Open Your Activities

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Gavilan Peak School
Standards Based Science Fair
An A Program
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Overview

• Inquiry
• Standards Based Science Fair

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• If a single word had to be chosen to describe the
  goals of science education during the 30-year
  period that began in the late 1950s, it would
  have to be inquiry
• (DeBoer, 1991, p. 206)

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Inquiry is NOT equivalent to

• Problem solving
• Critical thinking
• Hands-on learning
• (But it is associated with these)

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Ways of Thinking Acting Associated with Inquiry

• Asking questions
• Planning and conducting investigations
• Using appropriate tools and techniques to gather
  data
• Critical thinking about relationships between
  evidence and explanation
• Constructing and analyzing alternative
  explanations
• Communicating results/arguments

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Defining Inquiry

• Exploratorium Institute for Inquiry (1996)
  developed the following definition Inquiry is
  an approach to learning that involves a process
  of exploring the natural or material world, that
  leads to asking questions and making discoveries
  in the search for new understandings.

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Levels of Inquiry Learning (Herron, 1971)

• 0. CONFIRMATION activity to confirm a concept
  with results known in advance.
• 1. STRUCTURED INQUIRY activity to discover a
  concept with a prescribed procedure.
• Recipe Style Lab
• FOSS kits
• 2. GUIDED INQUIRY students investigate a
  teacher-presented question using student-selected
  procedures.
• 3. OPEN INQUIRY students choose problems,
  design and conduct investigation

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Levels of Inquiry Learning
X boxes mean it was given to the student.
0. CONFIRMATION 1. STRUCTURED INQUIRY 2. GUIDED
INQUIRY 3. OPEN INQUIRY
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A focus on inquiry develops

• ALL of the Science process skills
• Understanding of the Nature of Science
• Creativity and Critical Thinking
• Planning skills
• Science Content

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The biggest problem is choosing a problem.

• Most challenging and creative aspect of science
• Choosing a problem that can be solved
• The formulation of a problem is often more
  essential than its solution.
• --Albert Einstein

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Which are good problems for a science fair?

• Why is the sky blue?
• What food do mealworms like best?
• Can I make a filter to clean water?
• How long will a candle burn before it goes out?
• How does the mass of a car influence its speed
  down a pine wood derby track?

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Goal Progress to Open Inquity

• What a child can do with assistance today, they
  can do on their own tomorrow.
• Vygotsky
• Parents as allies

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The Standards Based Science Fair

• 1st time in the world Gavilan Peak School May
  2004

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Problems of Traditional Fairs

• Judging
• Takes a lot of judges
• Weak inter-rater reliability
• Can be perceived as not fair
• K-8 setting students dont explain their projects
  to judges and answer questions
• Little or no judges feedback
• Students are compared to students
• A child does a great project but another does a
  little better. So first child does not get the
  award
• There are only a few winners
• Losing is discouraging
• Parents and mentors focus on producing a winning
  project and push it too far beyond student
  centered.

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The Standards Based Science Fair

• Students are not compared to each other but to
  the AZ state inquiry standards
• Many legitimate winners
• It puts the fair back into science fairs
• Students get opportunities to present their
  projects
• Specific feedback given to the students

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The GPS Standards-Based Science Fair

• Teachers hold mini Science Fairs in their
  classrooms
• Teachers evaluate all of their class projects
  using the rubrics
• Data collected and analyzed
• Teachers arrange to host and visit another class
• Ribbons will be provided
• Pure Standards Based
• No Best in Class Award
• No Student Choice Awards

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Interdisciplinary

• Can this project be used to develop and assess
  written and spoken language?
• Can this project be used to develop and assess
  math abilities?
• Can art teachers provide instruction on how to
  create attractive and effective display boards?

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Timetable

• Parents Night November 15, 2005
• Problem Statement (question) due
• Around the first week of December
• Suggestions for Project Due Date
• February 13 to 17th
• Science Day February 21, 2006
• Sharing between classrooms
• Parents Viewing
• Lots of great science events happening

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Meeting the Standards

• Different Rubrics
• Kindergarten
• Grades 1-3
• Grades 4-6
• Grades 7-8

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GPS SBSF WWW Site

• www.west.asu.edu/rillero/gps
• All the rubrics
• Science Fair resources that promote inquiry

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For more information

• Shannon Harshman
• 623-445-7468

• Peter Rillero
• Rillero_at_asu.edu
• 623-551-1889
• Lunch with grade level team

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Self-expression is the prominent necessity of
human nature.

• William Winter