Science

Beginning in the 2018-19 academic year schools across Tennessee began implementing new State Board of Education  Science Standards.  With almost 30 years of science based educational programming,  the Educational Touring Theatre (ETT)  is strongly qualified to help educators address many of these new goals and standards.

Tennessee’s new science standards “are intended to guide the development and delivery of educational experiences that prepare all students for the challenges of the 21st century.” The number of specific grade level standards has been greatly reduced and have been replaced with crosscutting concepts that scaffold across scientific disciplines and run throughout each student’s K-12 journey. Like these new standards, ETT’s live science theatre performances, hands-on workshops, and supplemental study materials introduce and expand on ideas that cover multiple scientific fields and can be applied across grade levels.

Specific Goals

ETT programming can help students address the following goals:

• Develop an in-depth understanding of the major science disciplines.

• Make pertinent connections among scientific concepts, associated mathematical principles, and skillful applications of reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

• Recognize that certain broad concepts/big ideas foster a comprehensive and scientifically-based picture of the world and are important across all fields of science.

• Explore scientific phenomena and build science knowledge and skills using their own linguistic and cultural experiences with appropriate assistance or accommodations.

• Identify and ask appropriate questions that can be answered through scientific investigations.

• Design and conduct investigations independently or collaboratively to generate evidence needed to answer a variety of questions.

• Think critically and logically to analyze and interpret data, draw conclusions, and develop explanations that are based on evidence and are free from bias.

• Integrate science, mathematics, technology, and engineering design to solve problems and guide everyday decisions.

• Consider trade-offs among possible solutions when making decisions about issues for which there 2 are competing alternatives.

• Recognize that the principal activity of scientists is to explain the natural world and develop associated theories and laws.

• Recognize that current scientific understanding is tentative and subject to change as experimental evidence accumulates and/or old evidence is reexamined.

Crosscutting Concepts      

These concepts are addressed by ETT programming:

• Pattern observation and explanation.

• Cause and effect relationships that can be explained through a mechanism.

• Systems and system models with defined boundaries that can be investigated and characterized by the concept of energy and matter conservation through transformations that flow or cycle into, out of, or within a system .

Science and Engineering Practices

In the new standards, the outlined science and engineering practices “should not be taught in isolation or as a separate unit, but rather differentiated at each grade level from K-12 and integrated into all core ideas employed throughout the school year.” 

ETT programs align with the following science and engineering practices:

• Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering) to determine what is known, what has yet to be satisfactorily explained, and what problems need to be solved.

• Developing and using models to develop explanations for phenomena, to go beyond the observable and make predictions or to test designs.

• Planning and carrying out controlled investigations to collect data that is used to test existing theories and explanations, revise and develop new theories and explanations.

• Analyzing and interpreting data with appropriate data presentation (graph, table, statistics, etc.), identifying sources of error and the degree of certainty. Data analysis is used to derive meaning or evaluate solutions.

• Constructing explanations and designing solutions to explain phenomena or solve problems.

• Engaging in argument from evidence to identify strengths and weaknesses in a line of reasoning, to identify best explanations, to resolve problems, and to identify best solutions.

• Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information from scientific texts in order to derive meaning, evaluate validity, and integrate information.

Literary Skills for Science Proficiency

A number of literacy skills for science proficiency are included in the goals and standards. “Students should have regular practice with complex text and academic language beyond the textbook.  They should be able to decode information presented in multiple formats.”

Attending ETT science theatre performances and participating in the hands-on science workshops will help students build these skills:

• Understanding and applying scientific vocabulary correctly.

• Appropriately link technical and academic vocabulary words in the communication of scientific phenomena.

• Listen critically and engage in productive discussions surrounding a critique of scientific evidence and the validity of resulting conclusions.

• Use scientifically focused speaking and listening skills.

• Interact with data presented in multiple ways:

            o Visually through charts, graphs, infographics, and traditional text

            o Auditorily through multimedia production

             o Tactically through the use of traditional lab experiences and non-traditional lab simulations

• Build an appropriate scientific academic vocabulary

• Listen critically and engage in productive discussions surrounding a critique of scientific evidence and the validity of resulting conclusions.

Grade Level Science Standards

As outlined above, all of ETT’s programs can help students from third to eighth grade meet many of the new scientific goals, crosscutting concepts, science and engineering practices, and literary skills for science. However, each of ETT presentations focuses on different concepts and ideas and therefore aligns best with separate grade level standards.

A list of specific science standards is below, followed by the coded ETT program that best addresses each standard.

Giants of Electrical Science (G)

Sir Isaac Newton: The Apple & Beyond (N)

The Energy Detective (D)

3.PS2: Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions

            1) Explain the cause and effect relationship of magnets. (G)

3.PS3: Energy

            2) Apply scientific ideas to design, test, and refine a device that converts electrical energy to another form of energy, using open or closed simple circuits. (G)

3.ETS2: Links Among Engineering, Technology, Science, and Society

            1) Identify and demonstrate how technology can be used for different purposes. (D) (G)

4.PS3: Energy

            1) Use evidence to explain the cause and effect relationship between the speed of an object and the energy of an object. (N)

            2) Observe and explain the relationship between potential energy and kinetic energy. (N) (D)

            3) Describe how stored energy can be converted into another form for practical use. (D) (N)

4.ESS3: Earth and Human Activity

            1) Obtain and combine information to describe that energy and fuels are derived from natural resources and that some energy and fuel sources are renewable (sunlight, wind, water) and   some are not (fossil fuels, minerals). (D)

5.PS2: Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions

             1) Test the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the speed and direction of motion of objects. (N)

            2) Make observations and measurements of an object’s motion to provide evidence that a pattern can be used to predict future motion. (N)

             3) Use evidence to support that the gravitational force exerted by Earth on objects is directed toward the Earth’s center. (N)

            4) Explain the cause and effect relationship of two factors (mass and distance) that affect gravity. (N)

6.PS3: Energy

            1) Analyze the properties and compare sources of kinetic, elastic potential, gravitational potential, electric potential, chemical, and thermal energy. (D)

            3) Analyze and interpret data to show the relationship between kinetic energy and the mass of an object in motion and its speed. (N)

6.ESS3: Earth and Human Activity

             1) Differentiate between renewable and nonrenewable resources by asking questions about their availability and sustainability. (D)

            2) Investigate and compare existing and developing technologies that utilize renewable and alternative energy resources. (D)

7.PS1: Matter and Its Interactions

            1) Develop and use models to illustrate the structure of atoms, including the subatomic particles with their relative positions and charge. (G) (D)

8.PS2: Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions

           1) Design and conduct investigations depicting the relationship between magnetism and electricity in electromagnets, generators, and electrical motors, emphasizing the factors that increase or diminish the electric current and the magnetic field strength. (G)

            3) Create a demonstration of an object in motion and describe the position, force, and direction of the object. (N)

            4) Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence that the change in an object’s motion depends on the sum of the forces on the object and the mass of the object. (N)

             5) Evaluate and interpret that for every force exerted on an object there is an equal force exerted in the opposite direction. (N)