Many who have started to actively engage with the New York State Science Learning Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards have recognized the importance (and challenge) of teaching with phenomena. Finding good phenomena with which to anchor lessons and units is hard!! This post will offer some tips on finding phenomena based on work that I’ve done with teachers over the past few years.
Some background (from Using Phenomena in NGSS-Designed Lessons and Units) Natural phenomena are observable events that occur in the universe and that we can use our science knowledge to explain or predict. By centering science education on phenomena that students are motivated to explain, the focus of learning shifts from learning about a topic to figuring out why or how something happens. Explaining phenomena and designing solutions to problems allow students to build general science ideas in the context of their application to understanding phenomena in the real world, leading to deeper and more transferable knowledge.
The process of developing an explanation for a phenomenon should advance students’ understandings. If students already need to know the target knowledge before they can inquire about the phenomenon, then the phenomenon is not appropriate for initial instruction (although it might be useful for assessment). Students should be able to make sense of anchoring (unit-level) or investigative (lesson-level) phenomenon, but not immediately, and not without investigating it using sequences of the science and engineering practices. With instruction and guidance, students should be able to figure out, step by step, how and why the phenomenon works.
Not all phenomena need to be used for the same amount of instructional time. Teachers could use an anchoring phenomenon or two as the overall focus for a unit, along with other investigative phenomena along the way as the focus of an instructional sequence or lesson. A single phenomenon doesn’t have to cover an entire unit, and different phenomena will take different amounts of time to figure out.
Tips for Finding Phenomena
- Use readily available online resources. I like to start here just to get some general ideas. Some of the more well-known resources are Paul Andersen’s The Wonder of Science website, NGSS Phenomena, #Project Phenomena. Sunrise Science is a blog that lists these sites as well as a host of others. I’ve found that while these provide a great starting point for generating ideas, they are not always EXACTLY what I need for a lesson or unit.
- BBC videos – but turn off the sound. I also recommend becoming an avid watcher of BBC Nature programs like Planet Earth I and II, Blue Planet, Frozen Planet, etc., as well as other documentaries and websites (which I often find on Facebook). These provide a wealth of high quality nature-based phenomena. Once I locate a video, I like to show it to students with the sound muted, a strategy I learned from a HS science teacher who works with English language learners in Los Angeles. The main reason for turning off the sound for the first viewing is two-fold: 1) It allows students to take an active role in sense-making (figuring things out) without being told the answer by the narrator (who often explains what is happening while you are watching); 2) It allows students to focus on only one sense at a time (sight) rather than being bombarded with both language (sound) and sight which may be difficult for them to process simultaneously. Not until students are ready to research more deeply into the phenomenon do I consider replaying the video with sound.
- Find the phenomenon that’s already hiding in your lesson. Oftentimes, flipping the sequence in which a lesson is taught is the easiest way to create a phenomenon-based lesson. For example, a 4th grade teacher with whom I work wanted to have students explore a roll-back can in which a can is rolled on a table and then unexpectedly rolls back to you, similar to the one here. She searched far and wide for a phenomenon to introduce the task, but then realized that the can itself could serve as the phenomenon. Students generated observations and questions about the can and then proceeded to investigate the cans themselves. Much of Chemistry and Physics labs can be previewed to students as a demo at the start of class to help them generate questions. Students can then explore in lab groups and test variables/variations to address their questions. Thus, you oftentimes don’t have to look very far for a phenomenon – it can be lurking in your lesson somewhere waiting for you to pull it out.
- Go outside and keep it local! The most powerful phenomena are culturally or personally relevant or consequential to students, grounded in real world contexts or designing solutions to science-related problems that matter to students, their communities, and society. Long Island is renowned for its natural beauty (not just strip malls). We have lakes, hills, rivers, forests – all of which need protecting. What better way to have students solve problems and make sense of phenomena than to take them outside into the schoolyard and plant native plants to support dwindling pollinator populations (e.g., native bees, Monarch butterflies) or understand the relationship between sewage and nitrification of our bays (fish kills makes a great anchor phenomenon). Your current students will likely be voting members of society in less than a decade from now…what kind of citizen do we want to send out to society?
Designing phenomenon-based lessons can be challenging; however, it also provides opportunities to engage students more deeply in explaining relevant phenomena and solving problems that urgently need their attention. We as science teachers have the privilege of shaping the direction society takes towards addressing these problems.