Cheryl Lydon, science coordinator for Denver Public Schools, hands teachers seeds and sections of trees and asks how one became the other.
“Where did the stuff come from that turned that seed into a tree?” she asks the teachers, who are gathered to learn about the district’s new science curriculum.
For the first time, DPS has a district-wide, coordinated science curriculum – teaching kids ranging from kindergarteners to fifth-graders major concepts such as astronomy, biology and geology through a hands-on approach.
Last week, teachers assembled at the Denver School of the Arts to learn about the curriculum to be introduced to half the students in the fall and the rest next spring.
As for how plants grow – even Lydon, who has a biology degree, only got the answer half right.
She thought it was nutrients in the soil and water.
Technically, a seed becomes a seedling by absorbing water and nutrients in the soil. Then, photosynthesis takes over when the stem pokes from the ground, converting light energy to chemical energy by combining carbon dioxide from the air with water and sunlight.
These are among the lessons Lydon hopes DPS elementary school students can learn from the new curriculum, Science Tracks. The need comes as the state has begun testing fifth- and 10th-graders in science on the Colorado Student Assessment Program. Eighth-graders have been tested since 2000.
This year, half of Colorado students scored proficient or better in the subject. But in Denver, 75 percent of students scored below proficient in science.
“If we do it in elementary school and get them proficient at doing science, they’ll go into middle school really prepared,” Lydon said.
Administrators hope early knowledge about science will create more critical and analytical thinkers later in life.
“There is a need for adults to be more math-literate and literate in science to know how it all works,” said Cathy Martin, the district’s director of math and science.
American students trail most industrialized nations in science scores, finishing 19th out of 29 nations in international testing, according to the Center for Education Reform.
Science Tracks has hands-on lessons that teach by doing rather than out of a textbook.
The curriculum will instruct students on the “big concepts” of science, Lydon said – including lessons about life cycles, weather systems, earth materials, electrical systems and physical and chemical properties.
“Many of the strategies that students use in science are the same strategies that they need to do in their reading,” said Sandy Stokely, a first-grade teacher at Ellis Elementary School in southeast Denver. “It lets students know that by taking notes, asking questions, they are doing science.”
