Nicole Casasa-Blouin
Abstract
With a relevant challenge and scaffolds to support their inquiry, elementary students become engaged investigators and challenge-solvers.
After noticing pine trees on our school campus had roots sticking up out of the ground, my 4th grade students at Gerald E. Talbot Community School investigated to explore whether this is harmful to the trees. They learned when a tree’s roots are exposed it could, indeed, possibly hurt the tree. They further investigated to learn why the tree roots were exposed and they made a plan to fix the problem.
Figure 1
What Students Observed
Literacy was integrated with science. Students investigation was for an authentic purpose. They created and revised models, and organized their inquiry with individual and collaborative visuals.These learning components kept my Portland, Maine public school students engaged, excited and wanting to go deeper in their learning.
The more students were involved in investigating, the more they became curious and motivated to investigate additional phenomena.
To launch this science unit, students created a T-Chart with I Notice and I Wonder on each side. As they spent time outside investigating the tree and the roots, they recorded on the T-Chart what they saw and what questions they had
Figure 2
T-Chart
This routine is low stakes for students and is easily accessible to most language and learning abilities because students can use words, pictures, and symbols to record their thinking. Once done listing observations and generating questions independently, students shared their thinking with each other and then the class, which furthered their understanding and curiosity of the phenomenon.
Supporting Students’ Discussion
Participating in class discussions is an important routine in our science lessons because it allows students to access prior knowledge and teach their peers new vocabulary words, like pine needles, pine cones, tree trunk, and tree bark. Pairing these two routines, T-Chart writing assignment with conversations, is especially helpful to encourage more students to participate in discussions, supporting their growth in effective verbal communications.
I have found that establishing strong class community norms, with predictable routines and strategic scaffolds, encourages even my most hesitant or reluctant students to participate in class discussions because it limits or removes language barriers or anxiety over perceived lack of prerequisite knowledge (Windschitl, Thompson, & Braaten, 2018).
Making Thinking Visible
To further explore this phenomenon, students then created an initial model to make their thinking visible and hypothesize why the tree roots were exposed.
As students investigated, researched, and learned more, these models were revisited and revised to reflect students’ more thorough and complex understanding of the phenomenon. This simple, yet powerful routine supports students’ curiosity and understanding of the scientific principles being explored (Windschitl,Thompson, & Braaten, 2018). The students’ continuing investigations led to their understandings about erosion and that when trees grow on a hill’s slope, erosion can occur, leading to exposed tree roots.
Figure 3
Student’s Model Showing Developing Understanding of the Phenomenon
Driving Question Board
To help navigate our way through the unit, we used a Driving Question Board, which provided organization and structure to students’ investigation.
Figure 4
Driving Question Board
As noted in The Driving Question Board: A Visual Organizer for Project-Based Science by Weizman, Shwartz and Fortus (2008), there are advantages to using organizational tools such as question boards to support students in making sense of phenomena. Inquiry organizers based on students’ questions help students make connections between activities and the anchoring phenomena/ focus question, help organize learning into a road map for students, scaffold students’ practice of asking questions, develop student ownership of the content, and build class community.
This board was added to throughout the unit, as students’ developed more questions based on their investigations, noted their answers to previous questions, and noted their thoughts on what they could do to help remedy the situation. Deeper learning skills of critical thinking and creativity for challenging solving were developed and strengthened.
A Related Phenomenon?
The more students were involved in investigating, the more they became curious and motivated to investigate additional phenomena. Early in the unit, while students were investigating the exposed tree roots, they noticed there were broken pieces of tar and cement eroding from the sidewalk. I prompted students to think and discuss whether these two phenomena (exposed tree roots and broken pavement) could be related.
As a result of that discussion, students posed the question “What could be causing the path to break?” They hypothesized that students playing or walking on the path could be responsible, so the next day we went outside and investigated further.
Students developed more questions based on their investigations, noted their answers to previous questions, and noted their thoughts on what they could do to help remedy the situation.
As students walked around, they noticed that their feet could in fact break apart more pieces of tar from the sidewalk, as well as the topsoil from the tree roots. We added this new knowledge under the “What we figured out” part of our Question Board and students recorded this information by revising their models. Through class discussions, students developed the next question to: “Can other things cause dirt to wear away and expose tree roots?”
By allowing students to develop their own questions and investigations, they become real, authentic scientists motivated to discover more. Also, because this phenomenon was observable in our community, students’ curiosity was sparked and they were highly motivated to learn more about the problem and solution.
Teacher as Facilitator
The teacher’s job then becomes to provide supplemental resources such as texts and videos, to help guide students’ answers to these questions. For example, we read aloud Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Novela, where students not only learned about a real person identifying a problem, developing a solution, and making a difference in her community, but also were first introduced to the idea and negative impact of erosion. Students were then able to synthesize this new learning into their previous ideas, which helped guide them to the next investigation question, “How can we help?”
Advocacy Service
Once students understood the impact the slope of the hill, and walking and playing next to the trees had on eroding away the topsoil and exposing the roots, they wanted to find a solution. Through reading, watching videos, and class conversations, students learned about Best Management Practices (BMP) recommended by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and explored the school grounds for evidence of these in action.They then developed a proposal to make a mulch bed to help protect the tree and its roots.
The plan was for students’ inquiry to move towards advocacy service, with students creating a proposal for a mulch bed, and then eventually transitioning to direct service. We ran out of time and had to move on to the next unit, but the plan was to revisit and complete this project in the spring. Since then, a tree house has been built around one of the trees.
Next time it will be really powerful for students to write persuasive letters to local gardening stores explaining the local problem and their proposed solution.The letters would ask for donations of mulch and materials.
While students conducting investigations based on their questions might feel overwhelming or unfamiliar at first, teachers will soon see the positive benefits, as students take ownership of their learning by leading and moving the unit forward, with the teacher gently guiding them toward the necessary science and literacy. If the lesson does not go well, for example, if you find students are not generating the questions needed to move forward with the unit, or there are many misconceptions and misunderstandings of the content, remember to be flexible and patient.
It can be helpful to refer back to the Driving Question Board to remind students of what they have learned and discovered and prompt them to reflect on how newly presented information might fit into what they know so far. This will help you, as the teacher, think of different ways to reteach the content (George Lucas Educational Foundation, 2016).
Launching a literacy unit integrated with science through investigating a phenomenon, creating and revising models, and using a Driving Question Board are particularly powerful tools for keeping students engaged in and excited about their learning.These processes support students, not only in acquiring knowledge but using their knowledge and understandings for challenge-solving.
References
Cornell University Cooperative Extension (n.d.).Surfacing tree roots.http://rocklandcce.org/resources/surfacing-tree-roots
George Lucas Educational Foundation. (2016, November 1). Grappling with real-world
problems. Edutopia.
https://www.edutopia.org/practice/solving-real-world-issues-through-problem-based-learning
Weizman, A. Shwartz, Y., & Fortus, D. (2008, November).The driving question board: A visual organizer
for project-based science. The Science Teacher, 75(8) http://groupapblmedt7464.weebly.com/uploads/4/7/5/8/4758204/the_driving_question_board.pdf
Windschitl, M., Thompson, J., & Braaten, M. (2018). Ambitious Science Teaching. Harvard
Education Press.
Appendix A
Background Information
This unit was taught during 2020-2021, over the course of five weeks. We had two cohorts rotating between in-person and remote learning. Students engaged in the tree roots inquiry when attending school in person, which was two days a week, for a total of about ten content literacy lessons. Of the twelve students in the class three are identified as having special needs and seven students are identified as English Language Learners (ELL).
Appendix B
Are Exposed Tree Roots Harmful?
Exposed tree roots may become a problem for the trees as well as for the gardener – wounds on the roots caused by mowers and other equipment can allow diseases to enter the plant. Roots that encircle the trunk can strangle the tree. In that case, large branches will die and the tree loses health (Cornell University Cooperative Extension, n.d).
Tree Roots Phenomenon is adapted from the author’s blog post, Organized Inquiry – and Service
Nicole Casasa-Blouin is a 4th grade teacher at Gerald E. Talbot Community School in Portland, Maine. This is her seventh year teaching at Talbot and she is passionate about integrating content into her literacy instruction. Nicole Casasa-Blouin can be reached at blouik@portlandschools.org.