Beyond Science Standards: Play, Art, Coherence, Community

(Paperback)

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Beyond Science Standards captures a vision of science education both whimsical and serious. Ranging across examples from elementary to university level classrooms and grounded in philosophy and history, the stories address dimensions beyond the realm of bureaucratic standards. Its thesis brings into question the premise of scientific unity and its representation in school as notions of method, process, nature, and practice. Schools, no less than the sciences, profit from playful explorationof musical instruments in fourth grade physical science, for example, and hotel lobby decorative rock in a college geology course. Aesthetic expression permeates geologic interpretation and evolutionary insightin depicting dentition, for instance, in the history of the horse family and linking this history to changing landscapes. Participating in collecting local, high altitude weather data enhances trust in climate science, especially when the observations benefit the local farming community. Allied with historical examples of the conduct of science, Beyond Science Standards offers the reader inspiring stories of science teaching, varying from place to place, time to time, discipline to discipline, and purpose to purpose.

Reviews

A lifetime of science teaching culminates in this authors rich collection of storiesfilled with intrigue and insight. Reading this book will forever elevate ones appreciation for science and to fully recognize its presence in every dimension of human experience. -- John Settlage, Professor, Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut, Co-editor, Science Education
Science Standards have their place, but the search for common practices, core ideas, and crosscutting concepts carries the liability of homogenizing scientific disciplines and losing their rich diversity. As a geophysical researcher, I studied the tectonic development of the Andes with practices and techniques that had little in common with those of a geneticist searching for mutations responsible for Parkinsons disease. Through stories of scientific discoveries basic and profound in Beyond Science Standards, Kip Ault embraces the diversity of scientific disciplines and celebrates how science educators can guide their learners to sample that diversity while using the touchstones of play, art, coherence, and community. -- Robert Butler, geophysicist, Professor Emeritus, University of Portland
Beyond Science Standards gives you the feeling you are talking with the author in his class. In concise and clear language, Kip Ault explains how to think like a geologist even when the rocks you study are in a hotel lobby. Using stories, experiments, and observations, he makes explanations vivid and understandable. -- Chen Lijuan, doctoral student, Beijing Normal University
As I read Beyond Science Standards, I found myself smiling, remembering my days as a middle school science teacher, trying to navigate the dual complexities of science and teaching, while trying to foster a classroom in which kids felt safe to explore, tinker, and feel joy at asking and answering questions. I realized that my enjoyment of the book came from, the stories of actual classrooms and real kids and their teachers genuine efforts to do good work. The stories nicely illustrate the joy, messiness, and wonderful reality of science classrooms. As a reader, you feel transported into these spaces, eagerly awaiting updates about the students and the science. Rarely are people, including researchers, given such a whole picture of daily classroom life. Rather than the atomized examinations of a single feature of classroom life, this book takes a panoramic perspective, inviting readers to experience the sights, sounds, and smells of classrooms.This book illustrates how classrooms can become special as the teachers and students enjoy working and learning together. If nothing else, know that I am now drifting off into nostalgic memories of John J. Pershing middle school in Houston, where I taught students who are now doctors, musicians, dancers, lawyers, and realtors. What we shareour classroom experiencesare nicely captured in this book. -- David Stroupe, PhD, Associate Director for STEM Teacher Education in the CREATE for STEM Institute and Associate Professor of Teacher Education, Michigan State University
It is easy to think of modern natural science as an experimental, laboratory-based and sometimes algorithmic undertaking. Beyond Science Standards tackles that perception head-on, engaging and prompting readers to engage in the rich diversity of scientific thinking and methodology across contexts and disciplines. Charles Kip Ault demonstrates convincingly how scientists use their imagination to engineer systematic methods of inquiry that respond to the questions they ask, rather than relying on a singular, algorithmic method. Not only does the books central thesis demonstrate how the natural sciences can be made inviting to a much broader spectrum of people, it also illustrates why a broader perspective on the natural sciences is necessary to address many of the wicked problems we face as a global community. -- Marianne Achiam, Associate Professor of Science Education, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Pesky Pillbugs is a great chapterI feasted on it before starting my work emails this morning. I love the juxtaposition of high-level thinking/rigor with whimsy. Kip Aults notion of guiding imagery is actually the main workhorse of our Embryology unitwe found that images capture the imaginations of our bilingual, emerging scientists. -- Sunny Sue Chang Jonas, EdD, Assistant Principal, Chicago Public Schools

Author Bio

Charles R. Ault, Jr. (Kip), professor emeritus, Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling, coordinated the schools Master of Arts in Teaching program for science teachers for more than two decades. Kip began his career teaching primary grades and middle school science in Connecticut and Colorado. Author of Do Elephants Have Knees and Challenging Science Standards, his writing reflects an interest in paleontology and the value of subject diversity in the reform of school science.