HABITS OF MIND IN THE SCIENCE LAB

Follow Laura Jane Linck’s Notebook

INTRODUCING LAURA JANE LINCK AND HER STUDENTS

This presentation is part of an ongoing series that follows a very special group of grade school students that attend Palm Beach Day Academy. With the help from Laura Jane Linck, they are using Habits of Mind in the classroom.

The results have been inspiring, and is a testament to both Laura Jane Linck and the students’ belief in Habits of Mind.

Our Essential Question

What does it mean to think like a scientist?

Returning to the Science Lab with our many new life forms...Our PERSISTENCE pays off!

As I had anticipated, we learned all about the proper PH and dissolved oxygen required to keep our new family alive as well as the amount of sun energy required to maintain our classroom ecosystem.

But, the biggest and best surprise came from my students PERSISTENT QUESTIONING AND DATA GATHERING.

The student’s PERSISTENCE

I can't believe it, what are they? Are they fish, animals, bugs, or germs?

What makes you think the things you see are alive? What does it mean to be alive....what do living things do...?" So we began our observations and data collections...

And the population of our Science Lab Grew and is Growing....

First came our mouse.

Then...donated turtles...

A Florida Tree Frog...

HARD WORK AHEAD How can we tell that all of these things are alive? Just what are they made of that makes them alive?

WE HAVE LOTS OF WORK AHEAD OF US! And so the observations began and the data Was recorded…Lots of work…messy… But so much fun.

The Happy Water Bug

Observations that were made from all of our hard work: Move, Eat….(Really take things in,Because plants don’t Eat!) Breathe, Give off Waste, Grow and Reproduce.

With the help of our PERSISTENCE andmicroscope we can tell that theseLiving things, like our happy Water Bug, are all made of cells.

The Student’s PERSISTENCEContinues

“What are cells?....I am just not FLEXIBLE ENOUGH IN MY THINKING to be able to picture myself being made of all of these tiny things..” It was then decided that more time was needed to think INTERDEPENDENTLY AND FLEXIBLY as they APPLY THEIR PAST KNOWLEDGE to this new idea of cells….“I remember how Mrs. Linck helped me to imagine it…last year we hatched chickens and we took the eggs apart to see how they work.”

What the students concluded

“ Remember the egg is a single cell, and that we are made of millions of cells that look like that.”

“Just BE CREATIVE AND IMAGINE it with your eyes closed. It is so much to wonder about.”

Let’s get a closer lookIn order to get a closer look at the chicken egg, the students did the following:

Dissolve the calcium carbonate shell off a chicken egg by soaking it in Vinegar.

After rinsing it carefully, the actual cell membrane can be felt, and looked upon closer.

“Just THINK FLEXIBLY and try to imagine…The outside covering is the cell membrane and the gooey stuff inside

is the cytoplasm…It even has a nucleus!”

Working Together

After a closer look, the students worked in small teams that were able TO THINK CREATIVELY AND FLEXIBLY about how our bodies are designed.

The purpose of the teams was to communicate their THINKING WITH CLARITY AND PRECISION as THEY QUESTIONED AND POSED PROBLEMS to each other.

"LET’S GATHER DATA THROUGH ALL OF OUR SENSES”

and take this egg apart...is the nucleus the yolk or is the nucleus the germinal disk, the little tiny white dot where the baby chick would develop if it were fertilized? We learned all about that when we hatched chickens. We learned so much and had so much fun we all can remember everything...isn't that amazing that we can remember everything so clearly and well. It must be because we were thinking interdependently. We really worked together and that made such a difference in how much we learned. I am just happy that I was able to apply my past knowledge of eggs to learning about me. It seems so easy now!

So Much To Share…."I am really trying to PERSIST, but I cannot figure out how, if a cell is a living thing, does it take in food and get rid of waste! How does the stuff get in and out without popping the cell membrane?

This is what I need to see in real life...this is the experiment I want to do...LETS WORK INTERDEPENDENTLY and create a plan..." Let's start with the egg that has the shell dissolved off and see what we can come up with!“ We can soak it in water and see if it gets fatter? We can soak it in salt water too...let’s try a bunch of stuff...

What The Students Learned

The sugar absorbed the water out of the cytoplasm...and the cell membrane did not pop! it is magic...no it is really flexible science because we PERSISTED and we are THINKING INTERDEPENDENTLY....don't forget STRIVING FOR ACCURACY, we are really doing a lot of that. I mostly use METACOGNITION because I can't figure this stuff out without THINKING ABOUT MY THINKING and what I already know.

More From The StudentsI get it I think...one of these cells works with a team of others to make a tissue like the bone marrow we looked at under the microscope. So you mean a bunch of tissues work together to make a whole organ, like a bone! Then a group of organs like all of our bones make our skeletal system. Oh, I don't believe it, it is like Lego....Living Lego Cells.... Then all of our systems work together and make us an organism...

I have to document this in my sensitivity sketchbook…Drawing and writing what I am Thinking about helps me to put all the pieces together…Mrs. Linck is right, it really does make our Thinking Visible…and once it is out there in front of us for everyone to see. We can move it all around until it makes sense…Then we put it back inside our head…Now I understand why it is so important to think about the way I think…I guess we are really being METACOGNITIVE…because we are in charge of what we understand.

Our Sensitivity Scketchbook

Documenting Our Journey Of Understanding

Cell, Tissue,Organ System….Me!