My Science Story

I have always been very interested in science because there is such an array of topics, and there is an ongoing process of improvement as more information becomes available on any given subject.  I like that science is not set in stone, like English for example, and you can question pretty much anything you are studying because a lot of what is being studied is unknown and rather abstract.  I had a biology teacher in my sophomore year of high school that got me really interested in nature and how the world works, and I have often found myself trying to find answers to questions about biology when hiking in the woods or being outside.  I find myself rattling off facts that I learned in his class because they really do interest me.  For example, I think I have told my dad how to tell the difference between male and female moss about a thousand times by now! Last time, he gave me that look like "you really don't remember telling me that before?" which I thought was really funny because it shows that I really was interested in what we were learning in Mr. Beaumont's class, even though he was probably the most difficult and certainly the most intimidating teacher I have ever had.  Biology is definitely my favorite subject within the field of science (not just because Michelle loves biology too), but I also like astronomy and finding answers to questions that are relevant to my own life.  I can honestly say that Mr. Beaumont changed my religious views for a while because he was so adamant when teaching us about evolution.  I will never forget the first class we had on evolution because one of our classmates brought in a book titled, "Facts About Evolution," which was completely blank inside from cover to cover.  I have never seen anybody get so mad in my entire life (Mr. Beaumont), and that student was kicked out of our class that very day even though it was half way through the semester.  For this reason, I think he put in an extra effort to teach us everything he knew and to convince our class about evolution, which worked out in our favor in the long run because we were exposed to more information than we would have been under normal circumstances.  I have been interested in science ever since, and was eager to learn a lot about rivers and the way they flow from the college level science course I took at Wheelock College in Boston because it was so interesting to me and I knew that I would learn a lot if I put the time into the class. That's my science story!

The Importance of Lesson Planning

Lesson planning in science is especially important for a number of reasons, but first and foremost, is to keep all of our students as safe as possible.  There are a lot of instruments, supplies, and tools that are present in the science classroom that could potentially cause harm to students if they were to be used improperly, so safety should always be a teachers top priority when conducting any sort of science experiment with his/her students.  If you have a lesson plan laid out in front of you, then the experiment should run smoothly because you would have thought through all of the different possibilities of distractions and difficulties.  It is important that the teacher is prepared for the lesson he/she is about to teach, especially in a science classroom, because there is an increased chance that the experiment will not go as planned, and that there will be a need for some sort of backup plan or extension activity to help prove the point the original experiment was trying to make.
In class, we watched a video clip of an elementary school teacher named Sarah who tried conducting an experiment without ever trying the experiment on her own, and without even studying up on her content knowledge to be sure that she knew what she was talking about if something were to happen and her experiment were to fall apart, which it undoubtedly did.  Her biggest mistake was telling her students that she "did not know" when the experiment began to fall apart, and she started getting frustrated because she could not answer the questions her students were asking of her.  I think this exemplifies the importance of having an extension activity planned that you can refer to if all else fails, because let's be honest, not all science experiments are going to go exactly the way we planned them.  There are going to be times when the teacher will have no choice but to make the executive decision and stop the experiment in its tracks if it is not working in order to keep from confusing his/her students, or to maintain that high level of safety that is so extremely important. 
 I think that by using a lesson plan, teachers are able to get a much more accurate sense of how long an experiment is going to take, and what types of problems could potentially come up that would make the experiment extend for too long.  It is important for a teacher to keep an eye on the clock when conducting a science lesson because the students will be having fun and will not want to stop, so if the lesson is going to take longer than the time that has been allotted for science, the teacher needs to be aware of that so that he/she can make changes or extend the lesson over a few class sessions if necessary.  Writing and following a lesson plan will help teachers stay on track, and will help them stay within their somewhat limited time frame.  Experiments don't always run as smoothly as we would like them to, so I would highly recommend any teacher to refer to a lesson plan no matter how long they have been teaching, even if they feel they have mastered the material or have made this experiment work before in the past with no issues.

Online Resource for Teaching Elementary Science

A great online resource that I was able to find that would be excellent for teaching elementary science is Internet4classrooms.com.  This website is run collaboratively by Susan Brooks and Bill Byles, who began working on the website in 1997 as a resource for their fellow teachers.  By November of 2000, the website had grown tremendously into a free online portal for anyone to use as a resource in their classroom.  The website covers all subjects that are taught from k-12, giving the standards for each subject and a variety of lessons and activities for students to complete, which are designated for a specific age group or grade level.  The great thing about this website is that it can be used at home as well as in the classroom, so students can continue learning more about the subjects they really enjoy or are especially interested in.  The children can refer to this site to refresh their memory about a given topic, or to recollect and reflect on what was taught that day in the classroom.  The site is broken down into the various subjects that are taught for each grade level, and is very easy to maneuver throughout with little computer experience.

In order to get to the science section from the main website, you must first go to the "Links for k-12" tab on the left side of the page, and then you will see a list of all the different elementary subject areas, all of which have a huge repertoire of activities, lesson plans, and fun facts.  There is also a "parents zone" that you can access from this page, which gives tips for teaching the different subjects if your child is having trouble in a specific area, and gives a list of other safe (and accurate) websites for children to be using as an online resource.  There is instructional information for teachers to use as a resource when designing a lesson plan, as well as information about the different behavioral and learning issues that are common in elementary school classrooms (such as tips for keeping the attention of students with ADD).  There are a lot of interactive modules for the students to have fun with while learning the essential information, and it can be used as a resource in every grade level and for every subject matter.  I spent a lot of time maneuvering this website and found it to be very helpful, so I would recommend you to do the same if you are in the teaching profession or if you just want to learn something new and interesting!