploring the journal from the past year, the students get an idea of the place I want to lead them to in this year. Choosing Questions We begin by brainstorming questions for several weeks. My bulletin boards are empty when the kids come in because they will fill them with questions. They bring them in for homework, They offer them up in lab meetings. If a question idea comes to them during the day, they can go up and add it to the sheets. 'Reading the sheets' is an important element in the first 2-3 weeks, so that the same question is not written down too often and they begin to see the need for writing so that others can read it. As the questions crowd onto the paper, we begin the discussion of what will make a good inquiry question by sorting the questions into two categories: Research Questions answerable only by book work and perhaps too quickly answered with a Yes or No, or Inquiry Questions that will take thought and planning and hands on work by the students .
What to do to get an answer to my question. When a first question has been decided on, then the next step in the scientific work begins. What are you going to do to get an answer to your question. Sometimes this HOW comes quickly. Sometimes the HOW takes lots of thought or asking other people's opinions or consulting experts that students can track down ( with some help from me of course). Once a HOW AM YOU GOING TO DO THIS is decided, then comes the finding of the materials that will help do this. Many times the way to do a project changes if the materials you first decided on are not available. The third element in the mix is the need to take data on your question. This element also can change the way you do it or the materials you need. Often this process is very ragged the first several times a student asks a question. But each time, as the unexpected error comes up, the student can adapt or begin again, just as scientists do in the adult laboratories or field studies. Interpreting Data 1. When my students are doing experiments, they are hardly ever thinking of why they should know this information. Planting the seed, playing in the dirt and water, hooking the battery to the wire, holding the gerbil or running the car down the ramp are an end in themselves. But when the experiment is over, and the story about what they did is written and revised and rewritten, then they are ready to think SO WHAT. What do I know now that makes a difference to me. A very clear example about this element will be found in the article about dissolving Tylenol where the students after much fun and games with liquids and dissolving times had to figure out a 'so what'. They decided that taking Tylenol with water was the best way to get rid of the headache. LINK Taking Off My favorite New Directions thought is " next time I will start earlier so I can finish". Seems that thought is a general human characteristic. Publication & Other Presentations Presenting data is a tough element to figure out for most of my kids. Each year, the methods tends to center around one predominant style depending on who figured out what presentation means first and gets done with it. Two years ago, I had a student who loved to make posters and was done early, so most of the students made posters with pictures their projects. This year, we were working on spread sheets and computer graphs in lab time and so several kids who were finished writing tried to get into extra computer lab time by taking on a computer generated graph as the mode of presentation. They actually loved it when I critiqued the graph as needing more work because then they got to go to the lab again. So almost all the 'I Wonder' reports have a graph this year. Back to top of page
Finding and Managing Resources Consulting Experts.. The gentleman volunteer from the RSVP program, who comes to read with my students, had an interest in prairies When he saw all the science we do, he offered to help us build a small prairie outside our building. He shared information on how to go about starting and got a lot of already growing plants so the kids could see some immediate activity. A parent and I worked turned the soil. ( which is not the best way to start a prairie. You should just try to kill the grass by covering it in some way. We used old rugs and a covering of sand when we expanded our prairie this year) The students worked with our friend to plant the seedlings and he helped me over the summer to keep them watered. Now they are flourishing and we have a 10 by 20 foot prairie in our back yard. Managing the materials To put it simply, my room is a mess. But whenever, I try to make it look like other rooms, the students complain that they can't find stuff and spend way to much time asking me for things. So, we have lots of supplies everywhere. Each mid year, l always feel that if I could just find the perfect spot to hang my three large clear Madison Pride garbage bags full of plastic liter bottles and egg cartons and sticks and pie plates and other assorted STUFF that needs to be readily available.. a spot off the floor, ....strong enough to not fall down and rip the bag ... not so high that kids can't reach it.. then my room would look.... oh well. Lab Meetings I have found that an important part of my classroom lab meetings seems to be a place where all students can gather in a circle. I lost that space this year, and my lab meetings were difficult to keep on task. When sitting at their desks, the students who need extra help listening to others are too easily distracted and I have trouble keeping an eye on their distraction. When we are all packed together in a tight circle in a meeting place, I can see who needs help listening and we actually all focus better on the speaker. Journals. Monitoring Student Work The Science Journal is the most important possession of the students in my room. It has taken on, over the years, elements of a national treasure. When one is misplaced, which happens often since they are expected to carry them everywhere, the whole group will help search out the missing journal because they know how helpless the poor student who lost it will be until it is found again. Getting a new journal because your old one is full is a mark of distinction and a moment for prideful sharing in lab meeting, However, if a new journal is obtained because your old one is lost for good, everyone is not impressed and some may go so far as to give you unwanted advice on how to keep track of it in the future. Teacher as Senior Scientist I wanted to ask my students to act as a real scientist would act. But I had been a storyteller and now I was an elementary teacher and I had never had a job or training as a scientist. Even in the science classes in high school and college, I just did the work the teacher told us to do. I had never had the task of trying to decide what question would it make sense for ME to answer. And why THAT question ? And if that question, then WHAT NEXT? So five years ago I began to train as a scientist. Each summer I would go for two weeks to a lab, and in a team or by myself, I began to work on the question of what makes an ecosystem healthy or not healthy. That was too broad a question to work on in just the two week period, so then we began to break it down and by the time I got to work, my question was very specific ( I thought). Can I count a small creature in Lake Wingra and then figure out if there is a way to tell, year by year, how well that creature is doing in the lake? Well, then we found that it took about 2 summers to figure out what was the most useful way to do the counting. Then after several more summers, of going forward and stepping back, I began to appreciate the patience and 'stick to it' ness that was required of me. Now when I ask my students to question and reflect, I am a scientist right along with them and I realize that the knowledge gained along the way is very useful and getting the "answer' is not always the point. Being aware of each step in the process so you can defend or expand or recognize a misstep and back up are life skills as well as a scientists way of life. Curriculum Integration I tell my students a little story joke. Never in their lives will it ever happen that someone comes up and says that they can breathe their next breath if they can answer the question what is 8 x 7. Almost nothing of what we teach will ever show up in a person's life all by itself. IT will come wrapped up with the idea of money and nutrition and the driver's ed class and ability to listen and plan and follow a map and then .. IF the hot dogs for the senior class picnic are $.80 a package and you must bring 7 packages and the picnic is in Devil's Lake State Park and your mom said you need to not drive away from town at night.. do you have enough money to get the hot dogs and call mom of the picnic runs late. The I Wonder model has curriculum integration written all over it. I told the story of the averages and the race run at the marsh. We write all the time and we write all the forms of writing, fiction, poetry, persuasive, expository. We read the journal and research and the internet. We can study our environment and talk to government officials about our land use and ask social science questions about behavior and life styles and family rules. I find that this way of participating and sharing in real life leads to an appreciation of that life as a whole context as well as the ability to separate it out into pieces to examine it. Back to top
Place-in -nature We are lucky to have a wonderful little wet land about 6 blocks from our school. In the first two years of doing I Wonder, we did not even realize that it was there for us to explore. It lies in a direction that I rarely traveled on foot. When I was in the car, I was moving too fast to appreciate the spot. Then, we walked to MATC for a play on Hmong Culture and THERE IT WAS! We all walked by a small corner, surrounded by streets, tennis courts, colleges, and apartments. It had a small woods, a thin stream, cattails, redwing blackbirds, frogs, crayfish, squirrels, hawks, circumferences and tree heights, open spaces, urban intervention with a bike path planned right straight through it and a big yellow bulldozer sleeping peacefully on the green open space. Since that discovery, that within our own available environment was a space for us to expand our understanding of ourselves and our world, we have made a lot of use of that place-in-nature. On some paper deed somewhere, it belongs to someone else, but in the hearts of each class of Hawthorne scientists, it belongs to us. We clean it, play in it, study it, notice its changes and its hurts and health. One morning each week, that one morning that I have been able to stave off all other adults, no specials, no strings, no pull outs, no reading tutors, no one wants my kids .. that morning .. that glorious US TIME.. we go to our marsh and do our thing. What do I mean by 'doing our thing'. Let me share some stories of that if I may. One year, that sleeping bulldozer came to life and began to tear up the soil to lay down asphalt for college students to get to school. We were painfully aware of how that path was going right through the area instead of around it. Unfortunately, we came to awareness to late to affect the decision, but we did learn what steps we might have taken, to get involved with the process of city development. We even had a state senator come to our class to talk with us about the issues. For a performance, that class developed a TAI CHI pattern based on marsh life. One piece of the patter was created by three children who made a movement based on the bulldozer that was classic art. It was a slow, powerful, sad movement that stayed in our memories as a reminder of the damage done. Another time, we were studying area and perimeter in the classroom, learning new language of diameter and circumference and height and width. WE had measured everything we could in the room, but human environments are mainly rectangular and the idea of circumference just did not have enough concrete examples to move that idea into their working vocabulary. SO, the next morning at the marsh, we took along the meter wheels. These are meter long wheels on handle and when rolled along the ground will make a clicking noise each time they have gone around one full circle. That way you can measure in meters the distance of something. The marsh has a terrific green circle in the center of the area that we use as a central location. It has a slight slope to it. SO students could measure the 'circle' or circumference of our area in many ways. There was the top circumference. There was the bottom circumference. There was the circumference of the trees themselves and the circumference of the small groves of tress. The circumference of the several cattail spots.. the word was usable and measurable in so many active ways. Way more fun to teach it that way and so much easier to learn. Once a group of students came and asked if they could have 'recess' there at the marsh and run some races. Actually I was thinking of answering YES, but I must have had a wrinkled brow and one student interpreted that as a NO coming out. So he quickly said, " Oh yah, I know, we have to ask a question. So he and his friends went off and came back a few minutes later. " Can we ask this question? What is the average time it takes the 4th and 5th graders in Nancy Lanyon's class to run 50 meters? We will measure 50 meters and that way lots of kids can run and run and we will write down all the times. Then, back at school, we can do the average. Can we borrow your watch? It was so easy to get across the idea of averages later that week, when each number used was representing the muscles and panting breath and striving heart of each of those running children. Living machine Living machines are all those systems in my classroom that imitate the living world outside. We have plastic soda bottles stacked together to make columns where zooplankton are swimming in the top and a minute amount of water drips very slowly to help the water plants in the second bottle below which fruit flies are breeding to escape into the next bottle where a spider spins her web . The water passes through all this to end in a rocky , pebble filled bottle. This and all the other combinations of plants, animals, earth and water are to be studied to learn the links that bind us all together to make a healthy earth. Back to top
I could not do this alone. The teachers that make up the I Wonder group are the spiritual backbone of my classroom. I marvel at how different we all are but we have a goal in mind and travel separate but interrelated paths to get there. Each of our classrooms looks unique and yet there is a " I could be at home here " feeling whenever we visit each other. We are never all together at one time but we cross paths in a constant weaving of discussions, science trips, pot hole adventures, conferences with kids or with adults, e-mailings and phone calls and adventures. W argue vociferously and we agree heartily and we make this network work. This link will soon be activet ;to read more about the group of teachers who are linked in this venture..#!# How can you teach all this different kind of science? I don't know is the beginning of knowing. And I like to model fro the students what happens when a person doesn't know. But, you say, that is ok for a few small things and modeling is nice but not to know anything about physics and have a student ask a physics question and then you are up till all hours trying to stay one step ahead and be ready to be a help or guide the student in her knowledge. It has been my experience that when a student asks a question that is outside the realm of my knowledge, then we travel the road together. We live in the information age they say. I can't know it all. I just have to begin to learn where to find it. And with lots of kids asking lots of questions, my knowledge of where to go to find the answer is exploding I have been learning along with them how to guide to resources and other people. I can recognize striving to learn or slacking off because the teacher isn't with me on this. I can tell when the student's knowledge is outstripping my own and glory in that moment. History In the first year, I tried to do science experiments and get the students to write stories about them. I found they loved to talk about science . They even loved to write some things down. To refine, edit and clarify their stories was , however, not to their liking and they resisted completely. So, in the first year, we had no articles to put on the small blue journal that was called I wonder. ...At the start of year two, we had those journals to read and reflect upon. we could read other students' experiments to find if our results ere the sane as those in the journal articles. We learned to critique the writing, ... Suddenly a few were trying to get a question, write and get published the next year. Fellow students were asked to be partners or help get materials I was so thrilled at what I saw happening, arising out if the community of my classroom. This link will soon be active Archives
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