My recent trip to the Boston Museum of Science with my
daughters has me thinking about what quality Science instruction looks like.
Science instruction that begins with a phenomenon is the instructional
structure that our state and national science leaders strongly recommend. The museum
is structured around this idea – a phenomenon is simply something you can
see. It provides an authentic in to “showing”
the science. Providing an “in” to a new
learning experience is highly effectively done with “Anchoring phenomena.” A
functional definition of Anchoring Phenomena found here can provide clarity
on what this means: A puzzling event or
process whose full explanacon requires a wide range of science ideas to be
coordinated with one another and with evidence. Those real-life/real-world examples that trigger investigation and building of complex experiences.
We found different areas that the museum used prints,
artifacts, videos, demos, and full body experiences as a phenomena that drew my
daughters into the display – once they saw it and got that “wow!” they were hooked.
Following that initial engagement sometimes they would go
right to the display to find out more information – or sometimes would come to
me to ask “why.” I didn’t provide answers (sometimes because I didn’t know
them!) but instead would ask them a probing question or encourage them to go
back in and explore the resources to see what they could discover. Their
explorations and trials included building mid-level floating water indicators,
testing physical science themes with a giant lever, looking at different artifacts
under a digital microscope, and trialing solar panel placement & energy
generation.
This process of “sense making” based on their own questions
and exploration led to discoveries that are far more likely to stick in their
memories. Although we didn’t leave with
fully developed understandings of all the science themes we explored, we did
leave with increased curiosity and interest (and a long list of things we want
to learn more about and try.)
A successful science lesson structure indeed!
How do you plan your Science instruction? What steps do you need to engage your students' curiousity, questioning, and powers of discovery?
Visual from: https://www.rubicon.com/phenomenon-based-learning/
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Heather Leonard
STEM Curriculum Coordinator, Reading Public Schools
Twitter: @STEMReading
Know Atom connecting Phenomena: https://www.knowatom.com/blog/connecting-phenomena-with-the-nature-of-science-engineering
Phenomena from NGSS: https://www.nextgenscience.org/resources/phenomena
Amazing compilation of videos: https://www.ngssphenomena.com/
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