Science

• Story starters and science notebooking : developing student thinking through literacy and inquiry by Sandy Buczynski and Kristin  Fontichiaro (Libraries Unlimited, 2009, 216 p., $_____, ISBN: 9781591586869)

  Scientists use notebooks to record their observations during experiments and research. We are very familiar with the notebooks of Luther Burbank, Charles Darwin, and even Lewis and Clarke, not to mention Michelangelo. We also know that engaging student learners in techniques such as Webquests or the iSearch paper is the predictor of success. Real investigations are best. Stories are next best if they help the learner see relevance in the assignment when no real situation is at hand. This book recommends that  the usual short introduction to a webquest be expanded into a larger story that will pique the interest of the learner at the outset of the assignment. Then, the authors discuss what notebooking is and how it becomes a major formative assessment tool for the adults as well as a record of the learnng journey for the student. This idea is a natural for a science teacher and a teacher librarian as an assignment is designed as inquiry. Hooray! It all makes sense and it is a great technique to use in true collaboration.  The authors provide a number of units they have developed together so that the reader can get enough of an idea to create their own. Teacher librarians need an excuse to catapult themselves into the center of teaching and learning. Here is one strategy that just might work in your school so reading enough examples in this book and sharing one or two with the science teacher might just be the ticket to great collaborative experiences. For this reason, I recommend this tweak of an idea for strong consideration by teacher librarians and science teachers. One criticism, however. The authors recommend that every learner keep their own notebook on paper or in digital space. While this is good advice in low tech schools, collaborative research by students requires collaborative notebooking. Wikis come immediately to mind, although they are not mentioned as a major tool. The individual notebook allows the student to record what  “I” know. The collaborative tool pushes what “we” know.  As a formative assessment tool, the notebook allows for reflection on “how I learn.” Collaborative notebooking allows for reflection on “how we learn” and how both I and we can get better at the process of inquiry. Documentation by both the teacher and the teacher librarian of these concepts is a foundational idea in the Race to the Top initiative of Obama. Bottom line: Try this book out and then apply its idea to a number of other inquiry projects across the curriculum.

   

• Uncovering Student Ideas in Science, Volume 4: 25 New Formative Assessment Probes by Page Keeley and Joyce Tugel (National Science Teachers Association, 2009, $184 p., $27.95, ISBN: 1935155016)

  NStA publishes a wide variety of resources for science teachers that link to national and state standards. This team of authors have now published four full volumes of various activities designed to help kids and teens think for scientifically. For example, one of the activities in this book provides the students with a list of common things and asks them to decide which of the items such as cookies, sugar, salt, vitamin pills would be considered “food.” The object, of course, is to get the kids to perfect the definition of “food” in order to place items in or outside of the scientific definition. For the teacher librarian, such activities are not the kinds of projects that promote the student’s entrance into the world of information and technology. As such, they do not promote what we would term as collaboration although they could be part of a larger unit about food that did send the learners into a more inquiry-focused learning activity. Science teachers may request such professional resources to be acquired for the professional collection and of course, teacher librarian would respond favorably but begin the conversation about the difference between isolated classroom activities and the more active inquiry projects that push the science class into the library/learning commons for research. Realizing this, and knowing that scientific thinking is a valued part of information literacy, then these types of activities play a role in larger learning activity construction. The activities in these and other of the author’s works can be used from elementary through high school. Bottom line: Purchase this one with a larger goal in mind since the authors are not going to recommend the larger explorations you as teacher librarians would like to promote.

   

• A librarian's guide to cultivating an elementary school garden by Bonnie Mackey (Linworth Publishing, 2009, 124 p., $_____, ISBN: 1586833286) Gardening with children seems to come an go in the elementary curriculum and with the emphasis totally on test scores, these days, perhaps teaching real stuff is a lost art, however, in a downturned economy, perhaps it is something worth reviving as asurvival strategy. Should the teacher librarian be in charge of the school garden? Please, not. But, we can promote it, help, guide, coach, and celebrate. This is a good popular guide of ideas for manageable gardens and as an extended school/parent connection would be extremely helpful at this difficult time. That is why we recommend buying and promoting this book to the faculty. It’s all a part of health and wellness.