Lindsey Smallwood: Connecting with Science Everyday
April 2013
Lindsey teaches 4th & 5th grade at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary in West Oakland. Here she reflects on her past experiences with science as a student & today, as a teacher.
One of the experiences I remember from my early school days was growing our own sprouts in elementary school – after that I always liked the taste of sprouts! Science was always an exciting part of the school day because it was hands on and connected to the real world. My teachers used to bring science to life by having us collect snow and watch clouds to learn about the water cycle or taking us to the beach to study environments.
I learned early on that science is everywhere. Even now, a lot of the things I do at home; cooking, baking, or gardening, use science skills like chemistry, observation & measurement, and testing hypotheses. Plus, I married a scientist! My husband is a Physics PhD candidate at UC Berkeley and an editor at the Berkeley Science Review, so many conversations around our house are about the practice of science.
One of the most fun things about teaching science is when students really “get it” – when the concepts we’ve been learning become real to them. As a part of our states of matter unit, we do an experiment where we use baking soda and vinegar in a bottle in order to inflate a balloon. We do the experiment after we’ve already been learning about solids, liquids and gasses for a couple of weeks. It is so fun to see student’s delight as the baking soda and vinegar create a gas that fills the balloon and then they can explain what’s happening: “It’s a gas – I made a gas!”
I was so surprised at my student’s reactions to keeping a container of beetles for an environments unit we did last year. I set them up in a clear container in the back of the room along with books about bugs and insects. The beetle bin quickly became the most popular destination in class. I had students racing to finish math so they could go sit with the beetles, talk to the beetles, and ask the beetles about their day. I cracked up one day when I heard my student trying to teach the beetles a song he had learned in choir class. I guess you could say we had “Beetle-Mania”! It’s so great when you can find items and activities that are really motivating for students, because it captures their interest and helps them to persevere in learning the science material we are trying to teach.