Activities aim to hook kids on science

By Venice Buhain | The Olympian • Published August 12, 2007

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TUMWATER - With "satellite towers" made of everyday objects leaning precariously in one room, finger and shoe prints laid out in another and random circuit boards in a third, it looks like chaos, admitted Dawn Hosni, who runs Camp Invention, a weeklong summer camp.

But it's science, she said.

"The underlying theme is problem-solving," she said. "Identifying a problem in everyday life, and how to go about it in the scientific method."

Students need to be turned on to science, state educators say, with the subject as a part of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning at each grade level and an emphasis on teaching the subject in the elementary school through college levels in the Washington Learns report. The report recommends beefing up math and science education so students will grow up to be competitive in the job market.

Emphasizing science through inquiry-based learning is one way to engage those students, educators say.

"It's about the kids doing science, using the habits and mindset of the scientific method," said Vicky Lamoreaux, director of career and technical education in North Thurston Public Schools. She recently led a committee that recommended a new inquiry-based ninth-grade textbook for freshman science classes.

Inquiry is one of three "Essential Academic Learning Requirements" identified by the state as an important part of science education, but the scientific method plays a big part in the state's standardized tests.

"There's a number of the scenarios that you find on the WASL that ask students to think deeply and ask about the scientific process," said Jon Wilcox, Tumwater Middle School principal, who also is on the district's committee to develop its science power standards.

The district is teaming up with scientists from the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to encourage classroom teachers to think like working scientists, Wilcox said.

Continuum of inquiry

Lamoreaux said inquiry-based science education can take "the five E" approach: "You engage, explore, explain - so they have some knowledge about it - elaborate and evaluate."

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