Science Super Star: Melissa Frost
We spotlight Melissa Frost, CRS Science Super Star honoree, who teaches at Lincoln Elementary in Oakland.
April 16, 2020
We are honored to recognize Melissa Frost, a 4th Grade Teacher from Lincoln Elementary in Oakland, as a 2020 Science Super Star!
Melissa and her classroom explored electricity and magnetism when she asked her students to build an electrical circuit to light two bulbs. 
She planned for her students to test their circuits with batteries, wind power, wire gauge, and core diameter to see which would produce the brightest bulbs. Before the lesson started, as a class, they filled a KWL (What I Know, What I Wonder, What I Learned) chart. Her students had many wonders, and although the did not have many misconceptions starting off, they did have a majorly recurring one – that directionality does not matter when adding multiple circuits to a battery.
When the experimented started, many groups found their circuits unsuccessful. One group, however, accidentally placed their batteries in the correct direction. All of the children from other groups came over to carefully study the successful circuit, until they all realized that directionality does matter.
Melissa promotes the CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) Methods in her students’ discussions and journaling exercises. She asked them to answer a short focus question after the light bulb experiment, and then after reading her students’ paragraphs, showed them the criteria for success and student exemplars, and provided individual feedback. She had them submit a final draft complete with diagrams and academic vocabulary, and was given back outstanding work. Melissa firmly holds that this is one of her most successful lesson sequences. This practice allows her to give more individual feedback to every student, especially for a different genre of writing.
She has found that science brings out a passion of learning in her students. After a lesson on magnetism, some students were so excited that they brought in compasses, to share their understanding of how they work. She spoke of one student in particular:
| J. is an ELL. He is socially awkward with others, struggles with focus, and is below grade level in all areas, except science. He LOVES science! In other areas, I am redirecting him often, but in science, his hand is ALWAYS in the air to share ideas, interesting facts, and more – in every single science lesson. He’s currently writing a report about volcanic eruptions, and I’ve never seen him so excited to write. My experience of him would be so different without having this context. |
Melissa has encouraging advice for teachers who are apprehensive about beginning to teach science: Sometimes science lessons can feel very overwhelming (the number of materials and the lack of time to prepare). I suggest talking with other teachers. One of my current colleagues has been so supportive in sharing materials and tips, and it’s made it easier to manage.