I was well into my teaching career and focused on inquiry-based science. Inquiry science was the preferred method of instruction and I was very proud of the fact that I didn’t need a textbook for my students to learn science. Students were engaged, learning science and state test scores were improving. Frustration mounted because while students could take a multiple choice test and demonstrate understanding of key concepts – when you asked them to speak or write answers in depth – the students struggled. Did they really understand the science?
Inquiry teaching (as I practiced it then) took a lot of time and I didn’t have additional class time to work on “literacy” skills. I believed (which is common amongst secondary science teachers) that students learned reading and writing in their language arts course and should be able to apply these skills to their science work. Teaching reading and writing in my classroom would take time away from the actual learning of science and I was a science teacher – NOT a language arts teacher. The language arts teacher was a specialist in teaching literacy skills and I was a specialist in teaching science.
Halfway through my teaching career we had a major curriculum change. The district switched the 8th grade science course from a General Science course to an Earth Science course. Everything I had built up had to be scrapped and I started over building my new program. The problem was the only resource I had was the textbook. Earth Science “labs” were much more difficult to develop, but I still had to teach science everyday.
Since my background was not in Earth Science (I was a Biology major!), I didn’t have a wealth of knowledge about the topic, resources or ideas for activities for the students to do. I reverted to the traditional method of teaching science that I had been taught in education courses – use a textbook! This was boring for both the students and me. The students, while very compliant, were eager to “get assignments done” by reading and filling out the worksheets so they could “check the box” that they had learned. Yet, they really did not understand the concepts. The students could pass the tests that were provided by the textbook manufacturer but could not expand on anything beyond simple answers to questions.
I had an epiphany ! The traditional strategies I had been trained in were insufficient. I started realizing that the concept of “scientific literacy” led to my students “knowing” a lot of science facts, but understanding very little about scientific principles and how to apply them. Something had to change. How was I going to foster true understanding of Earth Science principles without the ability to set up the traditional inquiry science labs that I had done when teaching physical science?
What is Science?
Students frequently think of science as a series of static facts that are to be memorized. If you memorize enough facts you get the A and are considered “good” in science. This understanding of science leads students to believe that there is always a “right” answer and on every topic there is a single set of facts. If a piece of information is uncovered that disputes their understanding of a topic – then the rest of the information is considered to be invalid.
Students need to learn that science is a living body of knowledge in the sense that it is always growing. Theories are developed based on the information available and as more information becomes available those same theories are modified and updated.
I needed to stop teaching science facts in my classroom and start teaching scientific literacy – students learning and understanding science with the focus being on how they apply what they have learned to their lives.
Tracking The Evolution of Scientific Knowledge
To facilitate student understanding of how theories evolve as knowledge grows I would choose a theory that related to our content that changed over time. For example, the Theory of Plate Tectonics started as Alfred Wegener’s Theory of Continental Drift. At the time Alfred Wegener used a variety of indirect evidence (jigsaw fit of continents, fossils, alignment of mountain ranges, etc) to propose the idea that the continents were once a single supercontinent – Pangaea – which split and shifted into the continents of today.
Wegener and his ideas were discredited in his time because he could not explain the mechanism that was moving the continents. Scientists of the day used that missing piece of the puzzle to refute the Theory of Continental Drift and invalidate all of Wegener’s indirect evidence that the continents were moving. A scientifically literate person would not have discredited the entire theory, rather questions would have been proposed that still needed to be answered and the quest would have been on to complete the theory.
As technology advances, new information becomes available and the missing pieces of a theory result in the theory being updated and modified. In the case of Wegener’s theory, the development of sonar, satellites and GPS allowed scientists to see the ocean floor and actually track the movement of the continents. Wegener’s theory was modified with the understanding that the surface of the Earth is actually divided into giant plates that are in continuous motion, driven by large convection currents under the surface. The result was the Plate Tectonics Theory.
Using Multiple Sources to Assess Validity of Information
When I started teaching, access to information was a struggle in the classroom. Textbooks were the main source for students to acquire information other than the teacher. To supplement the information from the textbook, I had subscriptions to magazines like “Discover” and “Popular Science” that I kept in my classroom and students would flip through the piles of magazines looking for information on the topic they were interested in.
The Internet solved the access to information problem for students and created the issue of too much information! Now students can find information on any topic – but is the information fact-based and accurate? People have a tendency to believe whatever they see on the Internet. As a teacher, I would question students about the authenticity and validity of the information they had researched. Their response was always – “I found it on the Internet” – with the assumption that it must be true if it was published on the Internet.
Students are bombarded with information and struggle with finding material that is targeted, relevant and valid. As teachers we need to facilitate student to:
- Learn how to narrow the search and focus on the specific target
- Use multiple sources that corroborate what they have discovered. If two sources disagree then the student needs to evaluate the sources and look for additional resources.
- Check where the information is coming from. Is the information based on opinion or is it supported with evidence?
Engage students by relating the topic under study in the classroom to current events.
Earth Science is unique amongst the science disciplines in that it is always in the news as a current event. Hurricanes, tsunamis, blizzards, freshwater resources, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the effects of climate change are just some of the topics students can find in the news on a daily basis. All of these topics have viewpoints that differ.
Having students apply the scientific principles they are studying to the data, facts and theories that are being published is an important and powerful way for students to learn the difference between facts and opinions.
Use of Rubrics
One of the most beneficial methods for students to learn how to evaluate their own understanding is to teach them through rubrics. I began using IB (International Baccalaureate) rubrics several years ago. The rubrics are scaffolded so that the skill is clearly stated and there are four different levels of performance.
For example one of the targets is for the student to be able to “describe scientific knowledge”. I would change “scientific knowledge” to whatever content knowledge I wanted the student to be able to describe, thereby making the rubric task specific. This allowed me to use the same rubric throughout the year with different content so that the students became familiar with the rubric and the skill (describe scientific knowledge) that I was asking while each time the rubric was specific to content being studied.
The rubric had four levels of performance:
- The student is able to recall scientific knowledge.
- The student is able to state scientific knowledge.
- The student is able to outline scientific knowledge.
- The student is able to describe scientific knowledge.
Students recognized that they had the “right” answer at every level – but their understanding grew as they expressed their thoughts with different levels of sophistication. The result was student literacy increasing as the student’s work moved along the rubric.
Communication of Ideas
The scientifically literate person knows how to communicate their ideas effectively. Communication of ideas is not limited to written essays. Scientific literacy can be demonstrated in written form, orally, through illustrations and by designing models,
One way teachers can support students acquiring this skill by having students write answers as short essays while being conscious of the following:
- Start with a topic sentence to focus your response
- Refrain from using generic terms – it, stuff, thing, etc.
- Use scientific vocabulary for clarity and where appropriate
- Use details for descriptions
- Support claims with evidence
Communication of ideas should not be limited to written essays, but allow for a variety of options for students to express their understanding of a concept or idea.