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Science: Language of the Universe On February 8, 2006, the Lake Country Community gathered for a parent education evening. Four staff members, one from each level, gave talks about science in the Montessori environment.
Introduction | Children's House | Elementary I | Elementary II | Junior High
by Paulette Zoë Tonight’s event centers on the world of science. Speaking for myself, and perhaps for many of you, working with children in a Montessori environment, or any environment for that matter, has not only broadened my definition of science but piqued my interest in it as well. Children are natural scientists asking questions, observing, exploring, discovering, drawing conclusions, but one of the greatest skills that children bring to their scientific endeavors is their ability to just listen to the world around them and let what it says to them guide their interests and passions.
Maria Montessori recognized and honored children’s need for silence. In the development of her materials, Montessori created many opportunities for children to value the silence necessary in order for them to hear the language of the universe as it speaks to them, and for them to listen to the dialogue the universe creates within their own developing minds. Giving children the opportunity to listen to the universe is what we can offer, not only in a Montessori environment but also throughout a child’s scientific endeavors.
In Richard Louv’s book, Last Child in the Woods, many examples are given for how to help children connect with the natural world. One activity he describes, “The Sound of a Creature Not Stirring,” is suggested for wandering through the woods, listening for things that cannot be heard—sap rising, an apple ripening, leaves changing color, and dew on the grass. This activity requires not only silence but also imagination, a sense of wonder, and the ability to be present to the here and now. These are qualities that all children bring to their work and things that we, as adults, can learn well from them. Susan Stafford, Dean of the College of Natural Resources at the University of Minnesota, reminds us, “In the long run, it hardly matters if we’re a master naturalist or can’t tell a mushroom from a milkweed. Research shows it’s simply the time spent with a child outdoors that will make the difference.” So as you listen tonight to what we will share with you about your children’s experiences with scientific discovery across the levels of our school, we hope that you will take with you a sense of the world that surrounds us and of the many ways it speaks to us, in its own language, each and every day.
Science at the Children's House Level by Elisabeth Raasch
Recently I overheard an older child remind a young boy to wash his hands after blowing his nose. The older child said, “Remember that particles of mucus are still on your hands.” Obviously this child takes to heart Ms. Melom’s annual Grace and Courtesy lesson on “how to blow your nose” where fascinating detail is given about the germs contained in these particles of mucus. This lesson and others like it are part of the Montessori album, “The Exercises of Practical Life,” but in Children’s House 3 this important lesson about the contagions inside the human body could be interpreted as science.
Three to six-year-old children encounter some aspect of science on a daily basis—in the classroom, at home, and in nature. This subject serves as an exploration that evolves from the reality surrounding the child observing live animals in the classroom, snipping violets in the garden, or finding an abandoned bird’s nest on the way to school. Children often come back from family vacations with fresh ideas to investigate. Traveling to a different biome might lead a child to learning about animals that live in the desert or the rainforest. Children are so eager for information about plant life, animal kingdoms, weather systems, the human body, and geography nomenclature. The possibilities for exploration are endless.
The goal in offering science curriculum to a child at the Children’s House level is to begin with something real, something the child can touch, hold, smell, even taste. Opportunities for these lessons happen spontaneously and quite often from the interests of the child. In an article about botany card material, Maria Montessori’s son, Mario, wrote, “Are not ‘What is its name?,’ ‘How is it called?’ the continuous questions of the three-year-olds when something new comes to their notice? Evidently, there is some inner urge at work, some inner interest which leads the child, almost from birth, to explore his environment.” From this curiosity comes observation.
Sensorial exploration is vital at this stage and only after these experiences can children relate to an abstract representation of a concept. On the very first day of school many children bring a carefully chosen plant to offer the environment. We show the children how to care for their plant. They water it; they wash its delicate leaves, prune it when necessary, and observe its growth. They may observe what happens over time when plants are watered over, and over, and over again. They might also see the results of our lonely plants left in the classroom over the long winter break. Many children bring a maple leaf to school that is a vibrant shade of orange or red that they find on the way to school in the fall. We may look carefully at its shape. The child could do a rubbing from that leaf and study the veins. The child can study other leaf shapes with the botany cabinet.
Through the experience of caring for an animal in the classroom, a child has the opportunity to observe what it needs to eat and drink, how it moves, and its behaviors during the day. The child may want to study the parts of a turtle, bird or fish. We can offer classification cards for different animal kingdoms. Recently some of our older children spent an entire morning studying the different kinds of fungi from card material from that kingdom. This led to a Research Center visit to get more information to add to their chart.
Dr. Montessori found that the child had an insatiable hunger for words and the names of things. She also found that adults were hesitant to offer memorization of nomenclature for young children, but this is exactly what children of this age were asking for—memorization. The names for these experiences become the children’s tools—tools to order and classify this information in a comprehensible way. Children can communicate with others about what they know.
It is vital to realize that Montessori education is an approach to life beyond the confines of the prepared environment. It was Dr. Montessori herself that said, “A child has to live naturally, not simply have the knowledge of nature.” The child must experience, explore, and reflect on all aspects of the world of science.
In the Discovery of the Child, Montessori writes, “Set the children free, let them have fair play, let them run out when it is raining, take off their shoes when they find pools of water, and when the grass of the meadows is damp with dew, let them run about with bare feet and trample on it; let them rest quietly when the tree invites them to sleep in its shade; let them shout and laugh when the sun wakes them up in the morning, as it wakes up every other living creature which divides its day between waking and sleeping.”
Science in Elementary I by Anne Schuerger Following the Children’s House comes the elementary plane of development for ages 6 through 12, described by Montessori as “the age of the reasoning mind.” The questions of the child change subtly from What? and Why? to How? and What if? The child not only comprehends what is, but also what might be, through the growing powers of imagination. To meet the developmental needs of children of this age, Montessori laid out the plan of work called Cosmic Education.
Cosmic Education offers the child, from the age of six, a framework on which to build up an integrated understanding of the universe. It is a framework built first of story, then of experiments, then impressionistic charts that isolate and illustrate key concepts. From the start this plan of work is rich in the practice of scientific thought: observing carefully and thinking deeply. Let me give you some examples.
We begin each year with the first cosmic fable, The Story of the Universe. It begins with the concept that human beings have always wondered about the world around them. What is it made of? How does it work? The story introduces the elements that make up our world: rock, water and air. The creation of these elements are possible because the particles of matter obey the laws that they were given. The child is called upon to think simply and clearly about matter.
The story is accompanied by experiments, which the children come to perform themselves. They dutifully try—and consistently fail—to plunge their hand into a rock. (Particles of a solid bind tightly together.) Colored water is shown to reliably take the shape of any container (and, of course, to run freely down…. and need to be wiped up.) Tiny droplets of perfume borne on the back of the gases of our atmosphere are measured to cross the classroom from bottle to nose in mere seconds. (Molecules in the gaseous state are free to move about.)
With the practice of each activity, the child is building a knowledge base linking experience, observation, and reason. No small feat, really.
I want to take a precious moment to share with you an article from the National Science Teachers’ Association journal, March 2004, entitled Newton’s First Law: Not So Simple After All.
This was a study of third- and sixth- grade students, introduced to Newton’s First Law of Motion—a body at rest tends to stay at rest… It followed a typical lesson plan format: each child in a classroom of children were given a penny and were asked to set the penny on the table and observe it for at least 30 seconds and up to 90 seconds. The teacher then asked the children for their observations, expecting, of course, to guide the group to an articulation of—a body at rest tends to stay at rest.
Interestingly, the NSTA study reported that at least half of the third grade students reported that their penny moved while sitting untouched on the table. Some reported that it got bigger or smaller. Others reported that it spun in circles. Interesting, isn’t it? They reported, “At least half of the students insisted that the penny moved as they watched and were not surprised by the implication of things moving by themselves.”
I think it’s important to emphasize that our young elementary-aged children are engaged rightfully in the important work of maturing and refining their abilities to observe: to command their body for movement as well as stillness and attention, to perfect fine motor skills for manipulating objects, to integrate visual-motor coordination, and to observe accurately, trust their observations, and to think deeply about them.
The experiments that accompany The Story of the Universe serve this purpose well. They are simple and clear. They attune the mind and body to the coordination of observation and thought. No small feat, really.
Of course, there is much more to say about the science work in the elementary level. The Story of the Universe introduces the fact that matter exists in three states and that state is dependent on temperature. There follows a set of experiments for this concept: the children freeze water, thaw ice, boil water, melt wax. But here, also, we meet another important tool: the impressionistic charts. These are simple charts that appeal to the child’s imagination to explain a scientific concept.
For example, one impressionistic chart shows how, from the primordial chaos, the surface of the earth cooled and eventually a crust was formed with the waters settling into the hollows. Particles follow the law that, when they are hot, they expand and rise up. When they cool, they contract and fall. The angels on the chart represent the movement of air: when it is hot it rises, and when it cools, it falls back down to earth. This image serves the children through work with the three states of matter, formation of rock in geology, properties of the atmosphere, and into the study of weather and wind patterns. Just the other day a group of students acted out the basic air circulation from low pressure at the equator to the poles. A child said, “Remember the angels!” and danced his way up from the surface of the earth to the stratosphere and fell back down. Such is the power of the impressionistic charts.
Other major threads in Elementary I science work continue and extend the work of Children’s House science. Botany and zoology study continues. Children revel in the diversity of creatures and delight in their eccentricities. We guide their studies and reports to consider the life functions of each creature, observing carefully how each creature is adapted to its place in the web of life. Simple classification schemes lead to the consideration of more and more complexity as the work continues into Elementary II.
Science in Elementary II by Zoe St. Mane For the last two years, groups of students in Class F have participated in a mini-science fair event, concentrating on using the scientific method for experiments. It is the right time to talk of hypothesis, variables, observation, results and conclusions. It is the right time to find out about, to read, to study, and to write about the why. It is the right time to design experiments, to formalize presentations, to chart, and to graph results. Science at the elementary II level is about the scientific method—the nature of science and the never-ending search for answers.
An article titled “Science and Children” states that “The nature of science is really an active way of learning. Students can become investigators and solve problems like scientists. When students become active citizens, it can help them make better personal and public decisions. When science classrooms mimic what scientists do, it is more likely to have an impact and be remembered. The nature of science doesn’t have to be dull, dusty, and academic—it is human and dynamic.”
The nature of a Montessori classroom is all about investigating and solving problems like scientists, regardless of the topic of investigation. Recently for the science fair, two students exemplified this approach to their work. They chose electricity for their topic and set about gathering wire, alligator clips, bulbs, and batteries, all the materials necessary for an experiment on electricity. They created a circuit and lit the bulb as they had done at another time. They found a picture on a science book showing how a lemon can conduct electricity. So a lemon came to school and the experiment was set up, but the bulb did not light. They hadn’t considered forming a hypothesis because they had seen the photo of the lemon working on the book cover. They found the step-by-step procedure and tried again, confident that this time it would light, but it still did not! We discussed the variables but nothing mattered; the bulb would not light. The students did not give up! They read that they could try to light the bulb with salt water, so they tried, more salt, less salt, other variables, hot water cold water. Nothing lit that bulb. Was it the bulb? Was it the wire? Each day they proceeded to enter the process of lighting that bulb with greater and greater determination. The bulb did not light. There was a time element to consider, they decided to make a circuit board to light when a president and vice president were matched. (One of the students is an ardent political scientist.) This was not a real experiment but a good demonstration nevertheless. They set up the board, asked a friend to test it and the bulb lit! But on further observation, all responses lit the bulb no matter the match. All of the wire had been stripped to create circuits wherever. When it was rewired with the proper insulation wire, all was well. There was research to do and a presentation to make. At that same project on Tuesday, with many student visitors, more experimentation and more ways to make the light bulb light happened. “Science is a never-ending search for answers.” And I noticed today, that the experiments continued.
Students, given possibility and opportunity, become thinkers, problems solvers, questioners, investigators, researchers, reporter and designers, etc. In Montessori elementary classrooms, cosmic education is the opportunity offered to students to approach all their learning as a scientist does. The nature of science is really an active way of learning.
Our curriculum is Cosmic Education. The first Great Lesson in a Montessori elementary classroom is the Story of the Birth of the Universe, a grand and encompassing story that stimulates curiosity and interest that becomes a desire to know. The Latin root for science is to know. What story could be more magnificent? What story could awaken awe and wonder and admiration? What happened when the first light burst forth into the unimaginable Darkness? It is the genesis of the universe, the place of earth in the total picture, the laws governing substances, actions and reactions, separating and commingling, what was necessary for the preparation of the earth for life, the function of all creatures within the universal picture, the place of humanity in the world and universe. The aim is to give the first sparking of the interest in a way that the child cannot help to want to find out more: without anti-matter, no matter could have survived; the vast patterns of butterflies and snowflakes, of running water, the laws governing the universe.
Then follows the Great Lesson of The Coming of Life. Each creature has its gift to give, its job to do, its place in the order of the universe. The Great Lesson of The Coming of Humans may include the story of finding Lucy or of Mary Leaky, who spent her life in pursuit of the “missing link” of human ancestry, finding, by accident, the footsteps of Laetoli. It is the reverence for the hard work of those scientists who spend their lives in pursuit of their ideas and dreams. The botanist who has tucked away in his drawer a fossil of the first flower. It is the Great Lesson of The Story of Letters: the murex shell can be crushed to make an awesome purple dye. And it was the Phoenicians who carried this dye throughout the Mediterranean Sea along with the first alphabet. The Great Lesson of The Story of Numbers: it was Eratosthenes who first measured the earth and who devised a sieve that revealed the prime numbers.
Recently I discovered a book called The Five Biggest Ideas in Science. The Great Lesson stories coincide with the author's concepts of science’s big ideas. Astronomy’s Big Bang theory. It presents to us the interdependence of all we aspire to know, and we are part of that beginning. The Physics model of the atom, seeing the unseeable: protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks and kaons and hadrons. Protons are positively charged, negatively charged electrons circle the nucleus much as the planets circle the sun and we can make a model or draw this. Chemistry’s Periodic Law of sorting and classifying the elements. The protons in the nucleus of each atom organize the elements. There are l06 today and more elements are being created in laboratory settings. They are so unstable they exist for mere seconds. Maybe you will create 107 in your laboratory. Geology’s Plate Tectonics Model explains how earth is constantly changing. Geologists have only penetrated about 12 kilometers of the Earth’s 6,000 plus kilometer radius, but they have a pretty good idea of what is inside. They know plates crashing into one another created the Himalayas. And Biology’s theory of the evolution of Life’s beginnings and its branching out. “Biology is the study of every kind of living thing on Earth. Of ordering and classifying species that are similar. That we are all animals but there is only one Limulus polyphemus (Horseshoe crab) and it lived at the very beginning of the Cambrian and is still alive today. These are very the ideas told in the stories of the Great Lessons of Cosmic Education.
Look around the elementary environments. Notice the work your children are interested in, the kinds of questions they ask, the research they do, and the charts they draw. Cosmic education is the nature of science and it is the curriculum of science and it is all-encompassing and awe-inspiring. When students actively engage in what inspires and interests them, when they are presented with the wonder of the universe and all it holds to satisfy their intellect, when they begin to understand the interdependencies of our world, when they begin to understand their place in the order of things, then they can begin to identify what gifts and contributions they can make to our universe.
Science in the Junior High by Doug Alecci On one level, Montessori education is about observing, questioning, exploring and consolidating. A child observes and is introduced to the Timeline of Life. The child asks questions and explores the material. The material opens the child to new questions and new explorations. The child begins to consolidate an understanding of the miracle of evolution through time. The scientific method at its core is about observing, questioning, experimenting and concluding. The student scientist observes macro-invertebrates in a stream. She asks a question about why they live where they live. She collects data and uses background knowledge to find a possible answer to the question. The student scientist draws conclusions and generates more questions based on the data and her background knowledge. The parallels between the Montessori method and the scientific method are evident. Maria Montessori was a physician, an educator and a scientist. Her “method” of observing the child, designing materials and evaluating their effectiveness, was educational research and science at its best. Maria Montessori created materials and environments infused with science for the Children’s House, Elementary I and Elementary II child. She did not create materials for the adolescent. She did, however, give us direction. Maria Montessori once said, “The secret of success in [education] is found to lie in the right use of imagination in awakening interest and the stimulation of seeds of interest already sown.” Montessori education is about passion. Providing children with an environment that keeps their love for learning and life and their interest in the world and the universe alive is a key element of what Maria Montessori believed.
Our Junior High program tries to provide an environment and a breadth of experience that promotes interest, enthusiasm, and passion for science, the universe, and how it all fits together. The Junior High program operates on a three-year cycle. We start each year with a 15-day Odyssey. The primary goal of each Odyssey is to begin building our community for the year. We accomplish this goal in a powerful way. The Odyssey is also a hands-on kickoff to our academic year. Each Odyssey has a science theme that flows into our first topic of the year. This year we experienced and studied the geology of the Badlands, Wind Cave, and Black Canyon National Parks and more. Our first topic back at school was geology. This year we also study astronomy, ecology, cells and life processes, and we end the school year with a plant study field experience. Next year the Odyssey East science focus is on weather, phenology and the science of the 17th and 18th centuries. At school we will study motion, forces, and energy; heredity, genetics and evolution; weather and climate; chemistry; and we end the school year with a stream study field experience. Year three begins with a marine biology focus on the Odyssey South. During that year we study the five (six) kingdoms of life; magnetism and electricity; waves, sound and light; human physiology; and we end with an animal study field experience. Over the course of our three year study of science, we continually revisit some of the “big ideas” in science: plate tectonics, organization of the universe, cycles and recycling, organization of life, cell theory, gravity, climate change, atomic theory, electromagnetic energy, evolution, and chemistry’s periodic law.
The science work of the Junior High also incorporates eight important inquiry skills, which are observing, inferring, predicting, classifying, modeling, communicating, measuring, and calculating. The classroom work of science includes lessons, labs, activities, projects, science reading and assessment. All of this work is designed to support the development of scientific background knowledge, scientific thinking, and inquiry skills. In our laboratory work the elements of experimental design and the scientific method are practiced. We pose questions; we develop hypotheses; we control variables; we form procedures; we interpret data; and we draw conclusions. We study science and we do science.
Finally, Maria Montessori believed that adolescent students should study and grow in the context of a land-based and a farm-based experience. She wrote about this in her Erdkinder essays. The development of the Lake Country Land School is a dream come true for the Junior High science program. It is a 160-acre learning laboratory for science. It has given us a real world environment for ecology study, bird study, bee keeping, maple sugaring, prairie restoration, habitat management, gardening, animal care, and more. Through the Land School we have connected with the concept of citizen science, contributing data to real scientific studies at Cornell University and the University of Minnesota. The possibilities for student explorations in science are many and powerful. Laurie Ewert-Krocker, the lead teacher at the Hershey (Pennsylvania) Montessori Farm School, put it this way, “Our intuition and experimentation have told us all along that if the students see a purpose to their study, an immediate relevance to acquiring knowledge and skills, their level of engagement in the study will be high.” The Lake Country Land School provides us with limitless opportunities to explore the realm of science. It is the capstone of the Junior High science program.
These articles were presented at the February 2006 parent evening and excerpted in the Spring 2006 issue of the Lake Country School CourierLCS Home Page > Parent Resources > Articles > Science: Language of the Universe