Bugscope in K-5 Science Classrooms: Building Inquiring Minds Michele A. Korb, California State University - East Bay, Teacher Education Department

Umesh Thakkar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Acknowledgements  All members of the Bugscope team and the CSU Teacher Education credential candidates.

Introduction A National Science Foundation report coined the term “cyberlearning” and defined it as “learning that is mediated by network computing and communication technologies” (Borgman, et al., 2008, p. 10). The report suggests that for students to learn how to publish, author, and curate large volumes of data will require the skills of a data scientist. The report also calls for teaching new computational skills (Wing, 2006).

Bugscope, a cyberlearning project, welcomes students and teachers in K-12 and undergraduate classrooms from across the nation and around the world to remotely access and control an environmental scanning electron microscope in real time to study insects using a web browser on their computers. There is no cost to participate. Classrooms propose their own scientific investigation projects. Once projects are scheduled, classrooms can mail in their specimens. The images students and teachers acquire are their own authentic data. Each classroom session has a home page on the Bugscope website with links to all information connected to that session, such as classroom proposal, specimens used, and session transcript. The images are contextualized within the session transcript to facilitate later review. Between 1999 and 2009, there have been Bugscope sessions from over 500 classrooms from over 45 U.S. states. Students and teachers have acquired over 100,000 images. Bugscope is helping to facilitate an interest in scientific enterprise (Ray, et al., 2008; Thakkar, et al., 2000).

This poster represents a case study at California State University - East Bay where multiple subject preservice teachers participated in a Bugscope session as part of their science methods course.

Methods • One-hour Bugscope sessions were conducted in three separate sections of elementary science teaching methods courses, Fall 2009.

• 79 students: ages 22-52; 66 females, 13 males, 4 Asian, 4 Latino/a, 2 African-American, 61 Caucasian and 7 Other. All preservice teachers were teaching in grade school classrooms during this time.

• Trends in student ideas and critical thinking were collected from classroom experiences and assignments, reflections and presentations of content connected to Bugscope.

• Student activities included: Preparing drawings of an insect before and after the session.

Gathering background information on an insect of choice regarding habitat, physical features, life cycle & role in the environment.

Completing reflections on how to use Bugscope in the K-5 classroom, how to manage the Bugscope session and what the assets and challenges might be related to using a cyberlearning format in grade school science lessons.

Designing a presentation that demonstrated cross-curricular connections between science and other content areas (language arts, visual arts, mathematics) and imbedded images from the Bugscope session compared to their own drawings and observations.

Results / Data The preservice teachers in the study indicated the following applications of Bugscope to K-5 classrooms and the California State Science Standards:

Nature walks & insect habitats Insect & arachnid life cycles

Predictions of insect appearance Creative writing based on Bugscope images

Mathematical ratios/ magnification Compare / contrast insects & arachnids

Compare & contrast insect characteristics Identify misconceptions of insects in children’s literature

Scale & size relationships Insects in composting & waste reduction lessons

Discussion Conclusion:

Bugscope can be integrated in K-5 grades (Hadley & Korb, 2007). The preservice teachers were able to realize the impact Bugscope could have in their K-5 classrooms, while meeting California State Science Standards (in the areas of Content and Investigation & Experimentation).

Teacher Preparation:

•  Inquiry skills to design meaningful learning. •  Knowledge of science standards as they relate to Bugscope. •  Computer skills (such as internet use and live communication). •  Ability to adapt cyberlearning opportunities into existing curriculum. •  Models of good pedagogy that achieves the above mentioned skills.

Challenges:

•  Access to computers, confidence in using technologies. •  Classroom management –teaching strategies for the management of Bugscope session. The teachers have provided the following ideas for classroom management: Create stations where students can observe insects with hand lenses and dissection scopes prior to or after a session. Focus only on Bugscope in shorter sessions for several days. Submit some questions ahead of time to Bugscope experts for preparation or for follow-up to the live session.

Sample  of  California  State  Science  Standards   Images & Live Interaction with Bugscope Experts Provide   Corresponding Images  Grades K, 1 & 2 Content: Students know how to infer what animals eat from the shapes of their teeth; individual species have variation.

Inquiry and Investigation: Students make new observations when discrepancies exist between two descriptions of the same object or phenomenon; use hand lenses to describe detail.

•  Magnification from 40x-20000x of insects & arachnids

•  Answers to student questions in real time

•  Comparisons to insects drawing created with hand lenses reveal discrepancies & limitations in observations

Student drawing compared to fly image

Grade 3 Content: Students know plants and animals have structures that serve different functions in growth, survival, and reproduction.

Inquiry and Investigation: Students differentiate evidence from opinion and know that scientists do not rely on claims or conclusions unless they are backed by observations that can be confirmed.

•  Information on spider body structures and behaviors

•  Ways in which spiders benefit their environment

•  Images of adaptations that insects and spiders have to reproduce and survive

•  Identification of misconceptions concerning insects and arachnids

Spider spinneret and conceptions in literature

Grades 4 & 5 Content: Students know decomposers, including many fungi, insects, and microorganisms, recycle matter from dead plants and animals; know organisms have specialized structures for transport.

Inquiry and Investigation: Follow a set of written instructions for a scientific investigation; record data by using appropriate graphic representations and make inferences based on those data.

Full text of California State Science Standards: http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/sciencestnd.pdf

•  The importance of insects and arachnids in ecosystems

•  Images of structures such as spiracles and tracheae with scientific explanations of their functions

•  Information for learning stations designed to foster inquiry and observational skills

•  Visual and textual information for students to include in graphic organizers, science notebooks and in charts to show relationships between images and information gathered

Spiracle of a katydid

Leafcutter Ant

References Borgman, C. L., Abelson, H., Dirks, L., Johnson, R., Koedinger, K. R., Linn, M. C., Lynch, C. A., Oblinger, D. G., Pea, R. D., Salen, K., Smith, M. A., & Szalay, A. (2008). Fostering learning in the networked world: The cyberlearning opportunity and challenge. Report of the National Science Foundation Task Force on Cyberlearning.

Hadley, K., & Korb, M. (2007). Through the Bugscope. Science and Children, 45(1) 29-31.

Ray, A. M., Conway, C., Thakkar, U., Wallace, C., & Robinson, S. J. (2008). “What does that hair do?: Remote-access scanning electron microscopy and the Bugscope project.” American Entomologist, 54(4), 232-234.

Thakkar, U., Carragher, B., Carroll, L., Conway, C., Grosser, B., Kisseberth, N., Potter, C. S., Robinson, S., Sinn-Hanlon, J., Stone, D., & Weber, D. (2000). Formative evaluation of Bugscope: A sustainable world wide laboratory for K-12. Paper presentation at the Annual Meeting of American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.

Wing, J. (2006). Computational thinking. Communications of the ACM, 49(3), 33-35.

Students observing insects with hand lenses and microscopes in preparation for a Bugscope session

http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu

2010 Annual Meeting, 18-22 February, San Diego