Category Archives: Science

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Science Meeting 5/26

Submitted by: Kelly O’Shea

We discussed some ideas about next year’s focus, including a book club (focusing on scientific racism and then transitioning into anti-bias work for our classes) and examining computational thinking to determine what we are doing and whether we should or should not be trying to integrate it into science. Other ideas brought up included finding labs to do together or planning for ways to bring science classes together with kids from different divisions.

We will keep it in the back of our minds this summer with the understanding that the departmental meeting structure could (and maybe should) change depending on what the fall schedule and structure looks like.

We talked about what science-specific needs we have for the uncertainty of the fall, and the main concern across all grade levels is how we can make and distribute kits of supplies to students with basic things that will allow them to do more science activities at home in our fall classes.

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4/30/19 Science Meeting Notes

Science and English met together. Our focus was on how we teach students to make observations (and differentiate between observations and inferences). Candace and Calvin led us through a lesson on a poem (a 10th grade lesson) where we shared about one word, one sound, and one image that stood out to us in the poem to keep our focus on observations. I (Kelly) led everyone through a 10th grade physics lesson involving a bowling ball where they had to figure out how to accomplish certain tasks (speed it up, slow it down, keep it at a constant speed, etc). Sherezada shared about non-Newtonian fluids and how students needed to separate observations from inferences and also make higher quality observations. We broke into groups (high school vs middle school) after the shares and continued discussions about what we noticed and what was in common. We started thinking about ways we could make stronger connections for students about how we were working on the same skills in these different classes and how we could reference common language or approaches in both classes.

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3/5/2019 History/Science Department Meeting Notes

Science and History met together. Our focus was on how we teach students to use evidence to support their claims/statements/explanations. Dan shared a lesson from 6th grade where we made repeated observations of a candle burning inside a jar and talked about how we could use that to find evidence for the percentage of oxygen in the air in the room—and then how we could think about any difference between our number and the “expected” value. Tom shared a lesson from 9th grade where we simulated countries just before WWI and passed notes back and forth, trying to establish allies and responding to prompts he gave us. We broke into high school and middle/lower school groups to discuss in more depth. In the HS group, we talked about many areas and skills students find difficult as they work on their writing, noting the similarities or corresponding types of problems that students encounter in science classes.

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2/5/19 Science/Visual Arts Meeting Notes

Science and Visual Arts met together. We focused on how we support students in revisiting and revising work in each of our disciplines (and the similarities in how we develop that skill). Kara shared a lesson from 9th grade chemistry (Does the mass of steel wool depend on the shape?), Jeremiah shared about how he is using standards and grading in his art class to encourage students to revisit their work and know “when is it done?”. We broke into high school and middle school groups to discuss in more depth and went beyond the initial question to discover many layers of similarities between the work of each discipline and what we are trying to get students to learn in our classes. We discussed how helping students see these similarities could help, for example, a student who feels comfortable in art class but feels their science or math teacher should “just tell them things” see how the work they are being asked to do is similar and transfer some of their approach from one class to the other.

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11/27/18 Science Meeting Notes

Science and Math met together. Daniel shared a lesson from 9th grade chemistry (determining the relationship between pressure and volume), Debra shared a 3rd grade lesson on odd and even numbers and counting steps, and Michelle shared a 7th grade lesson on gym locker shapes/design. We reflected on similarities between each and skills that we were building in common across the subjects, then we met in high school and middle/lower school groups to discuss more specific connections and reflections.

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2018-2019 Science Departmental Focus

Type of Work Focus: 

      • Meeting with other departments to discuss what skills we teach in common in our classes so that we can strengthen connections for students between what they are learning in the different disciplines.

Description of Work Focus: Engage in a series of sharings/conversations with the other departments about areas of shared practice to support better alignment/reinforcing of skills/habits, and to provide an opportunity for the department to reflect on practice.

(During times we can’t schedule a meeting with another department, we will use the time to work on implementing what has come out of those shared meetings.)

Schedule for Work: We are planning to meet during the Tuesday times set aside, but we are open to making it work at another time if it helps us schedule a meeting with another department.