A new way to teach science in public schools is being tested out in Duval County. The programs is called Investigating and Questioning our World through Science and Technology (IQWST) and was developed by the University of Michigan. This story tells how the program is working in Duval.
The curriculum transforms bold-faced science terms found in traditional textbooks into tangible sights, sounds and experiences for students by exposing students to substantial amounts of lab time and experiments. Richardson said her students spend 80 percent of their time doing lab work and experiments, and only 20 percent reading and reviewing workbook material.
Students learning from a traditional science curriculum would do lab work and experiments only after covering several units of material, Richardson said. With IQWST, each concept is tied to lab work and experimentation.
“This is wonderful for kids because what this does is make science and technology relevant for kids,” said Kathryn LeRoy, the district’s chief officer of academic services.
The effectiveness of the program is still undetermined, but does show signs of promise. What are your thoughts?
If you haven’t seen the DVD “A Private Universe: Minds of our own”, I HIGHLY recommend ordering yourself a FREE copy of the DVD from the website http://www.aprivateuniverse.org/
It’s a great video produced by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the main point (my own interpretation) is that it illustrates how difficult it is to get past a students own misperceptions about the universe and how it works. The students in the video held as tightly to their misconceptions as Einstein did to the steady-state theory of the universe. Therefore, it seems, and I’ve seen this in class myself, no matter what you do or have the students do, they never get it because they can’t let go of what they already THINK they know. Having said that, the more experiences you can give students, the better, and hopefully even those with strong misconceptions will have it all click somewhere down the road.
It’s about damn time! Science is fun when you get to see it and touch it!
This is great news. We can beat down IDiocy and creationism at an early age.
. . . as long as the almighty state assessments are taken care of . . .
🙁