Systems are Essential

- by Elizabeth Laine

Elizabeth Laine is an eighth grade science teacher at Noble Middle School, Berwick ME. Systems provides a cohesive thread for her teaching and forms the backbone for her curriculum. Through this approach, she has seen students become more independent thinkers.

I teach eighth grade science to 115 students. I am one of four science teachers in our seventh and eighth grade middle school. Classes are 52 minutes each. The school district is defined as being rural, encompassing three towns with almost 50 % of the student body receiving free or reduced lunch. The school district administration mandates the full implementation of the Full Option Science Systems (FOSS) program K-8. Science teachers in the middle school are encouraged to augment and revise the teaching units as needed to better support national and state science standards. Units are revisited by the science department throughout the year, with revisions developed using Curriculum Topic Study (CTS, Keeley, 2005). The three specific FOSS units I am required to teach include Chemical Interactions, Planetary Science, and Populations and Ecosystems. For the upcoming year we are also implementing a STEM sequence at both grade levels in the middle school. Since participating in the EaSiE project, I also teach a Weather and Climate unit, developed through my work with the EaSiE project cohort.

I initially enrolled in the EaSiE project because it sounded like a great opportunity for summer professional development in an area of high personal interest. Even though I did not specifically teach a weather and climate unit, I was interested in figuring out a way to squeeze in the content. Entering my fifth year of teaching, I was having difficulty finding a cohesive thread for my curriculum. I also noticed I was having troubling engaging in relevant and well supported professional development. The EaSiE project idea grabbed my attention because I really liked the idea of the ongoing science curriculum development while working with a multi-state cohort. I was particularly interested in the three year length of the project, the emphasis on creating systems minded curriculum, and the use of real time data to support student learning and engagement. All too often I have participated in professional development opportunities that provide great ideas, but lacked ongoing support and follow up workshops. The great ideas collected during these previous workshops simply collected dust along with all the other initiatives and proposals tossed my way. Working within a group of teachers dedicated to ongoing curriculum development and bringing strategies from outside my district as a way of gaining perspective and insight seemed like a perfect fit for my professional development doldrums. However, I was initially concerned about joining the project because my specific curriculum did not line up with the project proposal. Fortunately, with support from the district administration, I was encouraged to submit an application.

With the help of the cohort we created several systems specific lessons. I have found these lessons especially beneficial. I use these lessons as an introduction to the eighth grade year. I begin the teaching year by riding my bicycle (which has been stashed in a closet) into the room. The bicycle as a system lesson begins with establishing some vocabulary, such as system, subsystem, input and output. From there we discuss how the bicycle is a system made of many subsystems. There are specific sets of questions students work at answering in small groups. The class discussion flows easily as we talk about other types of systems, what makes one system similar and different from another, etc. Assignments vary from year to year, but usually students bring in “systems” from home and present brief Show & Tells about their systems. We usually go for a walk around the school property looking at and documenting, in their scientist notebooks, living and nonliving systems. The options for activities are almost endless. As an assessment I provide each student with a clicky pen. During the assessment, students identify possible inputs, outputs, subsystems, etc. This being their first assessment of the year, it is a great morale booster, as there are so many possible responses. After these introductory lessons, lasting approximately one and a half weeks, the integration of the systems thinking is seamless, and we merge more easily into the various required curricula for the year.

Students also start the year collecting real time Gulf of Maine buoy data to use later in the year for weather and climate projects. The midyear weather and climate projects involve understanding the forcing factors that control climate and weather and how Maine’s climate and weather compare to other climates around the country. These lessons involve the purposeful use of data demonstrated in a final project of their choice. This mini-unit is based on the input and work developed by the cohort. The integration of the weather and climate unit at the midyear works to easily merge the concepts into the planetary science unit on the reasons for the seasons.

Reflection
When I think back to the concerns I had about incorporating the EaSiE project lessons into my curriculum, I realize how much I have grown professionally due to the project. In fact the thread I was looking to weave throughout my teaching was established due to my participation with the EaSiE project. I knew I needed to create a more unified process in my teaching. It was clear to me that if my thinking was more systematic, surely my students would benefit. Though I always understood the importance of systems thinking, the purposeful integration of the systems lessons developed by the EaSiE cohort helped me build a greater foundation for student learning in every area of our districts science curriculum, not just earth science. Not only do I often refer to the ideas established in those first systems lessons, but my students rely on the concepts as the back bone of their thinking throughout the year. The initial bicycle lessons immediately engage the student. More importantly the lessons establish systems thinking as a concrete way of showing how earth, space, and physical sciences are part of one another and allow students to create meaning and sort and make connections. Middle schoolers struggle with the chaos occurring in their brains, but when students understand that input from one system affects output elsewhere, they are making cause and effect relations like real scientists.

Due to my involvement with the EaSiE project I have reevaluated the way I teach. I find that since I am more streamlined in my method, my students are able do more independent thinking. I have noticed my students are better able to think through a problem with simple prompts or reminders. Students are more facile with data and have a greater appreciation for the importance of using data to the support conclusions they wish to make. I now have my students make connections on a big wall size “systems connection” poster. Every time students makes a connection from one unit to another they draw a line linking the two units and write down the connection they made on the line. By the end of the year my students can see the giant messy web they created and how involved all the sciences are with one another.

Due to the success of the introductory systems lessons in my classroom, both seventh and eighth grade science classrooms at NMS will start out the year using variations of the systems lessons established during the EaSiE project. We are working on creating a science department that makes fewer distinctions between what is seventh and what is eighth grade curriculum. The ability to see the whole while teaching the parts is a professional standard we are working toward. The EaSiE project has given me a greater voice in this process.

Keeley, P. (2005). Science curriculum topic study: Bridging the gap between standards and practice. Thousand Oaks CA: Corwin Press.