Mr. Howard, my 5th grade teacher, introduced me to the amazing world of insects. I remember learning words like "thorax" and "metamorphosis" and collecting insects on the schoolyard with plastic bags.
We would carefully deposit our insect specimens in glass jars, which contained cotton balls soaked in alcohol. We used shiny, silver pins to adhere our insects to recycled Styrofoam trays. Just like real entomologists, each of our pinned specimens included a small label with the name, date, and location where we had collected our insects.
I kept my 5th grade insect collection in a box under my bed for many years (much to the dismay of my mother). During my first year of college, I read a course description on medical and veterinary entomology and thought, "I can do this!"
My friends called me crazy for taking an entomology lab class just for fun. I ended up doing my senior honors thesis on aquatic entomology, and I worked at two labs after graduation. In many respects, I owe my interest and lab experience to Mr. Howard, who taught me to love insects as a child.
In fact, research has shown that many science professionals had positive science experiences during their elementary years. Unfortunately, many teachers across the nation are under intense pressure to meet academic accountability goals in math and English and, therefore, limit their science instruction.
In a 2011 study on the status of elementary science education in California, teachers reported spending an hour or less a week teaching science. About two-thirds of the teachers also reported feeling unprepared to teach science.
I've heard teachers say "science is not my thing" or point out the lack of time to plan and prepare their science lessons. But you don't need a strong science background to engage young people in science. You don't even need fancy equipment or lots of time, because young students come to school with a great capacity for learning science simply because of their curious nature.
The Power of Observation
Young children are innate explorers who, like scientists, pose questions and seek answers to make sense of the world. I've seen many 7-year-olds use scientific processes, just as professional scientists do, without prompting. When given the opportunity, students are naturally ready to observe, hypothesize, and experiment.
In my classroom, I engage my students in an exciting hands-on, learning environment in which children are given the opportunity to explore the world on their own terms. My secret: our classroom's "observation center."
In our observation center, I display interesting items for students to observe, manipulate, and learn more about, if they choose to do so.
While setting up our observation center, I refer to the science standards as a guide. I find items that connect to what I want my students to observe and learn about; however, most of the time, I end up putting items in the observation center that I come across in my daily life.
For example, I brought in a gigantic leaf that I found in the teachers' parking lot and a mandarin that had the bumpiest skin I'd ever seen. The mandarin had several leaves attached to it, and one of my students was compelled by the differences of the giant leaf and those on the mandarin.
She shared her observations with me and ended up bringing in more leaves from the playground that she found intriguing. After that, other students brought in leaves. We ended up doing leaf rubbings and studying about leaves and plants.
An observation center can make learning student-driven and also mirror the Reggio Emilia pedagogy. Any of my 2nd grade students can tell you that a leaf is the food-making organ of a vascular plant. We also learned about plant adaptations and plant life cycles—all because of a single child's genuine interest and observations.
Last year, one of my students gave me some of his snake's shed skin inside a plastic bag. Later that day, another student brought me a book that she was reading on snakes and pointed to the snake skin.
"Did you know that the eyes of snakes get cloudy when they are about to molt?" she asked.
That spark of wonder and amazement that I see when my students discover or learn something new is priceless!
Set Up Your Observation Center
Take the time to teach a quality lesson on making observations; there's a great lesson on the National Science Teachers Association website titled "Unlocking the Power of Observation," which details a lesson on how to teach students how to make observations.