Science Fair

We have just finished with Science Fair here at our school. It came at a very bad time just after a three week testing period when teachers were all frazzled and kids were "out there". The poor timing was not an evil plan to make us miserable-- it just needed to be done by a certain date in order to qualify for the Austin Science Fair and so for our school and many others in our district, it came hard on the heels of all that testing and deadlines that we faced... like I said-- bad timing.

I have a problem with Science Fairs at this level. When we had science fairs in years past, kids didn't do the projects, their parents did them. The competition can become intense, which is why we, as a school, chose to stop participating in science fairs a few years ago. Well, now we have a new district policy that all schools will host a science fair and that ALL classes will participate by entering a project in their school's science fair. I have no problem with teaching the scientific method and it actually is time to do so in our district curriculum so even though the timing was awful, it is, what it is. So we began our work on a very tight schedule-- two days to be exact. Not ideal for a great science fair project....

We watched a Brainpop Jr. video on Science Fair projects and brainstormed ideas for our class project. It turned out that rockets fascinate my students so they wanted to build a rocket to go into outer space.... not feasible-- I don't have access to rocket fuel. Joseph had an air rocket that he could bring from home and we decided to look at that and research our topic a bit more to come up with a realistic project that we could learn from. I was hoping that we could work out something with balloons on straws but chemicals will win over balloons anytime, so we ended up planning an experiment using Alka-Seltzer and film canisters. We went through the whole process of developing a valid testable question... we can up with an hypothesis... we decided how to perform the experiment testing only one variable etc... we did it all and I was quite pleased with what we had learned from our first attempt at the scientific method. I was NOT too pleased about our project and frankly, I was embarrassed (just a little) to put it in the fair for judging. But, one of the things you learn quite early in your teaching career is that it's not about YOU, it's about the learning your kids do. And so, knowing that as a class, we will continue to work on developing our skill in following the scientific method, we trooped down to the gym and set up our project. We took pictures of our project and gave last minute instructions to our class representatives and wished them good luck. (They would stay and answer the questions from the judges for our class.)

Later that day, we trooped back down to find that we had won a participation ribbon. The students were thrilled! We took more pictures came back to the room and started planning for our next experiment.

After school, a very good friend stopped me and said something to the effect of, "Oh I was so relieved when I saw that you won the same ribbon that we did... I was afraid you'd beat us..."

With all I do each day, I don't want to be the teacher to beat.... I'd like to be the teacher that helped... I'm pleased that the idea I suggested to one teacher did get her the first place ribbon and now her class is going to the Austin Science Fair. I don't want to be the one to beat because I'm some Ms. Frizzle and I am expected to do and be better than everyone else. That's not me. I truly believe that the best teachers are the best because of the teacher next door.....

But what hurt the most is that that teacher is a very good friend and I had thought that I wasn't perceived as a rival....

Texas Collaborative Conference

I've been involved with the Texas Collaboratives for quite a while. In El Paso, I was trained by the Dana Center in math and UTEP in Writing through the UTEP Regional Collaborative. When I moved here to Pflugerville, I found myself working with the Region 13 Collaborative for Excellence in Science Teaching. These past two years, I've been working with the ACC Collaborative in Science based in Pflugerville, Round Rock and Hutto. The Texas Regional Collaboratives for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching is a network of Pre-K through Graduate college level educators that provide sustained professional development to elementary and secondary teachers. Here's their link if you want to find out more... http://thetrc.org/trc/
For the first time, I was able to attend the state conference. It was held here in Austin out at the airport Hilton.... wow!!!

Well, first of all, if I've been involved with something this long, there must be something that I'm getting out of it. I just don't stick with things because I like to say I was a member since 1991. As a matter of fact, I'm not much of a joiner at all. It's hard for me to even plan lessons with my very cool second grade team that I love! When I had to change from the Region 13 Collaborative to the ACC Collaborative, I did some serious grieving because I missed all my science friends who were as geeky as I am. (Some might say we don't have a life, but I say we LOVE life and want to learn all about it.) An aside: It was a little like the television show, Big Bang Theory when we all went out the McDonald Observatory... except we're all female and no, I wasn't Sheldon! Good times!

But it's not just the friendships that you develop when you are involved in such intense professional development. It's also the concepts and the things you learn that make you a better teacher! And seriously folks, science is so cool! There's always something new happening based upon new developments, technology and research. How irresistible is that?

Anyway, back to the conference... I went to two of the best sessions EVER!!! EVER!! The first one was "Building Motivation for Journaling" which, to be honest, was not my first choice. But I was late and couldn't get into my first choice session and am I glad for that! They used some Dinah Zike foldables for science and I was SO into it! I can't wait to make the the little scientist with the science class rules in his jacket with my students. They are going to love making the little magnifying glass holder with paper bags and so much more! I had had a challenging day working at summer school that day and I just wanted to go home, fall asleep and pretend it was all a nightmare but I felt compelled to attend the conference since it was quite expensive and it wasn't my cash. But that first session jazzed me up and I was ready to teach all over again! Of course, as compulsive as I am, I came home and ordered two Dinah Zike books so I can plan new foldables for my class....yeah, I spend a lot of money on my classroom.... Then I charged out of that session excited about the next session and again, the one I wanted was filled and so I found myself in a podcasting session with Stephanie Paramour-- from my old crew, the Region 13 Collaborative. Steph is a dynamo and she is an incredible teacher. I know that she's finished her Master's Degree but in my mind, she is really a Master Teacher. Steph got me all FIRED UP about using podcasts in the classroom so after I got home and spent too much money on Dinah Zike's website (hey, I wonder if I could talk the district into sending me to Dinah's "Foldables Camp"-- it's only $900.00 and I would be a trained foldables trainer... there's a new grant cycle coming up!....), then I went onto iTunes and spent hours reviewing podcasts. I found a few that might work for my second graders but most are geared toward an older audience, even third graders. But do you think that deterred me? No, now I'm just convinced that my class will have to develop some podcasts to involve the younger kids! What a great day! What a great conference! A pretty low day ended up recharging me completely. That's a good day.