{"id":112,"date":"2006-12-02T18:02:56","date_gmt":"2006-12-02T22:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=112"},"modified":"2008-08-05T11:32:43","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T15:32:43","slug":"science-in-elementary-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=112","title":{"rendered":"Science in elementary school"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Free-Ride has an interesting couple of posts up about elementary school science education. In one post<\/a> she talks about what looks like a shortage of any decent science in the elementary school level. In the other post<\/a> she asks what can be done to make science exciting and relevant to the younger set.<\/p>\n

My wife is a second grade teacher. I discussed this with her a little bit, and when I mentioned that one possible problem was that teachers shy away from doing science because they have little science knowledge to impart, she got a bit defensive. To her credit, my wife does a great job introducing science into her classroom. She loves science, especially weather related material, and she does her best to find ways to let her kids explore. However, once I calmed her down a bit and got her to take a step back and see her school as a whole, she had to admit that several teachers don’t give near as much focus on science as she does.<\/p>\n

Two possible reasons are that either the teachers just don’t care so much about science (due to either a personal dislike or just no good base of knowledge\/confidence), or they feel under too much pressure to hammer home reading, writing and math to have to worry about science. The high stakes FCAT testing here in Florida really drives what the teachers do in the classroom. The stakes get even higher when that FCAT ties into rating teacher performace and pay.<\/p>\n

Science will count on the FCAT this year, though. So my wife gave me one example of how the entire school is working together to prepare for it. Every grade level will include in their vocablary lists for the kids science-related words that the kids will have to know for the FCAT. Not exciting, I know, but that’s just one example … and we’re talking about a standardized test anyway.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind that this was just a general conversation my wife and I had. This is by no means a comprehensive examination of the local situation.<\/p>\n

My wife does a big unit on weather, she has the kids do terrariums, she has a cool unit where kids get to watch caterpillars turn into butterflies, and she does an art farm. This year the ant farm was a failure of sorts, though. She tells the funny story of how last year her ant farm setup included a water moat around the farm that successfully kept the ants where they were supposed to be. However, this year she wound up with suicidal ants for some unknown reason. She entered her classroom one day to find the entire colony floating dead in the moat. No idea why!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Free-Ride has an interesting couple of posts up about elementary school science education. In one post she talks about what looks like a shortage of any decent science in the elementary school level. In the other post she asks … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-1O","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":212,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=212","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":0},"title":"Florida teacher heading to Space Academy","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Fourth-grade teacher at Laurel Oak Elementary School, Jodi Vidaurri, is heading to the Space Academy for Educators program in Huntsville, Ala., this summer. This story tells us why this \"spacy\" teacher deserves it. Vidaurri lobbied to have her new school, Veteran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Memorial Elementary, named \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Columbia\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in honor of the ill-fated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the Classroom"","block_context":{"text":"In the Classroom","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":91,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=91","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":1},"title":"Hands-on is the way to go","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida Citizens for Science congratulates Kit Hitchcock of Lely Elementary School for brining science to life for the kids in her school. Thank you for showing children how interesting science really is! For the first time in their elementary school careers, the Lely Elementary School fifth-graders are experimenting with science\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the Classroom"","block_context":{"text":"In the Classroom","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":688,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=688","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":2},"title":"Fundraising challenge week 1","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"We just wrapped up our first week of fundraising for Florida science education with three more to go. Unfortunately, things are moving slow. We've only managed to round up $95 so far. 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In part, the review says: Life sciences and evolution are given shorter shrift than any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Science Standards"","block_context":{"text":"Our Science Standards","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1102,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1102","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":4},"title":"2nd Annual science education fundraiser LAUNCH!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida Citizens for Science News Release Contact: Brandon Haught; bhaught@flascience.org \u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d FLORIDA SCIENCE EDUCATION NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT Aug. 7, 2009 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Education budget woes felt throughout the state are preventing many teachers from obtaining necessary science equipment, thus crippling them at a time when a new set of science standards\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raising $ for classrooms"","block_context":{"text":"Raising $ for classrooms","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=20"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":753,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=753","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":5},"title":"Importance of science lab design","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 24, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A Florida high school science teacher and FCS member recently asked for some help concerning a possible new science lab at her school. 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