| éDallas elementary students tackle science without The Dallas Post Dallas, PA Thursday January 9, 2003 3 A New curriculum is truly hands-on By ERIN YOUNGMAN Post Staff DALLAS TWP. — Something is stirring in the Dallas elemen- tary schools. Instead of just reading about science, students are being asked to question, hy- pothesize, and experiment their way to scientific knowledge. On a regular day during sci- ence in Thomas Duffy's fifth grade classroom, and students are brimming with excitement. The new science program in the Dallas elementaries has kids getting their hands dirty to come up with their own solutions to scientific questions. “All it is, is science journals, there are no texts,” said Duffy. Starting this year the Dallas chool district significantly changed the way its elementary students learn about science. They decided to opt out of tradi- tional textbook science and into a hands on manipulatives cur- riculum called FOSS—Full Op- tion Science System. Developed by the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley, the pro- gram is “inquiry based,” which means students are expected to pose questions and work active- ly to achieve answers. All con- cepts are taught through experi- mentation. The kids seem to like the new program. During science lessons in which they are broken into small groups, they are enthusi- astic, engaged and somewhat competitive with their neighbor- ing groups — everyone is fo- cused on how and who will achieve the desired result. “It's awesome, it's better than sitting. Mr. Duffy always says 's better to do it than to read bout it,” said Amanda Walton as she and her two partners worked on their project. “Traditionally we relied more on reading. The (model) was reading and vocabulary first. Now it's all experiments, then vocabulary and reading,” said Duffy. Students were learning about electricity and circuits on a re- cent day in Jennifer Gibbons’s third-grade class. “Your challenge today is to light this light bulb. I'm only go- ing to give you two wires and a D cell,” said Mrs. Gibbons to the tudents. Each child in the class was in- tructed to draw a picture of wires connecting to a battery and a light bulb in the way they thought would light the bulb. “Test each other's drawings to see if you can get the light bulb to work,” said Gibbons. Some students jumped up and down with pride and excitement as they got their light bulbs to work. “They're so excited when they can see what they can do with their own hands,” said Gibbons. Dr. Michael Speziale, assistant superintendent at Dallas, said it was through his work as presi- dent of the Pennsylvania state team for math, science and tech- nology that he started becoming aware of manipulation based science. He said when the state adopt- ed new science standards last year, the faculty started talking about how to meet those stan- dards. A group of faculty mem- ers volunteered to be part of a ience committee that looked at a number of different curricu- lums. Speziale said they settled on FOSS, partly because it is Showtimes effective 1/10/03 of: 1 (e111 [5 if you can PG 13 Daily 7:00; Fri/Sat 9:30 Sun/Wed 1:00; Sat/Sun/Wed 4:15 i BING WO TOWER PG 13 Daily 7:30; Sun/Wed 12:30 Sat/Sun/Wed 4:00 836-1022 www.dietrichtheater.com Er — - % To iin 4 POST PHOTOS/ERIN YOUNGMAN Third graders Alyx Koehler, Cody Cleaves, Amanda Kotch and Jeff Allebaugh use only two wires, a battery and their ingenuity to light a light bulb during a lesson on circuits. sumables that will need to be re- placed annually. According to Speziale, the new curriculum has children posing Speziale said the initial cost of the curriculum was comparable to a new set of textbooks; how- ever, FOSS kits are full of con- geared to meet all the standards. (The- state will start testing in science in 2004; currently read- ing and math are tested.) WI 13 ITIL EF ifth graders Amanda Walton and Carly Huff's problem solving skills are put to the test as they imple- ment their hypothesis for separating dry mixtures. First National Community Bank wn FNCB Community Is OUR MIDDLE NAME 1-877-TRY-FNCB / www.fncb.com member FDIC scientific problems and then in- vestigating those problems based on what they know and what they learn along the way. “It's inquiry based. Kids con- struct their own knowledge; it helps them develop problem solving skills,” said Speziale. Kathleen McCarthy, principal of Wycallis Elementary, said this kind of science program will help to better equip students for the 21st century. “Being able to create your own knowledge is critical. They have textbooks “Kids absolutely love to do experiments.” Thomas Duffy 5th grade science teacher to be comfortable in process and figuring things out,” said Mc- Carthy. Duffy, who was on the science committee, said a major reason for choosing the program was that it is one of only three that are recognized nationally as an “exemplary program.” It is recog- nized by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and was recently on a federal govern- ment listing of “promising new programs.” “It's correlated to the NSTA standards,” said Speziale. “We felt like even if there were things we didn’t know about it, if there are only three that are nationally recognized, we felt we couldn't go wrong,” said Duffy. “No more 10 pages and five questions at the end. We used to memorize for the test and then it would be gone,” said Gibbons. McCarthy said she has always wanted a hands-on exploratory science program. “It's the kind of science the kids see as an exciting activity! They approach it in the spirit of play,” she said. In Duffy's fifth grade class, the children write out their plans to solve the scientific problem of the day and then share them with the class. Halfway through their experiments, Duffy gathers the kids around and leads a dis- cussion on their progress and questions. The students critique each other's ideas, ask ques- tions and offer suggestions. They wrap up their experiments by writing their conclusions in their journals. “One of the most important jobs of a scientist is to try to record everything you did so an- other scientist can take the in- formation and expand on it,” Duffy said to the children. “Kids absolutely love to do ex- periments,” said Duffy. “The mo- tivation is that you give them their own materials, to do what they want to; that's a big deal to them,” he said. “Hands-on” best describes the new Dallas Elementary science cur- riculum, which stresses experimentation. OPEN HOUSE January 21 - 24 Call Today For Appointment 696-3899 for children ages 2/2 through 5 §< WEEK \ N : at ¢ 1 f N @ Trucksville Nursery School | 40 Knob Hill Road Trucksville, PA 18708 Openings Available For January, 2003
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