Cover Page

Seeing With Scientific Eyes

Procedure

The activities provide opportunities for rich inquiry that integrate core disciplines and promote multiple ways to explore and connect unique relationships among phenomena - inquiry can be infinite.

Anticipatory Set

Show the students a large multicolored ball. (Beach ball etc.) Animate the lesson by stating that everyone is going to pretend we are scientists. The ball is a specimen we are going to describe in detail by drawing and through written descriptions.
Students draw a contour, a profile, and a five second sketch (quick) of the ball resulting in a series of at least three sketches of the same ball on one poster.
Ask the students to describe this ball in multiple ways. Write student ideas on the chart paper, encouraging the use of complete sentences.
Walk around with the ball so that the children can use their senses: see, touch, hear and smell to get more descriptions.
Add to the ideas on the chart paper as students provide more information through their senses.
Call on a student to describe how the beach ball is different from other types of balls on display. Point out the statements on the chart paper and their poster drawings to provide evidence to support the accuracy of their observations.
Partially cover the beach ball.
Lead a discussion about the missing details, and the importance of accurately representing the whole as a combination of its parts.
Solicit new question(s) the children have about the ball such as “Why is the ball called a beach ball?”.
Write these questions on the chart paper. (these questions can be used at a later point for further inquiry)

Teacher Modeling and Guided Practice: Pipe Cleaner Inquiry
The Pipe Cleaner Inquiry is a teacher-guided lesson that helps the student practice descriptive writing skills for math and science.
Teacher and students hold the pipe cleaner straight without bending it. Ask “What does this look like?” Record student observations on the Pipe Cleaner Inquiry Sessions 1 and 2
Everyone bends their pipe cleaner in any one place. Observe the small changes. Ask “What does it look like now?” Encourage students to use their imagination. Continue to act as a scribe for the students and add to statements, increasing the descriptions of these pipe cleaners in their new shape. Record students’ new statements on the Pipe Cleaner Inquiry Sessions 1 and 2.

Teacher Modeling and Small Group Practice:
Teacher and students bend the pipe cleaner until it is an identifiable shape.
Group the students’ shapes to make four smaller groups of students based on a dominate characteristic of their shape. IE. Eyeglasses; spirals; four sided shapes etc. Each student gets Pipe Cleaner Inquiry Session 3 Journal sheet
Through student- led inquiry among themselves, students determine the dominant characteristics of the pipe cleaner and categories by which the teacher grouped them.
Students draw or write 4 sequential pictures and / or sentences stating what steps they used to get their shape.
Continue to ask the students to add to their written statements or drawings that describe how they feel or what is it about their shape that stimulates the 5 senses.

Independent Practice:
Teacher asks the students to draw a complete illustration that gives a context for their pipe cleaner shape. Instruct students to edit their 4 sequence drawings so that their boxes include enough data to lead to recognition of the details in the final illustration. IE. Student made a bracelet then the drawing would be the student wearing this bracelet going out with their parents.
When the picture is done, teacher instructs students to label the nouns in the picture using their best understanding of decoding skills to spell each noun.
While the students are completing the independent task the teacher interviews the students independently to question the student about his/her shape. Teacher facilitates the student’s ability to develop a question(s) the student would like to explore about his/her shape. Teacher or student writes the question at the bottom of the Pipe Cleaner Inquiry Sessions 4& 5
Together teacher and student score the Pipe Cleaner Inquiry Sequence, the Pipe Cleaner Inquiry Illustration worksheets using the Seeing With Scientific Eyes Journal Rubric.
The extension from this lesson follows the questions the children ask about their specimen. This leads to a deeper research on the information the students want to seek about their specimen or a related topic. This quest for more information leads to the library, internet searches, personal interviews, art and music connections and the resources are limitless. The teacher plans the next phase using the resources that are available.

Independent Assessment: Button Inquiry
Give each student a different button large enough so the children can easily handle it. Students have a variety of configurations and colors in each button.
Instruct student to hide their button in their notebook while they are sketching it using the three forms of scientific drawing methods. No one should see the others’ button.
(Please note: For Grade 1, each sketch is a whole lesson. Most first grade students are not able to
do the three sketches in one class block.
Students independently draw a button using the three scientific drawing methods; contour, profile, and fast draw using the Button Inquiry worksheet. They each write some statements to support these sketches. This information is used to identify the button. Encourage students to describe the object with enough details to give an accurate picture of what they are looking at.
When students are finished drawing, walk around with a tray and block the view of the students so each student can place their button on the tray discreetly.
Call on two students, one to show his sketch (Stu. A) and the other to identify the button (Stu.B). Follow the procedure below for each pair. Record….

Student A shows only the sketches of his button to student B.
Student B tries to identify the button by the picture alone and selects that button from the pile of buttons.
If Student B can find the button, he tells everyone how he was able to do so explaining how the sketch helped him.
If Student B cannot identify the button, then Student A reads his written statement about the button and selects that button from the pile of buttons.
Student B tries again to ID the button. Record the stage at which the button is identified: drawing stage, reading explanation stage, neither stage.
Students A and B reverse roles and follow the procedure again.

Every student gets to pair up with another and follows the same procedure.
After all students have completed the procedure, collect the Science Journal packet, Score work with the Seeing With Scientific Eyes Journal Rubric.

CLOSURE: Whole Group
Debrief the activity by leading a discussion about what was missing from the different students’ sketches and text to help see the missing details. Make – up a list of what is really needed when doing the sketches and writing the descriptions.

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