In our elementary series we have three sets of video for you. Can 5, 6, and 7-year olds engage in scientific practices? With the right support they can do amazing things.

K-2 Modeling Series

These provide a glimpse inside kindergarten and 1st/2nd-grade classrooms that are developing scientific models to make sense of and more deeply explain a real-world phenomenon over time. The kindergartners in Ms. Tomokiyo’s class at Southern Heights Elementary School in Seattle, Washington, are seeking to understand how a puddle on the grass appears and disappears over the course of a day.

The overview video describes scientific modeling in elementary classrooms and how to support the revision of students’ ideas over time.

In the first strategy video, we see students using share-outs and discussion spotlights to learn from each other. As you watch, think about how share-outs of models can be more than “show and tell.”

The second strategy video shows students engaging in an interactive read-aloud. As you watch, think about how you can use informational texts to support scientific sense-making. Pay special attention to how students critique science ideas and representations from the books.

K-2 Argumentation Series

In our next series, we share key principles and strategies for engaging K-2 students in the practice of scientific argumentation with explanatory models. We join a second-grade scientific community in the midst of exploring a real-life question: What caused the town of Moncton to flood? As they pursue answers to this question, you’ll see that students are not making arguments about isolated observations (e.g., which kind of soil water flows through fastest), but rather arguments that connect to their explanatory models of the phenomenon (the flooding of Moncton). We call this “model-based CER (Claims, Evidence, and Reasoning),” where argumentation occurs in service of developing models of phenomena and supporting deeper, more interconnected science learning.

The overview video shares key principles and strategies for engaging K-2 students in the practice of scientific argumentation with explanatory models.

The first strategy video features how to support students in weighing different forms of evidence (from personal experience, experiments, readings) and using agree-disagree T-charts as a way to support scientific argumentation over the course of a unit of instruction, as a way to validate students’ initial and ongoing ideas.

The second strategy video shows how to integrate sentence-stems in a way that supports argumentation and the development of scientific models, supporting deeper and more interconnected science learning.

Foothold Practices

Our third series we call “foothold” practices for elementary teachers. Footholds refer to beginning routines that teachers use with students, to introduce them to ambitious work (both the teacher and the students). These routines boost participation by students and expand the rigor of the work they can do together, while being manageable for the teacher who is attempting new practices. Teachers then become comfortable with these ways of supporting intellectual work and create variations on these practices, often creating innovations that can get spread throughout the AST Community. Footholds lead to the use of other AST routines that extend the power of these initial practices.

Try these small shifts in teaching practice with big impacts. Each video is about 7-10 minutes long and is designed to be a quick way to get your toes wet with the Ambitious Science Teaching practices. You will recognize familiar practices (such as using vocabulary or doing gallery walks) but the teachers in these videos are taking these practices one-step further. Each video breaks down the practice by describing the talk, task and tools used and provides teacher tips. Be sure to share your variations of these practices on the AST website!