LIBE+463+Assignment+1

=Assignment #1=

ScientificProcess and Skills:
It is expected that students will:
 * manipulate and control a number of variables in an experiment
 * apply solutions to a technical problem (e.g., malfunctioning electrical circuit)

Diversity of Life
It is expected that students will:
 * demonstrate the appropriate use of tools to examine living things that cannot be seen with the naked eye
 * analyse how different organisms adapt to their environments
 * distinguish between life forms as single or multi-celled organismes and belonging to one of five kingdoms: Plantae, Animalia, Monera, Protista, Fungi

Electricity
It is expected that students will:
 * evaluate various methods for producing small electrical charges
 * test a variety of electrical pathways using direct current circuits
 * demonstrate that electricity can be transformed into light, heat, sound, motion, and magnetic effects
 * differentiate between renewable and non-renewable methods of producing electrical energy

Extreme Environments: It is expected that students will:
 * explain obstacles unique to exploration of a specific extreme environment
 * assess technologies used for extreme enviornments
 * describe contributions of Canadians to exploration technologies

**Link to Curriculum Document:**
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**Rationale for Curriculum Selection:**
I have chosen to analyze our library collection with specific respect to Grade 6 Science curriculum for a variety of reasons. Firstly, I wanted to choose a curricular area that I am familiar with and have experience delivering to students, which my previous 4 years of teaching Grade 6 gives me. Having experience delivering the curiculum will help me to assess if resources are a good match with the curriculum and if they can be incorporated effectively into the learning process.

Secondly, the current B.C.Ministry of Education Catalogue of Resources for the Grade 6 Science (2005) curriculum shows that no new items have been added to the list of approved resources since 2005. This leaves a 7 year gap in which a variety of new resources may have been produced and which might be a good fit with the curriculum. The same catalogue also doesn't reflect the fact that new forms of digital resources have recently come into use including: websites, computer programs, apps, and video clips. These digital resources are often a good fit with science curriculum as they can provide clear visuals and demonstrations to help clarify complex concepts and processes; their visual and interactive qualities often make them a good compliment to the text based resources that are already in use. Exploring and assessing digital resources also fits with my school's current mandate to increase the use of technology in instructional practice. I have also just had a Smartboard installed in my classroom and it is my goal to add digital tools to my instructional toolkit.

I have also choosen to focus on this science curriculum as I have noticed some gaps in realated resources at my school. The first gap is that there is a lack of information and resources related to teaching the Extreme Environments section of the curriculum. Grade 6 teachers often comment that it is the most difficult part of the science curriculum for them to teach because they are unsure how to make it "hands on" or "interesting." I think that the solution to making this part of the curriculum engaging to the students is to make it inquiry based and to offer them some options in terms of what extreme environment they would like to learn about. The problem with this method is that we don't feel we have access to an adequete amount of information and resources to undertake an inquiry based approach to this portion of the curriculum. The second gap in our science resources is that there are few resources to specificly help teachers tackle the Process and Skills aspect of the curriculum, which I think tends to get overlooked instead of mindfuly taught. The third gap is one of providing updated material. Science is a quickly changing subject and our learning resources should reflect these changes as much as possible. I am curious to explore the best ways to keep scientific information as updated as possible while taking into consideration the often restricted budgets of school libraries.

Finally, I hope to be able to evaluate our fiction section for any links to the grade 6 science curriculum. Lucy Avraamidou and Jonathan Osborne (2009) argue that communicating and exploring scientific concepts through a fictional lense can help students make and maintain curricular connections more easily than if they were presented solely in non-ficiton formats. They argue that it helps make the science content more "meaningful, relevant, and accessible" (p. 1704). If I am able to find stories that help students better retain scientific information it would be very rewarding as it would connect both the ideas of reading for learning and for pleasure into one. I think that taking an interdisciplinary approach is always useful by helping students to revisit concepts and ideas more often in turn allowing them to better be able to cement learning concepts.

References: Avraamidou, L., & Osborne, J. (2009). The Role of Narrative in Communicating Science. // International Journal Of Science Education //, // 31 //(12), 1683-1707.

B.C. Ministry of Education (2005) Science Grade 6, From Integrated Resource Package 2005. Retrieved from []