Week One: A Day in the Kitchen

"Lessons taught in the classroom are enriched by hands-on garden and kitchen activities, while concepts that arise in the kitchen and garden are meaningfully discussed in the classroom."
-The Edible Schoolyard, Berkeley, California

This week in science class we learned about how everything in our daily lives, including preparing a meal in the kitchen, involves science. Science in the kitchen can be from wondering why an egg doesn't have a little chick inside of it when making scrambled eggs to the reactions of putting together different ingredients in soup. Science is in our everyday lives, and it is the job of teachers to help our students reflect on their experiences and generate scientific questions.

From the readings, I learned the value of teaching science. The book read, "that many of today's jobs require some scientific knowledge, and even our everyday decisions-from what to eat to which vehicle to buy-can be affected by our scientific understanding or lack of it" (7). Science is in our daily lives. Science allows students to be critical thinkers and openminded. Students learn that it is okay to change their minds when confronted with new information. I loved the quote at the beginning of the reading that "science is basically an area of knowledge created by people-men and women-who devote much of their energies to exploring some part of nature and trying to make sense of it" (3). If science is based off of what human beings question and discover, then it is our job as teachers to help our students get excited about learning science.

Some teaching strategies I found useful were:
-Understanding that children are active knowers, constructing ideas on the basis of experiences, and taping student's prior knowledge plays a crucial role in learning about science (11) (a.k.a. Create experiences for your students!)
-Create hands-on experiences (connect to students' own lives, let them reflect on experiences, give them conceptual goals) (16)
-Give students meaningful science experiences (16)
-Understand that learning science takes time (23)
-Taylor lessons for your specific class to make lessons more engaging (i.e. Low SES students make a model using food/RESOURCE: Science Experiments You Can Eat by Vicki Cobb) (27)
-Listen to students' thinking and regularly engage them in conversations about their ideas (21)
-Model digital-age work and learning (29)
-Model digital citizenship and responsibility (29)
-Do not have a negative attitude towards science, because it inadvertently discourages students (41)
-Discourage science stereotypes (42)
-Interview a scientist (i.e. bring in a scientist to the classroom and have the kids ask the scientist questions!) (48)
-Be reflective (49) "Research shows that a deliberate, conscious, inward look at teaching and learning can promote your professional development as a teacher."
-Have students keep a science journal and YOU as the teacher. Share your journals with the class regularly. (52)

Science is a wonderful subject because it is a platform for active learning where students can question the world together, learn to ask questions, discover new ways of thinking, and create new experiences. Teachers need to have a positive outlook on teaching science and realize the powerful influence of science in our daily lives.