Education Week - March 27, 2013 - 11

Photos by Ramin Rahimian for Education Week

EDUCATION WEEK

science helps them with the vocabulary to label drawings in their science journals and talk about what
they and their partners find examining the worms when the full class
reconvenes.
But the language learned in Sonoma’s science lessons flourishes
mostly by students’ need to use it
when they see and touch the natural world through in-class experiments, teachers say. That almost
artful integration of language instruction into science makes students unaware they are actually
learning; they just want to talk
about what they experience.
Initiatives like the Sonoma Valley and Exploratorium project can
be successful conduits to learning
language because all children are
naturally curious and want to know
the words behind the objects, say
educators and researchers.
The Sonoma approach offers potential because language is essential to the inquiry-based-science
processes of experimentation, discussion, and argumentation—some
of the very principles emphasized
in the Next Generation Science
Standards, said Michael Lach, the
director of stem Policy and Strategic Initiatives at the University
of Chicago. He is a former head of
stem—or science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—policy
and strategic initiatives at the U.S.
Department of Education.
“While science instruction is still
about knowing the parts of a flower
or the formulas for electromagnetism, it’s now also about creating an
argument based on evidence from
the natural world,” he said.
The Sonoma-Exploratorium lessons emphasize student collaboration with peers in small groups to
answer teacher-generated questions, as well as framing their own.
The conversation and “science talk”
helps build students’ confidence in
their English ability that they use
when the class discusses findings

and draws conclusions.
While an independent evaluation
of the program’s impact on students and teachers is in the works
by Iverness Research Inc. and the
Lawrence Hall of Science, both San
Francisco Bay Area-based research
organizations, some teachers here
say the effect on students is readily
apparent. In addition to improving
students’ knowledge of science and
the English language, the instruction has also fueled their interest
in science, especially when they
have the language ability to discuss
what they learn and find.
In 2008, 37 percent of El Verano’s 5th graders tested “proficient”
in science on state standardized
tests; by 2011, that number had
risen to 49 percent. (California only
requires students be tested in science in 5th grade.) Performance
on the state’s English-languageproficiency tests has also steadily
improved.

n

MARCH 27, 2013

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11

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Parent Involvement
Minimal science instruction in
elementary schools has remained
a problem in California, as in other
states. Only one in five classrooms
teaches science daily, a national
survey of math and science instruction recently found. And in California, WestEd, a nonprofit research
organization based in San Francisco, found 40 percent of the state’s
elementary teachers spent 60 minutes or less on science instruction a
week. Eighty-five percent of teachers also reported having received
no science professional development within the past three years.
Administrators cite testing pressures for reading and math, and
limited resources for teacher training as the biggest obstacles to science instruction.
But collaborations between
schools and community partners,
such as the Exploratorium, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and
the American Museum of Natural
History in New York, have helped
alleviate some of those problems.
Since the start of the Sonoma
Valley project at El Verano Elementary, Principal Maite Iturri
said parents have approached her
with comments like, “I didn’t know
my child talked so much” or, one
mentioned, “My child is suddenly
asking a lot of ‘why’ questions.”
“I knew we had to start explaining what we were doing here,” she
said, referring to parent workshops,
in English and Spanish, the school
launched to teach parents the same
science the students learn in school
so they can help their children at
home.
Ms. Iturri hopes the Exploratorium project will also change student attitudes and future plans.
“When I was in school, I was actually afraid of science. … Science
was not really encouraged or even
an option for girls to pursue,” she
said. “I want all my kids not to be
afraid of science and to feel confident to go into a science field. I
don’t want the doors closed for anyone.”

n

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Education Week - March 27, 2013

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