Science Newsletter – September ’17

Happy Science Friday!

We’ve been busy in science this year. Science is a hands-on experience and this past week we began exploring the pendulum.

To begin the school year, I introduced the ISN – the Interactive Science Notebook – the notebook we’ll be using this year in science. The ISN has writing space for class notes and information provided in class, as well as writing space for their observations, lab notes, and content the students discuss in their table groups. The left-hand pages ar for their notes, reflections, and for the students to write responses to prompts in science – it can be for their ideas, drawings, and lab notes. The right-hand pages are for content I provide in class via lecture notes and science content I need them to have to provide a base for their understanding of science concepts.

During the first week, I asked students to copy a quote from Rachel Carson, the noted American marine biologist and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement. If you were at curriculum night, Rachel Carson’s photo was over one of the tables in the back of the classroom.

“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantment of later years…the alienation from the sources of our strength.”         Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder

I plan to foster a sense of collaborative learning in science class where students develop the skills and confidence to ask questions and be curious and wonder. It’s a BIG WORLD out there with many unknowns. It is going to take a great deal of curiosity, grit, and persistence to be successful in the 21st century.

We’ll finish the exploring the pendulum next week and then we’ll begin Unit 1 – How will it move? The unit explores forces and motion and each student will receive a workbook which includes readings, drawings, diagrams with space for students to respond to questions and record their observations. We will continue to use the ISN for extended responses.

Lastly, I use Remind with all of my classes – it’s an app where I can send text message reminders to an entire class, if you’d like to receive the text messages, please ask your child to log into Google Classroom and look in the ABOUT area for the link to join Remind. 

Thank you for your support and I am look for a GREAT YEAR in science full of students being curious and exploring.

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