Science Super Star: Allia Calkins
We spotlight Allia Calkins, CRS Science Super Star honoree, who teaches at Thornhill Elementary in Oakland. Allia was able to transform her students' wonders into engaging science experiments that gave them a better sense of the connections between their everyday lives and the natural world.
April 3, 2020
We are delighted to announce Allia Calkins, a Kindergarten Teacher from Thornhill Elementary in Oakland, as a 2020 Science Super Star!
Some of Allia's most engaging science lessons arose from her students' natural curiosity about the world around them, and her ability to turn their questions into a captivating science experiment. The topic, "How Can We Change Wood?" was introduced after her students noticed that differences between raw wood and wooden objects in their room.
She had her classroom use sandpaper to transform their pieces of raw bark into more 'finished' products. Her students were amazed by the process: "It's becoming smooth!" and compared their results to their initial predictions. Allia encouraged the sentence frames "First I thought ___, now I think ___" and "I think ___ because." This experiment had an additional, hidden, excellent teaching moment on what to say when you disagree with someone, and how to explain your reasoning.
Rather than dismiss, or hastily answer, her classroom's questions, Allia's plan of letting her students discover answers to their own questions led to an all-encompassing learning experience.
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"Science lessons that rely on hands-on activities and using all five senses bring out the best in my students. My kids make the sharpest observations during science, and they always ask probing questions during their work." |
She continued to highlight the interconnection between theoretical science discoveries and the real-world by having her students explore animal differences. They would discuss traits that separate animals from others, and identify patterns within those traits (such as zebras with ABA and AABB stripe patterns). To bring the animal science unit to life, she took them to Slide Ranch, where they learned the ways animals work with humans, and got the chance to milk goats, look for chicken eggs, and care for bees.
Allia's helpful hint for other budding science teachers:
| "Try something new every lesson! Whether it is a new journaling technique, phrasing a question in a new way, or trying a new sentence frame." |