Lesson Study within a Community of Practice: In-school Professional Development

Official Journal of the Irish Science Teachers’ Association Eol-Oidí na hÉireann, Volume 49, Number 1, Nov. 2013

SCIENCE

SCIENCE Vol. 49, Number 1, Nov. 2013 1

Contents

Cover picture: Rowan berries (and apomixis)The colourful rowan berries enhance the autumn. The fruit may be red, orange, yellow, pink or almost white. The rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) belongs to the Sorbus genus, which is one of about fifteen genera of the Rose family. It is also commonly called the mountain ash; it is unrelated to the ash but its leaves are superficially similar.Although it may produce normal seeds it also commonly produces seeds that are genetically identical to the parent plant, i.e. they are clones. This kind of reproduction (called apomixis) does not involve either normal meiosis — the reduction division of chromosomes — or fertilisation. As a result, small variations that may occur when it produces normal fruit are not readily mixed back into the rowan gene pool — giving rise to dozens or even hundreds of microspecies In winter the berries form a significant part of the diet of many bird species (e.g. thrushes, or waxwings when they occasionally overwinter here). Rowan berries contain parasorbic acid which is somewhat toxic. They are safe to eat when cooked (the parasorbic acid changes to sorbic acid — hexa-2,4-dienoic acid) and may be used to make jam, jelly or wine. There’s more to rowan berries than meets the eye.

Chairperson’s Report Mary Mullaghy 3

Dates for Diary 6

President’s Letter Charles Dolan 7

Siobhan Sweeney — PCI Science Educator of the Year Mary Lee 8

Joseph Reville 1951 – 2013: An appreciation John Daly & Siobhan Sweeney 9

OECD Skills Outlook 2013 Rory Geoghegan 10

Inquiry-Based Science Education – how effective is it? Declan Kennedy, 11

Musings Ian McCulloch 15

Zooniverse – Real Science Online Siobhán Sweeney 16

A report on Frontiers of Physics 2013 Seosamh Ó Braonáin 17

Junior Cert science is too easy – on every level Irish Times Reprint 18

Children Acting Like Scientists Maeve Liston 19

Weight and mass — a perpetual challenge for science teachers Randal Henly 21

IT notes Edel Morrow 22

In-school Professional Development Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin 23

The Science of Food for Transition Year Maeve Liston 26

Are we all alone? Paul Holland 28

Chemistry Corner John Daly 29

The longest day Paul Holland 30

CROSSWORD Randal Henly 32

www.ista.ie2

Council Executive Association President: Charlie Dolan, Senior Personnel Representative, Eli Lilly, Cork [email protected] Chairperson: Mary Mullaghy, 26 Bailis Manor, Athlumney, Navan, Co. Meath. [email protected]: Stephanie Leonard, Intermediate College, Killorglin, Co. Kerry. [email protected] Secretary: Maria Sheehan, St Caimin’s Community School, Shannon, Co. Clare [email protected]: Yvonne Higgins, Magh Ene College, Bundoran, Co. Donegal [email protected]: Paddy Daly, 9 The Spa, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary. [email protected] Treasurer & Web Liaison Officer: John Lucey, ‘Copsewood’, Rock Road, Mallow, Co. Cork. [email protected] Secretary: Dr Declan Kennedy, Department of Education, UCC [email protected] & Communications: Mary Mullaghy [email protected] Editor of SCIENCE: Rory Geoghegan, 49 Seamount, Booterstown, Co Dublin [email protected] Science Quiz Coordinator: Mary Mullaghy [email protected]

Branch RepresentativesCork: Sarah Downey-Fogarty, Coláiste Muire, Crosshaven, Co Cork [email protected]: Sean Finn, 32 Old Avenue, Glanmire, Co. Cork. [email protected]: Mary O’Brien, 16 Clachan Mór, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal. [email protected]: Seosamh Ó Braonáin, Wesley College, Ballinteer, Dublin 16 [email protected]. Dublin: John Daly, 13 Valeview Ave., Cabinteely, Dublin 18. [email protected]: Brian Smyth, 53 Weirview Drive, Stillorgan, Co. Dublin. [email protected]: Rory Geoghegan, 49 Seamount, Booterstown, Co Dublin [email protected]: Aine Clarke, Calasanctius College, Oranmore, Co. Galway [email protected]: Una Moroney, Intermediate College, Killorglin, Co. Kerry. [email protected]: Stephanie Leonard, Intermediate College, Killorglin, Co. Kerry. [email protected]: Anne McGrath, 21 Dara Park, Kildare Town [email protected]: Eimear Guilfoyle, Tully West, Kildare [email protected]: Aodhagán Ó Súilleabháin, Heywood Community School, Ballinakill, Co. Laois [email protected]/Clare: Maria Sheehan, Tonlegee, Kildysart, Co. Clare [email protected]: Catherine Murphy, Loreto College, Cavan [email protected] Midlands: Irene O’Sullivan, Moate CS, Moate, Co .Westmeath [email protected] Midlands: Seamus Ó Donghaile, Lios Dubh, Cluain na gCloidhe, Co. Roscomáin [email protected]: Lorna Davey, Na Caisil, Drumiskabole, Ballisodare, Co Sligo [email protected]: Paddy Daly, 9 The Spa, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary. [email protected]: Paula Hewison, De La Salle College, Waterford City, Co. Waterford. [email protected]: Sean Fogarty, Rocklands, Hempfield, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford. [email protected]

Editorial TeamEditor: Rory Geoghegan, 49 Seamount, Stillorgan Road, Booterstown, Co. Dublin [email protected] Editor for Biology: Siobhán Sweeney, Blackrock College [email protected] Editor for Chemistry: Mary Mullaghy, Eureka Secondary School, Kells [email protected] Editors for Physics: Richard Fox, Wesley College, Ballinteer, Dublin 16 [email protected]

Seosamh Ó Braonáin, Wesley College, Ballinteer, Dublin 16 Assistant Editor for Primary Science: Dr Tom Mc Cloughlin, St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra [email protected]

Eol-Oidí na hÉireannIRISH SCIENCE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION


Chairperson’s ReportMary Mullaghy

Dia daoibh a chairde. It was with great sadness that I heard of the accidental death of a former National Chair-

person and aficionado of biology Joe Reville. A well-known personality, author of several textbooks, Joe was a dynamic biology teacher. I first encoun-tered him as a younger teacher working in Terenure College where his enthusiasm was infectious, and I later met him as an active member of ISTA. He will be greatly missed by everyone. John Daly and Siobhan Sweeney have written a fitting tribute to him in this issue. Ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann.

On another personal note I wish to convey my sincere thanks to all my friends and colleagues in the ISTA for helping me through a turbulent time in my life with the death of my Dad last May. Friendship doubles our joy and divides our pain – Swedish proverb.

Science Educator of the Year 2013 Effective teachers are filled with passion, ideas and energy and have a high work ethic. They make great team leaders and problem solvers because they are good communicators and have great vision and flexibility to embrace challenge and change. I am delighted that one such per-son was the latest recipient of the PharmaChemical Ireland Award. Siobhán Sweeney, a member of the Dublin Branch, is such a pioneering teacher and inspir-ing person and I am privileged to be her friend. Mary Lee, a former PCI recipient herself, has written a very fine tribute on behalf of the ISTA.

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear ResearchIn August I spent a day in CERN at the invitation of our friends in Institute of Physics of Ireland. As a chemist I was a little apprehensive, but I was pleasantly surprised at how acces-sible physics was made by the team at CERN. It is great that Francois Englert and Peter Higgs won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physics for their research into the Higgs boson particle nicknamed the ‘God Particle’. Mission Higgs, the CERN travelling exhibition will be at UCD Science Centre October 9th – 28th. To book a school

tour contact [email protected] and as part of the RDS Speaker Series, Prof Eilam Gross from CERN will give a talk entitled: ‘How the Higgs Boson was discovered - the inside story’ on Nov 25th. Free but advance booking essential. Full details on www.ista.ie

Senior Cycle Syllabi & Junior Cycle ReformsAt both Senior Cycle and Junior Cycle, subject development groups have been set up by the NCCA. The ISTA have teachers on all these teams representing the views of our members. The Committees are meeting over the coming months.

Circular Letter 0047/2013: Adjustments to the Leaving Certificate Chemistry Syllabus Full details of the changes were sent to all schools in September and are also available on our website. In summary:

In section 7.3 of the syllabus (Organic Chemical Reaction Types), students will continue to test the properties of an alde-hyde and a carboxylic acid as previously specified, but will not prepare them as both experiments involve oxidation using a chromium (VI) solution. The two organic oxidations involving a chromium (VI) solution are being replaced by the preparation of benzoic acid from phenylmethanol by oxidation using potas-sium manganate (VII) in alkaline conditions. This is being introduced as a new experiment.

In section 7.4 of the syllabus (Organic Natural Products), the steam distillation of an organic substance is being adjusted to specify the extraction of clove oil and to include the liquid-liquid extraction of eugenol from the emulsion produced using cyclohexane. This does not introduce any new theory. The extension of this experiment will make up for the reductions in the mandatory experiments in sections 7.3 and 8.2.

In section 8.2 of the syllabus (Le Chatelier’s Principle), in-vestigations of three aqueous equilibrium mixtures are being replaced by an investigation of one aqueous equilibrium mix-ture. The two aqueous equilibria that are being discontinued involved chromium (VI) and cobalt (II) salts.

These adjustments are effective from September 2013 for all students who will sit the Leaving Certificate Chemistry examination in 2015 and thereafter.

www.ista.ie4

ChemEd-Ireland 2013On October 19th Limerick Institute of Technology will host ChemEd and this year’s theme is ‘New perspectives for chemistry teaching’. The speakers include:

Dr Fiona Desmond, Chief Examiner for Leaving Certificate Chemistry Professor Mike Lyons, Trinity CollegeDr Maria Sheehan and Mick O’Callaghan, Science Trainer for PDST Dr Peter Hoare, Science Outreach, Newcastle University Dr Declan Kennedy, UCC

Workshops & Demos: A choice of two from the following: Molecular Modelling and Environmental chemistry activities. The New Mandatory Experiment 7.5: Oxidation of Phenyl-methanol to Benzoic acid will be demonstrated.

Citizen Science and SunSpotterThe School of Physics, Science Gallery and the School of Education in Trinity College Dublin will be visiting a number of schools around the country to run workshops called SunSpotter, a new citizen science project that will enable students to readily identify and characterise sunspots in NASA satellite images. This information will then be used to help predict solar storms and their effect on Earth. The visit will include a brief talk on citizen science as well as careers in science and the educational resources of the Science Gallery. Students will then take part in the Sun-Spotter project using iPads, which will be provided. To make best use of these limited resources, preference will be given to schools in the same area that submit joint applications, allow-ing the team to visit a number of schools on the same day. To register go to www.ista.ie

AMBERAMBER (Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research) a new SFI funded centre, will be launched on October 24th. It will provide a partnership between leading researchers in material science and indus-try. CRANN and the Trinity Centre for Bioengineering jointly host AMBER in Trinity College Dublin, working in collaboration with the Royal Col-lege of Surgeons in Ireland and University College Cork. The centre will translate science into new discoveries and devices for the ICT, medical devices and industrial technology sectors.

School Chemistry Newsletter Competition The Institute of Chemistry of Ireland together with The Society for Chemical Industry, Ireland Section, and The Irish Science Teachers’ Association, sponsors the Schools Chemistry Newsletter Competition. This competition is open to all second level students who are interested in Chemistry. Entrants must submit a 4 × A4 Newsletter, suitable for the

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non-scientist, explaining clearly and accurately the significance of any aspects of chemistry in an engaging, informative and easily intelligible manner. The theme for this year is “Teenag-ers’ Perceptions of Chemistry”. Closing date Friday 20th December.

Irish Laboratory Awards 2013The Irish Laboratory Awards were launched to promote and celebrate the leading people and companies in the world of Science. Science is worth 50 billion to the economy and em-ploys ~50,000 in Ireland. The shortlist for the Awards has been announced and they will have their national profiles raised just by making the Final, as they will receive coverage in the Irish Inde-pendent. The winners will also take away a beautiful trophy, which will be presented at the Awards ceremo-ny on Tuesday 3rd December. The comedian Neil Delamere will act as host on the night. These awards were also open to all secondary schools and advertised on the ISTA website. All ISTA members were also alerted about them by email in August.

ISTA Senior Science QuizThe Regional Finals of the ISTA annual Senior Science Quiz will take place during Science Week at 7.30 pm on Thursday 14th Novem-ber nationwide. Once the volunteer facilitators in the various venues have been contacted, the application form and full details will be emailed to all members, as this is a Members only event. The finalists from the various venues will then be invited to the National Final on Saturday 30th November in Trinity Col-lege, which will be hosted by Ms Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin. Cur-rently a PhD candidate in the School of Education in Trinity College researching Mathematics Education, Aoibhinn continues to be involved in science education presenting The Science Squad on RTE 1 and is currently working with Dr Shane Bergin on DART of Physics.

DART of PhysicsAt ‘Designs for Learning 2012’, Dr Shane Bergin from Trinity College won the top prize for his initiative that aims to put interac-tive physics content on public transport which can be accessed through the commuter’s smart-phone. By working closely with PhD student and RTE presenter Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin and Colette Murphy from the School


X Factor for Scientists - I’m a Scientist get me out of here

I’m a Scientist is a free online science enrichment project, X Factor style competition for scientists, where secondary stu-dents are the judges. It’s coming back to Ireland for the second time this November 11th – 22nd. Students read the scientists’ profiles, ask them questions and have live online (text) chats with them. Students then vote for their favourite scientist to win €500 to spend on science communication. All teachers are sent a Teacher Pack with lesson plans and a science debate kit, to help introduce students to the event and reduce the lesson planning required. Sign up at: http://imascientist.ie/teachers

Pumped school science competitionStudents are asked to prepare a 90second video on a health topic that shows their understanding of the topic and the science behind it. The prize is €5000 for school science budget. Initial registration is Monday 21st October and vid-eos must be uploaded by Monday 2nd December. Full details on www.pumped.ie

ISTA Annual Conference 2014The 2014 Annual Conference will take place in NUI Galway on 11th-13th April. Some guests invited to date include:

Prof Elaine Fox (University of Oxford), Prof Jim Al Khaili (University of Surrey),Prof Martyn Poliakoff (University of Nottingham),Prof David Smith (University of York), Prof Philip Walton (NUI Galway),Prof David Grayson (Trinity College Dublin),Prof William O’Connor (University of Limerick),Prof Donal O’Shea (UCD & Royal College of Physicians) and Humphrey Jones author of The Frog Blog.

Once all the details are finalised, members will be emailed with the Registration Form and full Programme of events..

Le dea-ghuí, Mary Mullaghy. (ISTA National Chairperson)

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of Education, they aim to bring the beauty of physics to daily commuters. The initiative is to be rolled out in October with thanks to funding from Science Foundation Ireland and Intel. For more info, follow them on twitter @DARTofPhysics.

Maths Monthly Challenge – STEPS programmeJunior Cycle students can take part in the Monthly Maths Challenge and be in with a chance to win and be named Mathematician of the Month. Each month, simply work out the answer to a maths question and fill in your details online. All correct entries will be entered into a draw to win a gift voucher worth EUR100. The October question is online now at http://bit.ly/10zDQE6.

Professional Development Service for TeachersThe PDST teams are on the road again in October and November delivering Induc-tion Courses in Physics and Chemistry as well as Master-ing the ABC’s of Assessment for Learning in Biology and embedding an Investigative approach into Transition Year and Junior Science topics. There will also be Resource workshops in Physics & Chemistry coming on stream. Check www.ista.ie for details.

ICASE 2013 (International Council of Associations for Science Education) The World Conference on Science & Technology Educa-tion took place in Kuching in Borneo. ISTA is a founding member of ICASE. My personal highlights were Prof Eric Mazur from Harvard who spoke on Peer Instruc-tion, Dr William McComas who gave an entertaining presentation on Exploring Evolution: Mechanisms, Myths, Darwin & Galapagos and Dr Alan Finkel whom I had the pleasure of introducing. An engineer, neurosci-entist, entrepreneur, philanthropist, current Chancellor of Monash University and President of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and yet he still has time to be founder of Cosmos magazine and be the first Australian to secure a seat aboard Rich-ard Branson’s Galactic spaceflight. The week before the conference he was in the USA training for this expedition and visiting Google headquarters and yes it is apparently similar to the film The Internship! He spoke about Stile education, a collaborative learning tool similar to School-ogy, which was rolled out by the PDST Chemistry team last year. http://www.stileeducation.com

www.ista.ie6

Dates for Diary 32nd ChemEd-Ireland: Saturday 19th October in

Limerick Institute of Technology [email protected]

Science Week Ireland: ‘Exploring the XTRA Ordinary’ 10th – 17th November www.scienceweek.ie

ISTA Senior Science Quiz Regional Finals: Thursday 14th November 7.30pm nationwide.

SciFest 2013: National Final SciFest National Final 2013 — SciFest@SFI/DSE — will take place in The Science Gallery, Trinity College, on 22 November 2013. See www.scifest.ie/national-final for details of the exhibitors and their projects.

PDST: Biology, Physics & Chemistry teams are on the road with Induction Course and Resource Workshops in October and November. www.pdst.ie & www.ista.ie

Record Number of Entries in SciFest 2013 5368 students presented 2262 projects

Local: SciFest@School 2012/2013 Science fairs held in 22 schools 2322 students presented 941 projects More than 60 teachers participated More than 200 prizes awarded

Regional: SciFest@College 2013 Science fairs held in 14 ITs and University of Ulster 3490 students presented 1519 projects 398 teachers from 233 schools participated 129 SciFest trophies and more than €3700 in prizes awarded Additional trophies and prizes awarded by each IT and UU

ASE UK 2014 – Annual Conference January 8th -11th University of Birmingham. http://www.ase.org.uk/conferences/annual-conference

BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition: 50th Anniversary January 8th – 11th RDS www.btyoungscientist.com

SciFest 2014: Entries The closing date for entry to SciFest@College 2014 is Friday 7 March 2014.

ISTA Annual Conference 2014: April 11th – 13th NUI Galway www.ista.ie


President’s LetterCharles Dolan

Dear Member,Welcome back to the new academic year. I hope that you had a chance to top up

your vitamin D levels as a result of the great Irish summer we have had and you are looking forward to the year ahead.Recently the ISTA celebrated its 50th birthday and it was very important to both celebrate and mark that event, because there are a limited number of professional organisations that survive for that length of time. The ISTA survival has been based on the hard work of those gone before us and their vision for the future on behalf of you the members. However as in life nothing stands still and it is important that the ISTA plan for the future. With that in mind a survey was circulated in May of last year seeking your feedback on the organisation as it exists now and what you would like to both see from it and benefit from it by your membership. There has been a response rate of 23% and a very sincere thank you to those members who took the time to fill it out.

For the record 60% of the respondents had less than 10 years’ memberships while the remaining 40% had in excess of that and over 30% of respondents were from the Dublin area. This information should give a broad spectrum of views from you, the members, and help us plan to meet your needs into the future. It is planned that a first interpretation of the survey will be discussed at the December Council meeting and decisions on future plans will progress from there.

As is always the case, there have been a number of review bodies working through the summer and I want to make you aware of some of them and their work.

Sean Sherlock has set up a STEM working group with the expectation that they will report back to him on responses that industry can become involved in, so as to facilitate the teaching of STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) into the future. The committee have only met twice and there has been a meeting with industry representatives in the recent weeks. At the industry meeting there were representatives from the majority of industrial sectors, many of who are already actively involved so I would be very hopeful that practical, workable solutions will be presented to Minister Sherlock in their final report.

Another topic which is being worked on currently is that of apprenticeships in Ireland. Historically apprenticeships have been very construction and

manually orientated with 23 listed apprenticeships. Obviously as a result of the downturn in the construction sector there has been a sharp decline in the numbers of apprentices (from 8000 in 2006 to just 1200 in 2012). However this drop off is now showing its effects as skills shortages are appearing in many of these areas.

This review is not just focused on the trades, as they exist currently, but is looking at the broader field of occupations that may fall within the remit of apprenticeships / professional internships, including looking at examples from other countries of what has been successful. The review is also looking at the overall governance structures — how should the whole sector be funded and how should the education and training be provided and by whom. Having had personal experience of the value of the apprenticeship model for good students who did not want to go to 3rd level, I am delighted to see this review taking place as I believe that this form of training has its place along with that provided by 3rd level institutions in certain occupations and employment sectors.

Yesterday the results of the CSO/OECD/PIAAC Adult Skills survey were published. The findings are disappointing to say the least. 2000 households were surveyed in detail and the findings show that Irish adults perform significantly below average on a range of literacy, numeracy and problem-solving measures.

The report compares the performance of adults in 24 countries. Ireland is significantly below average in terms of literacy (17th), numeracy (16th) and problem solving (18th). Incorporated in the review was a study of young Irish adults (16 – 24) and there was no improved performance among this group. It is very disappointing that all of the work put in by so many people and sectors has still not managed to improve our ranking internationally in what are the basic requirements of adults in modern society.

One of the advantages of membership of the ISTA, is being able to compete in the National Science Quiz the final of which will be held in Trinity College on November 30th. So don’t forget (if you haven’t done so already) to check your membership status and process your membership in the near future.

I wish you well for the coming academic year.

Charles Dolan, President ISTA

Record Number of Entries in SciFest 2013 5368 students presented 2262 projects

Local: SciFest@School 2012/2013 Science fairs held in 22 schools 2322 students presented 941 projects More than 60 teachers participated More than 200 prizes awarded

Regional: SciFest@College 2013 Science fairs held in 14 ITs and University of Ulster 3490 students presented 1519 projects 398 teachers from 233 schools participated 129 SciFest trophies and more than €3700 in prizes awarded Additional trophies and prizes awarded by each IT and UU

www.ista.ie8

At the ISTA Gala dinner in Gorey on April 13th 2013, Siobhan Scott-Sweeney was awarded the PharmaChemical Ireland

Science Educator of the Year Award. It is an honor for me to write this tribute to Siobhan - a friend, colleague, teacher and author - in whatever role we know her she stands apart as someone special! I first met Siobhan when she was teaching Biology in Loreto College, North Great Georges Street. As a very active member of the Dublin Branch ISTA she dragged all of us along to what at that time was the only in-service available to Inductee Teachers and experienced teachers alike. Over the many intervening years she has given lectures, demonstrations, workshops, encouragement and advice to many grateful science teachers, young and not so young. Her special leadership abilities and charismatic personality persuaded many teachers to join and play an active part in the ISTA in the 70s and 80s. As there was no such thing as in-service or any DES Support Service then, Siobhan preached and practised that we do it for ourselves – and we did!

Our paths crossed again when she was on the Biology Sub-committee of ISTA and again as a member of the Royal Irish Academy Commission for the teaching of Biology and again as Chairperson of the Institute of Biology in Ireland – demonstrating her long-lasting interest in Biology teaching.

Congratulations Siobhan. Science Educator of the Year is a fitting award for all the work that you have done for Science Education in Ireland, in your various roles as Science Teacher, National Secretary and Chair of the ISTA and Examiner and Advising Examiner for LC Biology. In fact, Siobhan was the first female Chair of the ISTA – a trail blazer at that time!

Books……Recently, Siobhan has been working as an Action Researcher and Local Facilitator in the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST, formerly SLSS). She was on the Teacher Design Team that produced the now acclaimed Biology Resource DVD for all Biology teachers; one of her particular contributions was the invaluable Laboratory Organisation section. Siobhan’s contributions to the DVD were powerful and her work ethic more than remarkable. Well done Siobhan, I can safely say that all of the Biology teachers in Ireland would like me to thank you for your dedication, energy, commitment and hard work.

Siobhan Sweeney has now been rightly honoured for her great service to Science Education – both to teachers and to the thousands of students around Ireland who have benefited from her as the author or co-author of Biology and Science textbooks (under the name Siobhan Scott).

Blackrock College has benefitted for the past 21 years from her role as teacher and head of the Biology Department and both the ISTA and the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST) will continue to benefit from Siobhan’s enthusiasm and hard work. Thank you Siobhan; I can think of no more deserving a recipient of this award than you, such has been your unselfish commitment to Science Education.

Nár laga Dia do lámh.

Mary Lee

Siobhan Sweeney — PCI Science Educator of the Year

Mary Lee

Siobhan receiving the PharmaChemical Ireland Science Educator of the Year Award from Dr Oliver Ryan.


Joe Reville, my old school friend, died on August 30th having suffered a fall

the previous week-end while climbing on the cliffs above Lough Tay in Co. Wicklow.The sympathy of all those in the science-teaching world go first and foremost to his loving wife Yvonne and their three wonderful daughters for their immense loss of a force of nature.

We used to live around the corner from each other in Rathfarnham and soldiered though Synge St. CBS together. Joe was a natural athlete and far out-paced my efforts in athletics, swimming and football. He was a natural extrovert who wore his heart on his sleeve. In First Year Science at UCD our common ground was Geology and even then on field trips to Balscadden Bay or Feltrim Hill Quarry Joe could be seen bounding up cliff walls looking for another fossil.

There was never any doubt in his mind or mine that science teaching was for us and that enthusiasm unbounded was the key to unlocking the richness of talent passing through our classrooms. Terenure College, his teaching home for many years, were lucky to have him. Joe was more stand up comedian than

teacher! So many memorable laughs back in Terenure I owe him so much. – C. Buckley

Very sad to hear of Joe’s passing. My favourite teacher in Terenure College. Made me love Biology through his brilliant teaching. Lovely lovely man. - G. Gibson

These comments from www.notices.irishtimes.com are wonderful and so deserved.

Joe was the quintessential Biology teacher. He could wax lyrical about a blade of grass. My colleague of many years at Blackrock College, Siobhan Sweeney knew him well and has said the following:“Anyone who knew or worked with Joe Reville

will remember a man of great energy and drive. He gave 100% and then some to any project he was involved in and down through the years I was lucky to have shared a number with him.

We first met when correcting Leaving Cert. Biology papers in the 1970’s. In those days there was no such thing as a Learning Outcome in a syllabus and interpreting the course was a major concern for teachers and pupils alike. At marking conferences Joe always championed the cause for the student and many was the

Joseph Reville 1951 – 2013 An appreciation

lively discussion ( or perhaps I should say argument) that took place.

Our paths crossed from 1980’s onwards when we both were involved with Folens publishers. Joe’s output of workbooks and revision books was well known. He was always looking for ways to help the students perform better. Amongst the publications he produced were Exam papers by Topic, Biology Revision Workbook for LC, Rapid Revision Science and Rapid Revision Biology, Sample papers for the new syllabus and laterally his textbook and workbook Modern Biology. Joe was always looking for new ways to improve the teaching and learning of Biology.

He was a legend among generations of students for his one day Revision Seminars (with notes!) for Leaving Cert Biology; equally with Biology teachers for the day courses in Ecology he ran.

Trips to Airfield, Sandycove shore and the Burren come to mind, where his enthusiasm took flight and we all came away with renewed passion for the subject.Later in his career he became active in ISTA, initially as Dublin Branch Chairman and then at Council where he held the office of Chair of the Association 2004-2006. One memory that sticks in my mind was at one of our Dublin branch meetings in

Terenure College. Joe was always keen to maintain the social aspect of the meetings and this night as well as tea, sandwiches and biscuits, he organised, with Brian Smyth’s help, a jazz band to play for us - it was great fun and so was Joe.”

Joe will be a huge loss not only to his loving family but to that huge circle of people whose lives he touched in such a positive and up-beat way. Only two years into retirement from the classroom he still had so much to give. For those kindly people who wished ‘Ar dheis Dē go raibh a anam’ Joe would have challenged them with a raised eyebrow and a skeptical rollicking laugh.

Donations in his memory, if desired, to Dublin and Wicklow Mountain Rescue Team.J. Daly & S. Sweeney

ISTA corporate members

www.ista.ie10

OECD Skills Outlook 2013Rory Geoghegan

The data presented in the OECD Skills Outlook 2013 make sobering reading. In literacy and numeracy we are close to the bottom.

When analysed by ‘level of education’ the results are not at first surprising; those with higher levels of education have higher levels of literacy and numeracy. What is disturbing is that even at high levels of education our numeracy skills still lag behind the OECD average.What are we doing wrong? Do we excuse ourselves by saying (even to our students), “I am no good at maths.” Do we shy away from calculations whether in biology, chemistry or physics? Are we challenging our students sufficiently?

Are we challenging ourselves to improve our own mathematical skills and to cultivate a taste for mathematical exploration. Apart from the immediate benefit of such exercise to ourselves and our students, we will be minimising our own risk of dementia later on. (See, for example, http://www.neurology.org/content/73/5/356.abstract )

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Last November Miriam O’Callaghan interviewed Prof David McConnell and Dr Aoife McLysaght (Professor and Associate Professor of Genetics at TCD, respectively). Both of them stressed the importance of doing puzzles — of any kind. Towards the end of the interview Aoife said: “I love to solve puzzles, and now I get to do that every day.”

The Nov. 2012 issue of SCIENCE (p. 29) had an item about the Syvum puzzle page (www.syvum.com/ teasers/) which contains free online brain teasers. Don’t just say “I’m no good at maths.” Do something about it! Practice is the key. And we can all improve.

See: http://skills.oecd.org/skillsoutlook.html

Rory Geoghegan

2013

OECD Skills Outlook 2013FirSt rESultS FrOm thE SurvEyOF ADult SkillS


In this article Declan discusses the role of the Coursework B Investigations in promoting Inquiry Based Science Education (IBSE) and on the overall effectiveness of IBSE in science education as measured by the analysis of evidence in the research literature. Declan recently attended the World Conference on Science Education in Borneo and quotes from the research work of Professor John Hattie, one of the keynote speakers at the conference.

IntroductionOver the past twenty years there has been considerable disquiet expressed about the relatively small numbers of students opting for physics and chemistry at Leaving Certificate level. In 2000, the Irish government set up a Task Force on the Physical Sciences to try to identify the factors contributing to this decline and to formulate a strategy that would attempt to reverse the trend of falling number. The report stressed the fact the Ireland’s economic future depends on the supply of an increasing number of people qualified in science and engineering. It expressed serious concern at the sharp fall-off in interest since 1987 in the physical sciences and drew up an action strategy to address the many inter-linking facets of the problem (Task Force, 2002).

One of the key recommendations of the Task Force was that increased resources be provided to support practical work in schools with particular emphasis on increasing the number of science laboratories in secondary schools as well as improving the standard of equipment in these schools. In addition, it recommended that curriculum reform in science should be prioritised and it challenged the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) to fast-track action on school science syllabi. The latter recommendation was quickly implemented and resulted in a flurry of activity in curriculum reform which resulted in the introduction of a new Junior Science syllabus.

Junior Science syllabusA revised Junior Certificate Science syllabus was introduced to schools in September 2003 (NCCA, 2003). The fact that this syllabus was a very rushed document became obvious when teachers were faced with implementing it in the classroom and in the school laboratory. One of the first problems that emerged resulted from the fact that no depth of treatment of any of the syllabus topics was indicated on the syllabus. The syllabus was deeply flawed as it consisted only of a list of learning outcomes spread over a mere nineteen pages with no indication of depth of treatment or recommendations regarding teaching and learning activities. This was in sharp contrast to the preceding syllabus which contained these details to help teachers implement the syllabus. The ISTA spent three years (2003 – 2006) attempting to obtain clarification on depth of treatment and eventually thirty one pages of clarification were issued to the ISTA by the NCCA. It took three years to get answers to simple questions such as whether the word “distillation” on the syllabus referred to simple distillation or fractional distillation!

Inquiry-Based Science Education – how effective is it?

Declan Kennedy,

The Junior Certificate Science syllabus that was introduced to schools in 2003 emphasised the importance of practical work and stated that science education at junior cycle should: • Encourage the development of manipulative, procedural,

cognitive, affective and communication skills through practical activities that foster investigation, imagination and creativity.

• Provide opportunities for observing and evaluating phenomena and processes and for drawing valid deductions and conclusions.

(NCCA, 2003 p.4)

In addition, the syllabus objectives emphasise skills and list the following examples of skills:

• Manipulation of equipment and manual dexterity with due regard to issues of health and safety.

• Develop skills associated with procedural plans and the use of the scientific method in problem solving.

• Develop skills associated with observation, measurement and the accurate recording of data.

(NCCA, 2003 p.4)

Whilst the syllabus document is non-prescriptive in terms of pedagogy, the Teacher Guidelines which accompany the syllabus (NCCA, 2006) make clear the emphasis on the investigative approach to science teaching:

“The syllabus emphasises an investigative approach to science, which is aimed at facilitating students in the development of skills, knowledge, understanding and attitudes that are appropriate in a society increasingly influenced by science and technology.”

(NCCA, 2006 p.21)

This syllabus was ground breaking as, for the first time in Ireland, compulsory practical work was introduced into the Junior Certificate science programme. In addition, students were given credit for the practical work completed as part of the overall assessment. The practical work undertaken in the syllabus consists of two parts referred to as Coursework A and Coursework B. As we are all aware, Coursework A consists of 30 mandatory experiments equally divided into physics, chemistry and biology. In the introduction to the syllabus, the NCCA makes clear the purpose of the experiments in Coursework A. “In conducting an experiment, the student follows a

prescribed procedure in order to test a theory, to confirm a hypothesis or to discover something that is unknown. Experiments can help to make scientific phenomena more real to students and provide them with opportunities to develop manipulative skills and safe work practices in a school laboratory.”

(NCCA, 2003 p.7)

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In addition to the mandatory experiments in Coursework A, students are also required in the third year of the course to undertake two Investigations set by the State Examinations Commission. These Investigations (Coursework B) and the rationale for including these Investigations are clearly outlined in the introduction to the syllabus: ‘Investigations can be used to develop skills of logical

thinking and problem solving, and can give the student an insight into the scientific process. Thus, the student can appreciate the importance of using a fair test in order to arrive at valid deductions and conclusions, and the significance of making and recording measurements and observations accurately’. (NCCA, 2003 p.6)

In this article, the Coursework B type Investigations will be indicated using a capital “I” to distinguish them from the more general term “investigation”.

In general, it is clear that the State Examinations Commission appear to be in agreement with the commonly used definition of an investigation, i.e. “a task for which the pupil cannot immediately see an answer or recall a routine method for finding it”. (Gott and Duggan, 1995 p.14). It is also clear that the Investigations set by the State Examinations Commission to date are a good mixture of the traditional variable-based type of investigation and the more exploratory type investigation.

Investigations and IBSE In Ireland the science Investigations are clearly part of an effort to promote Inquiry Based Science Education (IBSE) among students in the 12 – 15 age group. Inquiry based teaching has been described as “the art of developing challenging situations in which students are asked to observe and question phenomena; pose explanations of what they observe; devise and conduct experiments in which data are collected to support or contradict their theories; analyse data; draw conclusions from experimental data; design and build models; or any combination of these. Such learning situations are meant to be open-ended in that they do not aim to achieve a single “right” answer for a particular question being addressed but rather involve students more in the process of observing, posing questions, engaging in experimentation or exploration, and learning to analyse and reason” (Hattie, 2009)

In Europe the Rocard Report (2007) has shone the spotlight on Inquiry Based Science Education and has led to the European Commission making IBSE the main focus of it FP6 and FP7 Science and Society calls for research funding. “Improvements in science education should be brought

about through new forms of pedagogy: the introduction of inquiry-based approaches in schools, actions for teachers training to IBSE, and the development of teachers’ networks should be actively promoted and supported.” (Rocard, 2007, p.3)

Thus, there is strong emphasis not only in Ireland but throughout Europe on the need to promote Inquiry Based Science Education in our science curricula. The Irish Science Teachers’ Association (ISTA) carried out a survey of ISTA members (Higgins, 2009) to ascertain the views of its members regarding their experience of implementing the 2003 Junior Certificate science syllabus. Particular emphasis was placed in the survey on the role of practical work in the syllabus and on the experience of teachers in implementing the mandatory set experiments and the Investigations (Coursework B). A total of 310 teachers completed the survey (response rate =

31.4%) which yielded some interesting results about science practical work being carried out in Ireland. The response of science teachers to the Coursework B practical work is worth highlighting.

Response to Investigations (Coursework B practical work)When questioned about the Coursework B Investigations, 96% of respondents stated that students carry out these Investigations themselves. This high percentage is probably related to the fact that this coursework is worth a total of 25% of the marks in the Junior Certificate Science examination and hence is taken seriously by teachers and students.

While, it is very encouraging that such a high percentage of students carry out the Investigations themselves, it is clear from Fig.1 that the majority of teachers find that they have to give a considerable amount of help to their students.

In addition, the majority of teachers (71.8%) reported that a significant amount of time (4 – 6 weeks) is spent completing the Coursework B Investigations. Some of the key comments made by the respondents to explain the length of time spent completing the Investigations may be summarised as follows;

The students need a lot of help and guidance.The amount of time spent depends on the ability range in the classHealth and safety issues must be discussed – the experiment must be explained in detail.Brainstorming takes time. Apparatus must be set up for the class and students helped through the Investigation.

However, it is clear that the amount of time spent by students on the two Investigations has impacted on the course in other ways. A very high percentage of teachers (95.7%) expressed the opinion that the introduction of the Investigations has affected the completion and revision time of the course. Unfortunately, this extra pressure appears to have had a negative impact on teachers’ views regarding this type of practical work.

Questions regarding the reliability and validity of science coursework in the UK were raised by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (2005) who summarised the situation as follows:

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Figure 1 Indication given by teachers of the amount of help given to students carrying out the two Investigations of Coursework B.


“Teachers for both GCE and GCSE science referred to coursework as ‘jumping through hoops’ in order to maximise marks, and regarded coursework as a poor educational tool. Teachers and moderators stated that since the introduction of coursework there had been a narrowing of the curriculum, with teachers using only a small range of investigations or practical experiments in order to satisfy the qualification requirements”. (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 2005 p.10)

In Ireland, there appears to be a direct contradiction between the concept of what can be achieved by Investigations as outlined in the introduction of the syllabus and the experience of the science teachers working in the school laboratory with their students. Whist the feedback from teachers in Ireland (Higgins, 2009) is not quite as negative as the comments in the QCA report (2005), it is clear that, given the experience of Coursework B Investigations, serious questions are now being debated in Ireland regarding the impact of these Investigations and the degree to which the Investigations are promoting Inquiry-Based Science Education.

Impact of IBSE Approaches in Science Education A considerable amount of research has been carried out in the area of the effectiveness of IBSE. For example, Bredderman (1983) found that when teaching science using inquiry methods using direct experience, experimentation and observation, the effect on developing science process skills (e.g. planning, observing, analysing, drawing conclusions, etc) was much greater than the effect on developing science content. This type of finding was also made by other researchers. Shymansky et al. (1990) also found greater effects of inquiry based teaching on process rather than on content and the effects were greatest at elementary level and decreased as students progressed through the educational system. Smith (1996) found larger effects from inquiry methods in critical thinking skills than in achievement and less in laboratory skills and process skills. Similarly, Bangert-Drowns and

Bankert (1990) found clear evidence that inquiry-based instruction can foster critical thinking. In addition, Gott and Duggan (1995) found that the investigations developed by the Assessment of Performance unit “developed innovative techniques which worked well in the classroom as curriculum material rather than merely as assessment items. In particular, the investigations were found to be of considerable interest to pupils in terms of enjoyment”.

In a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement, Hattie (2009) places inquiry-based teaching well down the list (86th place in list of 138 strategies) in terms of the effectiveness of teaching approaches on achievement. Hattie uses a scale of d = 1.0 to indicate an increase of one standard deviation on the outcomes. A one standard deviation increase is typically associated with advancing students’ achievement by two to three years, improving the rate of learning by 50% or a correlation between some variable and achievement of r = 0.5. When implementing a new programme, an effect size of 1.0 would mean that, on average, students receiving that treatment would exceed 84% of students not receiving that treatment. (Hattie 2009). In the case of Inquiry-Based Teaching, Hattie assigns a d value of 0.31 to indicate the effect of Inquiry-Based Teaching on achievement, Figure 2. This is less than the average d value of 0.40 which summarises the typical effect of all possible influences in education and is the benchmark used to judge effects in education.

On the other hand, research has shown that Direct Instruction has a greater effect on student achievement than on Inquiry-Based Teaching. Hattie (2009) assigns a d value of 0.59 to Direct Instruction, Figure 3.

Direct instruction should not be confused with didactic teaching. Hattie (2009) discusses in detail the main characteristics of Direct Instruction (Table 1) and summarises it as follows: “In a nutshell: The teacher decides the learning intentions

and success criteria, makes them transparent to the students, demonstrates them by modelling, evaluates if they

understand what they have been told by checking for understanding, and re-telling them what they have been told by tying it all together with closure” (Hattie, 2009, p. 206)

Figure 2 . The effect of Inquiry-Based Teaching on student achievement (Hattie 2009).

Figure 3 . The effect of Direct Instruction on student achievement (Hattie 2009).

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Direct Instruction involves seven major steps

1. Before the lesson is prepared, the teacher should have a clear idea of what the learning intentions are. What, specifically, should the student be able to do, understand, care about as a result of the teaching?

2. The teacher needs to know what success criteria of performance are to be expected and when and what students will be held accountable for from the lesson/activity. The students need to be informed about the standard of performance.

3. There is need to build commitment and engagement in the learning task. In the terminology of Direct Instruction, this is sometimes called a “hook” to grab a student’s attention. The aim is to put students into a receptive frame of mind; to focus student attention on the lesson; to share the learning intentions.

4. There are guides to how the teacher should present the lesson – including notions such as input, modelling, and checking for understanding. Input refers to providing information needed for students to gain the knowledge or skill through lecture, film, tape, video, pictures, and so on. Modelling is where the teacher shows students examples of what is expected as an end product of their work. The critical aspects are explained through labelling, categorizing, and comparing to exemplars of what is desired. Checking for understanding involves monitoring whether students have “got it” before proceeding, it is essential that students practice doing it right, so the teacher must know that students understand before they start to practice. If there is any doubt that the class has not understood, the concept or skill should be re-taught before the practice begins.

5. There is the notion of guided practice. This involves an opportunity for each student to demonstrate his or her grasp of new learning by working through an activity to exercise under the teacher’s direct supervision. The teacher moves around the room to determine the level of mastery and to provide feedback and individual remediation as needed.

6. There is the closure part of the lesson. Closure involves those actions or statements by a teacher that are designed to bring a lesson presentation to an appropriate conclusion; the part wherein students are helped to bring things together in their own minds, to make sense out of what has just been taught. “Any questions? No. OK, let’s move on” is not closure. Closure is used to cue students to the fact that they have arrived at an important point in the lesson or the end of a lesson, to help organize student learning, to help form a coherent picture, to consolidate, eliminate confusion and frustration, and so on, and to reinforce the major points to be learned. Thus closure involves reviewing and clarifying the key points of a lesson, tying them together into a coherent whole, ensuring they will be applied by the student by ensuring they have become part of the student’s conceptual network.

7. There is independent practice. Once students have mastered the content or skill, it is time to provide for reinforcement practice. It is provided on a repeating schedule so that the learning is not forgotten. It may be homework or group or individual work in class. It is important to note that this practice can provide for decontextualisation: enough different contexts so that the skill or concept in which it was originally learned. For example, if the lesson is about inference from reading a passage about dinosaurs, the practice should be about inference from reading about another topic such as whales. The advocates of Direct Instruction argue that the failure to do this seventh step is responsible for most student failure to be able to apply something learned.

Hattie (2009) points out that where science teachers received in-service training in inquiry methods, students significantly outperformed students in traditional programmes. Analysis of the data gathered by the Irish Science Teachers Association (Higgins, 2009) shows that one of the essential problems encountered by teachers in Ireland was that no nationwide inservice training was provided to teachers to help them adopt an inquiry-based approach to teaching the Investigations. This training has been left to branches of the ISTA to organise their own annual inservice evenings to discuss various approaches to teaching the Investigations that are sent to schools each year.

In summarising the research evidence on Inquiry Based Teaching, Hattie (2009) points out that it could have “powerful effects where students have the cognitive capacity to think critically but have not previously been encouraged to think in this way. Overall, inquiry-based instruction was shown to produce transferable critical thinking skills as well as significant domain benefits, improved achievements, and improved attitude towards the subject”. In short, the two main advantages of IBSE appear to be an improvement in process skills and an improvement in student attitudes towards science. Any teacher who visits the wonderful display stands at SciFest and the BT Young Scientist Exhibition would certainly agree with these research findings.

Conclusions and RecommendationsOver the past ten years, considerable curriculum reform has taken place in Ireland with the introduction of a new science syllabus at Junior Certificate level with an emphasis on Investigations to promote Inquiry-Based Science Education. However, analysis of the data from the ISTA survey clearly shows that introducing Investigations into the Junior Certificate Science syllabus does not necessarily mean that teachers automatically adopt an Inquiry Based approach in their teaching or view IBSE in a positive light. Whilst the catalyst for reform has been the report of the Task Force on the Physical Sciences and the concerns of falling numbers of students choosing the physical sciences at Leaving Certificate level, the Junior Certificate science syllabus has not fulfilled the expectations of those who hoped that it would succeed in significantly increasing the uptake of the physical sciences at senior level. One of the clear outcomes from the research literature is that IBSE approaches to science teaching do result in an increase in the interest levels of students in science. Based on the research evidence outlined in this paper, it does not seem wise to “put all our eggs in the one basket” and promote IBSE as the only approach to effective science teaching. We need to get the right balance between the Direct Instruction approach as interpreted by Hattie (2009) and the IBSE approach as discussed in this paper.

Table 1. The seven major steps involved in Direct Instruction (Hattie, 2009)


Musings

Ian McCulloch

Ever mindful of Rory’s requests for material for Science,

I make a notes of anything I come across that might be of interest, so that I can incorporate them into something vaguely readable when the call comes. Maybe it’s because I am moving further away from my school existence, but I find that my scientific experiences, however nebulous, seem to be becoming less memorable. Anyway, I accumulated just one aide-memoire for this issue.

Errors in printIt concerns a piece in the Sunday Times Home section in the middle of August. The topic was “energy”: more specifically, electricity generation. If the people who are addressing this issue on the ground are of similar academic ability to those writing about it, I would have cause for concern. My note contains the following sentence. It generates 2.5Kw of electricity per hour. I would count four shortcomings in this brief sentence. If I was to be really “picky” I would suggest a fifth - that there ought to be a space between the “5” and the “K”.

That is more or less “it” but so as not to disappoint my regular reader/s, with such a meagre ration of piffling minutiae I had a look around the garden for inspiration and came up with the following.

Tree houseI was persuaded by my grandchildren that a tree house would enhance their enjoy-ment of their visits. I demurred at a literal tree house and came up with what you can see. This met with their approval. Given my reputation for parsimony, you will be delighted to hear that the main bulk of the edifice consists of recycled packing cases (dismantling these to retrieve usable lumber

took longer than putting the actual struc-ture together). The felt for the roof and the perspex for the windows were also surplus to other people’s requirements. The only fly in the ointment was the necessity to put my hand in my pocket for the four main supports. These were pressure-treated, 100 mm × 100 mm, three metre lengths of which cost €18 each. It was fitted out with items already in stock.

Newton’s CradleYou may remember from a previous Musings that I had constructed a scaled-up Newton’s Cradle using lawn bowls. This had never functioned to my satis-faction. The “action” finished very, very quickly. I had a thought and replaced these with steel boule (pétanque) balls, which I purchased from Amazon (cost of postage greater than cost of items!) in the hope that these would function more

ReferencesBangert-Drowns, R. L., and Bankert, E.

(1990, April). Meta-analysis of effects of explicit instructions for critical thinking. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association Boston, MA.

Bredderman, T. (1983). Effects of activity-based elementary science on student outcomes: A quantitative synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 53(4), 499-518

Department of Education (1983). Rules and Programmes for Secondary Schools, 1983/84. Dublin: Government Stationery Office.

Gott, R. and Duggan, S. (1995) Investigative work in the Science Curriculum. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Hattie, J (2009) Visible Learning: A Synthesis of over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. Abington: Routledge

Higgins (2009), ISTA Questionnaire on Junior Certificate Science, Science 45 (1), 17 – 19.

NCCA (2003). Junior Certificate Science Syllabus. Dublin: The Stationery Office

NCCA (2006). Junior Certificate Science: Guidelines for Teachers. Dublin: The Stationery Office

Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (2005). A Review of GCE and GCSE Coursework Arrangements. London: QCA.

Rocard, M. (2007) Science Education Now ; A renewed Pedagogy for the future of Europe. Brussels: European Commission.

Shymansky, J.A., Hedges, L.V., and Woodworth, G. (1990). A reassessment of the effects of inquiry-based science curricula of the 60’s on student performance, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 27(2), 127 – 144.

Smith, D.A. (1996) A meta-analysis of student outcomes attributable to the teaching of science as inquiry as compared to traditional methodology. Unpublished Ed.D., Temple University, Pennsylvania, United States.

Task Force (2002). Report and Recommendations of the Task Force on the Physical Sciences. Dublin: Irish Governments Publications.

Dr Declan KennedySenior Lecturer in Science Education, University College, Cork.ISTA Membership Sectetary and ISTA representative in ICASE

www.ista.ie16

Zooniverse – Real Science Online

Siobhán Sweeney

At a recent Perspectives on Astronomy course I attended, one of the speakers, Dr Bob Simpson from Oxford University, spoke passionately on the topic of

Citizen Science and how schools and individuals can become involved.Citizen Science is where scientific research is carried out by the public, who gather, transcribe, and help analyse data that is of use to professional scientists. According to the Zooniverse site ‘ The projects within the Zooniverse provide an excellent resource for inquiry-based learning within the classroom or for home school groups’.

A flavour of the projects available for you and your students to get involved with include:

The Milky Way Project – help to find and draw circles on infrared image data from the Spitzer Space Telescope.Planet Hunters – find and mark planets.Old Weather – transcribe the logs of WW1 vessels as they travel the world collecting climate data.Planet Four – locate seasonal ‘fans’ on the surface of Mars. The ‘fans’ are caused by the sublimation of CO2 during spring n Mars which bursts through the ice.Notes from Nature – transcribe museum records to take notes from nature .Cell Slider – analyse real life cancer data.Bat detective – Listen for and identify bat calls from recordings to help researchers get more information about these amazing flying mammals.Eyewire - Mapping neurons on the retina.

Currently Zooniverse has 12 projects that are available for active participation on https://www.zooniverse.org

Siobhán Sweeney, Dublin Branch, recently retired from Blackrock College.

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efficiently. They are marginally better but didn’t justify the expense! I thought that their co-efficient of restitution would have been such to render a significant improvement. My disappointment was tempered to a degreee by using the now redundant lawn bowls for my Barton’s Pendulum which now works better than the previous manifestation.

P.S. The fare we offer to our avian visitors con-tinues to attract grey squirrels. This guy seems to want to move in permanently.

Ian McCulloch, former physics teacher in Sanford Park School, Dublin.


A report on Frontiers of Physics 2013Seosamh Ó Braonáin

This year’s Institute of Physics in Ireland Frontiers of Physics

conference was held in University College Cork on Saturday 28th September. There was a great turnout from all around the country, receiving a warm welcome by all at UCC and treated to a packed programme of presentations and workshops.After an introduction from Prof. John McInerney (UCC Physics) and Siobhan Daly of IoP, there were a series of talks on research and education topics from UCC based scientists. Dr Andreas Ruschaupt (Control of Quantum Systems) and Dr Simon of the Tyndall Institute Elliot (Materials modelling for devices) dealt with the nano-scale while Prof Paul Callanan explained how space and astronomy activities can be brought in to school science in his talk on Astronomy: the inspirational science.

Rory Fitzpatrick of the National Space Centre in Midelton gave an overview of space-related research in Ireland, focussing on how Earth observation by satellites has become an increasingly important activity. One striking part of his talk was the growing problem of space debris and how (and by whom?) this is going to be dealt with over the coming years.

The keynote speaker was Professor Malcolm Longair of Cambridge University. He gave a tour-de-force presentation on Cosmology: Past Present and Future, bringing insights from his long and distinguished career as a leading researcher in the field.

In his trademark energetic and engaging style, he surveyed how our understanding of the Universe has developed since Newton and into the era of the Big Bang theory. He explained how the cosmic microwave background has been mapped with increasing precision, right up to the current results from the European Space Agency Planck mission. The formation of galaxies, ideas about the nature of dark matter and dark energy and the

rate of expansion of the universe were all included in his fascinating presentation.

Stephanie O’Neill of ESERO outlined some of the resources available for bringing space themes into the science classroom: links to the Junior and Senior curricula can be found on their website at http://www.esero.ie/resources. The highly successful CanSat competition (see the May 2013 issue of Science) is being expanded further this year. Dr Eamon Connolly (Cork Electronic Industry Association) showed us some examples from last year’s competition and more information can be found on the cansat.eu website.

After a great lunch in the UCC staff restaurant, delegates had a choice of workshops and visits. Science on Stage continues to go from strength to strength and their hands-on session of thought-provoking hands-on practical activities and demos was a great success. A workshop on ESA resources and activities was presented by Sean Fogarty,

sharing some of the ideas he gained from his recent summer workshop for teachers at the ESA’s centre in the Netherlands.

A tour of the Crawford Observatory allowed a glimpse of some of the beautifully-made 19th century instruments of Howard Grubb while Blackrock Castle Observatory brought their portable Star Dome Planetarium to the conference centre.

Once again, Paul Nugent and IoP Ireland have produced a brilliant and energising day’s activities for teachers. The presentations can be seen on the talkphysics.org website.

Here’s looking forward to Frontiers in September 2014: Dublin City University.

Seosamh Ó Braonáin, Wesley College, ISTA Dublin Branch Chair

Professor Malcolm Longair of Cambridge University, presenting Cosmology: Past Present and Future

www.ista.ie18

Junior Cert science is too easy – on every level

You may have seen the following article in the Irish Times in September. The author’s name was not given. It is reprinted here with the kind permission of the Irish Times. We would welcome your honest response to it.I have added the highlights.(Ed.)

To Be Honest – A science teacher writes

Junior Cert science is too easy – on every level

I am a science and biology teacher and I think the current Junior Cert science cur-riculum does not have enough scientific information. It is too basic, indeed the current higher level should be ordinary level.

The experimental aspect of the course takes far too much of the teacher’s time and not enough of the student’s. Teach-ers have to pull and drag material from them, which dominates Christmas to Easter. Some teachers take the easy op-tion, just ticking the 30 boxes to get the students their 10 per cent, deserved or not. Others either do the project (worth 25 per cent) for their students or give extra time to complete it.

After all, projects remain in the school until June, so why bother finishing by the April deadline? The system is unfair for honest teachers, or those who try to instil deadline discipline in students.

I supervised this year in our average school, with a good mix of ability in students. They behaved very well in their exam, proving that when necessary and expected, teenagers can be diligent and hardworking. They are not students who just finish up quickly and leave the exam.

Yet with the two-hour science exam, all ordinary level students finished within 35 minutes. After 20 minutes checking scripts they were all gone within the hour. Is this a “testing” exam? At that point, higher-level students were on the last question and most had left by 90 minutes. One of the students remarked

as he left, “This is my favourite subject. That exam was rubbish.”

Extra bits could be added to the exam. The paper of short answer questions does not permit good students to show their abilities; it could easily include three experiments for ordinary level students to write up, and six for higher level. This might increase the time spent in the exam and give the science exam some respect (it is viewed as an easy exam). Students wrote for twice as long in CSPE exams and three times longer in religion, two other subjects with course work projects.

The paper layout is also a disadvantage for good students, or those with large handwriting. Students cannot show what they know because the answer spaces are tiny, without room even for grammati-cally-correct answers. Boxes for the few diagrams they are asked to draw are also tiny, with no space for detail or labels.

In a subject such as technical graphics, students are expected to and capable of drawing beautifully accurate, large and neat pencil drawings but in science any pen-drawn, messy, tiny “diagram” is ac-cepted. The question paper should be separate from the answer booklet.

Students are not asked to draw the diagrams they are supposed to know in biology.

Instead of being asked to draw and label the heart or digestive system this year, for example, they were presented with diagrams already partly labelled.

In ordinary and higher level science, students when asked to draw a graph do not have to draw their own axes, which is standard in ordinary-level maths. More detailed explanations should be required in some answers. Surely a true explanation requires more than one line in an answer book or a phrase in a mark-ing scheme. Science is supposed to be about precision and truth, not vague-ness.

The curriculum is too simple and of a poor standard. The name of the arm bones is deemed too hard for ordinary-level students. It’s not hard, just a couple of names. Yet in the course work leaps of

deduction are sometimes expected, even for ordinary level. Course work expects them to be able to make sense of infor-mation available, without teacher’s help, on the web.

Body parts are too difficult to learn. Chemical equations are too hard to bal-ance. Axes are too difficult to draw. But they should be able to notice strange graphical relationships and resolve them by squaring or cubing one or more of the variables. Or they should be able to read and understand science papers online. How does this make sense? Let them get to know basic, yet accurate, information at a young age to be able to interpret the detail later on, as they mature.

The curriculum is not challenging enough. The course work is easy to cheat. The exam is laughable. The marking scheme is too generous. And we want to compete at a global level? The Minister for Education may think getting rid of the exam will solve these issues, as teachers set their own stan-dards and exams. But we don’t all go to exclusive schools with cooperative par-ents and students eager to learn. Many students want good grades, but with as little work as possible.

Many parents want their children to get good grades, but do not press them to study. With a high level independent exam, they have to work. Learning to study, concentrate and delay reward are valuable life tools.

There should be no bias, no favouritism of topic depending on your teacher’s interests, no variation in measure with a subjective exam and an over-familiar examiner. A national curriculum is stan-dard. A national exam is standard. It is a good and fair preparation, if it is a good exam, fitting a good curriculum.

I know. I’m a dinosaur. It’s not about education anymore, it’s all about “fun”. But people experience fun in many different ways.

The Irish Times, Tue., Sep. 17, 2013


Children Acting Like ScientistsMaeve Liston

Scientific Process Skills refer to a range of abilities relating to identifying questions, making predictions, designing investigations,

obtaining and interpreting evidence, analysis of data and arriving at conclusions. Such skills are used by scientists to solve problems. If we are to equip children with the capacity to generate and develop their own ideas, they must develop certain skills that are central to this process.

These process skills include:Questioning Observing PredictingInvestigating Estimating & Measuring RecordingAnalysing Communicating Concluding

QuestioningChildren need practice in asking questions about the world around them. Every science lesson should begin with a question that needs to be answered at the end of the lesson through active exploration and carrying out investigations. Teacher questioning is very important in the teaching of science, however encouraging children to raise questions is also very important in primary science.

Observing• Careful and precise examination using as many of the

five senses as possible.

• Use of simple instruments to extend the senses.

• Selection of observations which are relevant to the current investigation.

• Recording the observations as written descriptions, tables of measurements, graphs or drawings.

Classifying• Recognising characteristics, similarities and differences.

• Sorting objects according to given properties.

• Explaining clearly the classification system used and why it was chosen.

• Finding the most convenient way of classifying material to achieve a particular purpose.

• Seeing the value of classifications in everyday life e.g. in dictionaries, in libraries

• Using established ways of classifying for identification purposes e.g. sorting and identifying leaves, insects, birds, rocks etc.

Predicting, Investigating and ExperimentingPupils should always predict what they think will happen during an exploration and investigation at the beginning during the exploratory phase of a lesson. They can then plan and design an investigation to test their prediction. At the end of the investigation refer them back to their investigation to see if their ideas have stayed the same, changed or have been slightly altered by their finding. This is the ‘Eureka’ moment where the child makes sense of what is being learned.

Fig 1. Children testing their predictions

Estimating and MeasuringMeasurements always involve comparisons and are never exact. It is dependent on accuracy of the instruments used and on the skill of the user. Pupils should have a good deal of practice in the use of instruments for example rulers, balances and thermometers. They should develop an increasing awareness of the level of accuracy involved.

Looking for PatternsThis involves ordering observations and recognising patterns of shape, structure, growth and change, collecting data purposefully and organising and presenting it systematically to reveal more precise patterns.

Attempting to ExplainAsking questions and suggested explanations are essential features of science because science is an attempt to provide rational explanations of events and phenomena. Children naturally want to explain their observations.

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Fig. 2. Children actively solving how to make a switch for their circuit

CommunicationScience provides good opportunities for the development of communication skills:

Discussing ideas; Formulating questions; Planning experiments; Descriptive writing; Tabulation of measurements; Drawings; Making models; Preparing reports/diagrams/maps and Drama.

Scientific Process Skills in the Irish Pri-mary Science CurriculumThe Irish primary school science curriculum includes a number of scientific skills which are developed and extended at each class level through engagement with each Strand and Strand Unit.

Fig. 3. Applying what they have learned about circuits: Making a model of a lighthouse.

Working Scientifically Designing and Making

Junior & Senior In-fants

QuestioningObservingPredictingInvestigating and experimentingAnalysing

Sorting and ClassifyingRecording and communicating

ExploringPlanningMakingEvaluating

1st & 2nd Classes

QuestioningObservingPredictingInvestigating and experimentingEstimating and measuringAnalysing

Sorting and classifyingRecognising patternsInterpreting

Recording and communicating


3rd & 4th Classes





5th & 6 th Classes





Table 1. Summary of working scientifically and designing and making skills in the Irish Primary Science Curriculum (DES, 1999)

ReferencesDES (1999). Primary school curriculum: Science. Social, Environmental and

Scientific Education. Teacher Guidelines. Dublin: The Stationery Office.

Dr. Maeve ListonLecturer in Science EducationMary Immaculate College Associate and Senior Research Fellow at the NCE-MSTLE-mail: [email protected]


Weight and mass — a perpetual challenge for science teachers

Randal Henly

Science teachers of some experience will be well aware of the source of confusion this topic has for pupils, particularly for

younger ones and many teachers will have their own strategies for teaching the topic and sorting the pupils out. This note is aimed at those younger teachers and those for whom physics is perhaps not their strong point.The confusion arises by the misuse of the word weight in everyday life, e.g., a bag of potatoes is marked ‘net weight 10 kg’, and children have grown up with the concept that that weight is expressed in kilograms — which it is not.

The following is more or less the approach that I used in my past life when I was introducing first year pupils to units, force, weight and gravity.

MassMass is defined as the amount of matter in a body, and is expressed in kilograms (and grams). The word mass will be new to many pupils in the context. To illustrate this, one of the permanent features on the laboratory front wall was a large display like that shown, with actual masses attached to the labelled cardboard backing.

ForceForce (a simple definition appropriate for Junior Certificate level) is a push or a pull, and is measured in units called newtons — named after the great man himself. A newton is a very small unit; you exert a force of about 1 N to lift an apple and about 100 N to push a supermarket trolley. (The idea was to give pupils a ‘feeling’ for just how big (or small?) a newton is.) Then followed an experiment in which they investigated forces: friction, magnetic, electrostatic, upthrust, forces occurring in pairs and equal and opposite. There were ten ‘quickie’ experiments that took about 30 minutes. Any teachers that have access to ScienceQuest (publ. C.J.Fallon, 1997) can see the instructions for those investigations.

WeightWeight is a particular force; it is the force of attraction between an object and the Earth (or other astronomical body such as the Moon). Another permanent feature on the laboratory wall was a display such as shown — with an actual newton meter and an actual 1 kg mass. A clock-dial type display is best for this so that the value can be read from down the room. Thus, pupils are constantly being reminded of the mass/weight difference.

Then a bit of discussion with illustrations about the mass of a body being constant but its weight can vary. For example, man on Moon weighs only about one-sixth of his weight on Earth, but he’s still all there, i.e., his mass is the same. Finally, suitable homework questions to consolidate the work of the class, to be marked, with more discussion, next day.

Over the years, with this grounding, I saw very little confusion amongst the pupils I had taught with this approach. I have seen confusion amongst pupils in other schools that I have visited in my role as a supervisor of UL student teachers, when they are on teaching practice.

Finally, never tell pupils in any class to ‘weigh a beaker’, or worse still, find the weight of the beaker. Make sure your wording is ‘find the mass of the beaker’.

Randal Henly, retired from Mount Temple School

WEIGHT AND MASS Ñ A PERPETUAL PROBLEM FOR SCIENCE TEACHERSRandal Henly, retired from Mount Temple School

Science teachers of some experience will be well aware of the source of confusion this topic has for pupils, particularly for younger ones. Many teachers will have their own strategies for teaching the topic and sorting the pupils out. This note is aimed at those younger teachers and those for whom physics is perhaps not their strong point.

The confusion arises by the misuse of the word weight in everyday life, e.g., a bag of potatoes is marked Ônet weight 10 kgÕ, and children have grown up with the concept that that weight is expressed in kilograms Ñ which it is not.


Mass is defined as the amount of matter in a body, and is expressed in kilograms (and grams). The word mass will be new to many pupils in the context. To illustrate this, one of the permanent features on the laboratory front wall was a large display like that shown, with actual masses attached to the labelled cardboard backing.

Force (a simple definition appropriate for Junior Certificate level) is a push or a pull, and is measured in units called newtons Ñ named after the great man himself. A newton is a very small unit; you exert a force of about 1 N to lift an apple and about 100 N to push a supermarket trolley. (The idea was to give pupils a ÔfeelingÕ for just how big (or small?) a newton is.) Then followed an experiment in which they investigated forces: friction, magnetic, electrostatic, upthrust, forces occurring in pairs and equal & opposite. There were ten ÔquickieÕ experiments that took about 30 minutes. Any teachers that have access to ScienceQuest (publ. C.J.Fallon, 1997) can see the instructions for those investigations.

Weight is a particular force; it is the force of attraction between an object and the Earth (or other astronomical body such as the Moon). Another permanent feature on the laboratory wall was a display such as shown Ñ with an actual newton meter and an actual 1 kg mass. A clock-dial type display is best for this so that the value can be read from down the room. Thus, pupils are constantly being reminded of the mass/weight difference.

Then a bit of discussion with illustrations about the mass of a body being constant but its weight can vary. For example, man on Moon weighs only about one-sixth of his weight on Earth, but heÕs still all there, i.e., his mass is the same. Finally, suitable homework questions to consolidate the work of the class, to be marked, with more discussion, next day.

WEIGHT AND MASS Ñ A PERPETUAL PROBLEM FOR SCIENCE TEACHERSRandal Henly, retired from Mount Temple School

Science teachers of some experience will be well aware of the source of confusion this topic has for pupils, particularly for younger ones. Many teachers will have their own strategies for teaching the topic and sorting the pupils out. This note is aimed at those younger teachers and those for whom physics is perhaps not their strong point.

The confusion arises by the misuse of the word weight in everyday life, e.g., a bag of potatoes is marked Ônet weight 10 kgÕ, and children have grown up with the concept that that weight is expressed in kilograms Ñ which it is not.


Mass is defined as the amount of matter in a body, and is expressed in kilograms (and grams). The word mass will be new to many pupils in the context. To illustrate this, one of the permanent features on the laboratory front wall was a large display like that shown, with actual masses attached to the labelled cardboard backing.

Force (a simple definition appropriate for Junior Certificate level) is a push or a pull, and is measured in units called newtons Ñ named after the great man himself. A newton is a very small unit; you exert a force of about 1 N to lift an apple and about 100 N to push a supermarket trolley. (The idea was to give pupils a ÔfeelingÕ for just how big (or small?) a newton is.) Then followed an experiment in which they investigated forces: friction, magnetic, electrostatic, upthrust, forces occurring in pairs and equal & opposite. There were ten ÔquickieÕ experiments that took about 30 minutes. Any teachers that have access to ScienceQuest (publ. C.J.Fallon, 1997) can see the instructions for those investigations.

Weight is a particular force; it is the force of attraction between an object and the Earth (or other astronomical body such as the Moon). Another permanent feature on the laboratory wall was a display such as shown Ñ with an actual newton meter and an actual 1 kg mass. A clock-dial type display is best for this so that the value can be read from down the room. Thus, pupils are constantly being reminded of the mass/weight difference.

Then a bit of discussion with illustrations about the mass of a body being constant but its weight can vary. For example, man on Moon weighs only about one-sixth of his weight on Earth, but heÕs still all there, i.e., his mass is the same. Finally, suitable homework questions to consolidate the work of the class, to be marked, with more discussion, next day.

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SciFest Ticks All The Boxes!

Accessible ☑ Local – SciFest@School ☑

Inclusive ☑ Regional – SciFest@College ☑

Free Entry ☑ National – SciFest@SFI/DSE ☑

Trophies and Prizes ☑ International – SciFest@Intel ISEF ☑

SciFest National Final 2013 – SciFest@SFI/DSE

Science Gallery, Trinity College, 22 November

Visit www.scifest.ie/national-final for details of the exhibitors and their projects

Closing date for entry to SciFest@College 2014: Friday 7 March 2014

IT notesEdel Morrow

You may occasionally come across interesting or useful articles that could enhance your teaching, but feel you haven’t the time

to read through them immediately. Pocket is an app that allows you to save or share the article for reading at a more convenient time. This app allows you to bookmark a full web page, article, image, caption or video link. With the exception of video links, your selection can be accessed in full at a later time, even if you are not online. The app allows integration with other mobile

devices and desktop applications, so it can be picked up at ease, wherever you are.

Use the share function to save your page to Pocket. The saved article can be emailed to colleagues or students in its entirety, or there is also the option to highlight a specific passage and email quoted text with the link. The recipient can later choose to be redirected to the full web article if desired. This is an excellent method for sharing up to date knowledge and creating ideas for discussion during lessons.

Edel Morrow,Dublin Branch, teaches Science and Biology in Hartstown Community School, Dublin.


What is it all about? In the past academic year, as part of my PhD studies, mathematics teachers in two secondary schools participated in Lesson Study within a community of practice as a way of collaborating with their colleagues in a model of in-school professional development. While Ireland ranks well in terms of teachers participating in professional development, most of it is in the form of in-service workshops. However, in-school professional development models are also widely acknowledged as providing rich opportunities for motivation, collaboration and learning (M. W. McLaughlin & Talbert, 2006; OECD, 2009). Teachers themselves maintain that it is the conversations over a cup of tea in the staff room or at the photocopier where they learn most from their colleagues. Lesson Study provides a model and space for these conversations which that can be adapted according to the school and teachers who volunteer to participate in it.

Lesson Study: An Umbrella TermThe model of Lesson Study used in this research is based on the following four steps but is not restricted to them (see last year’s Science journal for further details: (Ní Shúilleabháin, 2012):

(Lewis, Perry, & Hurd, 2009)

What is a Community of Practice?It is widely recognized that teacher communities figure among the most vital factors for promoting educational change within schools (de Lima, 2001; Grossman, Wineburg, & Woolworth, 2001; Louis, 2006; M. W. McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001; OECD, 2009; Stigler & Hiebert, 2009; Wineburg & Grossman, 1998). A key rationale for teacher community is that it provides an ongoing venue for teacher learning (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999; Darling-Hammond, Chung Wei, Andree, Richardson, & Orphanos, 2009; Guskey, 2002; T. H. McLaughlin, 2004). When speaking about ‘community’ though, it’s easy to become swamped in the various labels of ‘professional learning community’, ‘community of inquiry’, ‘community of learning’ and so on. I’ve chosen to base my research on a ‘community of practice’ since it shares many features of the professional learning community, but affords more ownership to participants without explicitly dictating their activities. It is also not confined

Lesson Study within a Community of Practice: In-school Professional Development

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to membership by teachers alone and is adaptable, so that members of the community can create and sustain changes that last over time. Communities of practice can become learning communities which, in turn, can contribute to the professional growth of the individual (Harris, 2003; Wenger, 1998; Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002). Irish secondary schools comprised of formal and informal curriculum departments provide a starting point from which to develop and evolve such a community.

A Group of Teachers versus a Teacher CommunityThrowing a bunch of teachers in a room, giving them a booklet and keeping them there in until they plan a lesson does not make them a community (Hindin, Morocco, Mott, & Aguilar, 2007). The ‘community’ will only develop over time as people get used to speaking with one another and working together. There are a number of features that are necessary for that community of practice to develop and then evolve into a sustainable, strong entity that has the possibility of lasting even if some members leave. These five proposed features of the community of practice are based on Wenger’s theory but with two additions (Ní Shúilleabháin, 2013):

Figure 1: Features of the Community of Practice, Ní Shúilleabháin 2013

The addition of ‘situated realism’ refers to the fact that teacher communities that are situated within the realities of school evolve within their particular environment and build the professional capacity to solve problems and make decisions particular to that setting. This ‘reality’ changes from school to school according to the culture, teacher practices, school ethos, leadership, and student entity and so the community adapts

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according to its environment. ‘Shared meaning’ refers to the shared language, including an understanding of inherent meaning, that a group develops as they engage in dialogue. This is usually the final feature to emerge within the community.

The ResearchThe research involved eleven teachers with experience ranging from 1 to thirty five years. Over the course of the academic year 2012-2013, four lesson study cycles were completed in both schools covering a range of topics chosen by, planned and taught by the teachers. Qualitative data was generated from recordings of the teacher meetings and teacher interviews with additional data of field notes, teacher notes and samples of student work.

What did the teachers really think? Each of the teachers enjoyed participating in Lesson Study and would recommend it as a form of professional development to other teachers.

Teachers often feel that the only way their teaching is evaluated is through exam results, which does not always provide a fair appraisal of their work practices. Lesson Study offers a way of for teachers to assess their own teaching through sharing ideas with colleagues but also through observing classroom practices and students’ engagement in lessons.

Most of the experienced teachers didn’t think they learned any new knowledge about their subject but all of the more newly qualified teachers did. However, the more experienced teachers did acknowledge that they were more confident with and experimented with new teaching methodologies, exemplifying that all participants were learning from each other.

Many teachers think that it will be too daunting and nerve-wrecking to have their colleagues coming into their classroom, but with Lesson Study the teacher is teaching the lesson that everyone planned together and the additional teachers are observing how the students are engaging with the lesson.

Most importantly, working together with their colleagues in their own school gave teachers the impetus to try new ideas in the classroom and change their practices.

But can it be all that good? Of course there are always variations of opinions and clashes of ideas that need to be ironed out when a group of professionals sit down to discuss an idea and naturally, this happened during the lesson study cycles. However, as a community develops, it becomes easier to discuss and iron out these creases and negotiating these tensions (be they big or small) becomes a common practice of the community.

Undoubtedly, it was difficult to try and find time within the school week to fit in planning meetings and I am incredibly grateful to the teachers in this research for giving so much of their free time. Any in-school professional development intervention will be demanding on teachers’ time, but perhaps it is now opportune to suggest that teachers be rewarded for their commitment to their ongoing learning and dedication

to their students and subjects. If this is a model that teachers are willing to volunteer to participate in, their time and professionalism should be acknowledged.

So What’s Next? The informal photocopier conversations still continue but they now revolve more on how a topic is taught instead of what worksheet to use. While I will continue with the data analysis for this research, I am confident to suggest that Lesson Study, conducted within a community of practice, is a model of professional development which can be voluntarily adopted and adapted by Irish mathematics, science and other subject teachers. It provides opportunity for teachers to share and develop both their subject content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge and while it is not the goal of participating in Lesson Study to create the best imaginable lesson for students, it is a positive by-product of the practice. In a time of immense curricular and policy reform in education in Ireland and worldwide, this model may provide teachers with an environment within which they can creatively inform their own practices.

For any questions regarding this research contact [email protected]

Acknowledgement: I would like to thank the NCCA for supporting the schools participating in this research. I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Aidan Seery, for his continued friendship, wisdom and guidance and also Trinity College Dublin in their Ussher Award funding.

BibliographyCochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (1999).

Relationships of Knowledge and Prac-tice: Teacher Learning In Communities. Review of Research in Education, 24, 249-305.

Darling-Hammond, L., Chung Wei, R., Andree, A., Richardson, N., & Orphanos, S. (2009). Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A status report on teacher development in the United States and Abroad. US: National Staff Develop-ment Council & Stanford University.

de Lima, J. Á. (2001). Forgetting about Friendship: Using Conflict in Teacher Communities as a Catalyst for School Change. Journal of Educational Change, 2(2), 97-122. doi: 10.1023/a:1017509325276

Grossman, P., Wineburg, S., & Woolworth, S. (2001). Toward a theory of teacher community. [Article]. Teachers College Record, 103(6), 942-1012.

Lily: It’s interesting to just have time to

sit and talk about what we do on a day to day basis, which we don’t get very many

opportunities to do a lot of the time...

Eileen: Yeah well I would say that we have all learned loads this year just in terms of coming up with ideas and planning things

and listening to each other. I’d say we have all developed those skills.

Martin: In terms of those two topics that we

took, has it increased my knowledge? Hard to say. In terms of mathematical content of that

I suppose not. But in terms of just looking at things and bringing things together in

different ways, yes.

Michael: Well I enjoy it because I’m

learning, just from a personal point of view, but I think I enjoy them mostly because I felt

I’ve improved at doing my job.

Walter: When you are observing the class I don’t feel that I am observing the teacher; I am observing what we came up with....

Lily: We’re consciously trying to do more...trying to have more group work and trying

to get the kids thinking independently.


Guskey, T. R. (2002). Professional Devel-opment and Teacher Change. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 8(3), 381-392.

Harris, A. (2003). Behind the classroom door: The challenge of organisational and peda-gogical change. Journal of Educational Change, 4(4), 369-392.

Hindin, A., Morocco, C. C., Mott, E. A., & Aguilar, C. M. (2007). More than just a group: teacher collaboration and learning in the workplace. Teachers and Teaching, 13(4), 349-376. doi: 10.1080/13540600701391911

Lewis, C., Perry, R., & Hurd, J. (2009). Im-proving mathematics instruction through lesson study: a theoretical model and North American case. Journal of Math-ematics Teacher Education, 12(4), 285-304. doi: 10.1007/s10857-009-9102-7

Louis, K. S. (2006). Organizing for School Change: Routledge.

McLaughlin, M. W., & Talbert, J. E. (2001). Professional Communities and the Work of High School Teaching. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

McLaughlin, M. W., & Talbert, J. E. (2006). Building School-Based Teacher Learning Communities: Professional Strategies to Improve Student Achievement. New York: Teachers College Press.

McLaughlin, T. H. (2004). Teaching as a Practice and a Community of Practice: The Limits of Commonality and the Demands of Diversity. In J. Dunne & P. Hogan (Eds.), Education and Practice: Upholding the Integrity of Teaching and Learning (Vol. 1, pp. 48-60). UK: Black-well Publishing.

Ni Shuilleabhain, A. (2012). Researching In-School Professional Development as a Community of Practice. Science: Official Journal of the Irish Science Teachers’ Association, 48(1), 31.

Ni Shuilleabhain, A. (2013). Lesson Study in a Community of Practice: A Model of in-school Professional Development. Trinity Education Papers, 2(2), 22-40.

OECD. (2009). Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments: First Results from TALIS.

Stigler, J. W., & Hiebert, J. (2009). The teaching gap: best ideas from the world’s teachers for improving education in the classroom. New York: Free Press.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. NY: Cambridge University Press.

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice. Boston MA: Havard Business School Publishing.

Wineburg, S., & Grossman, P. (1998). Creat-ing a community of learners among high school teachers. [Article]. Phi Delta Kap-pan, 79(5), 350.

Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin

TCD

ECO-UNESCO – Bringing Science to Life Through ECO-Action!

With the new academic year now getting into full swing,

ECO-UENSCO, Ireland’s Environmental Education and Youth Organisation is once more kicking off its Young Environmentalist Awards programme. Now in its 15th year, ECO-UNESCO is calling on all school teachers, students and after-school clubs to get involved in an environmental action project and take part in their Young Environmentalist Awards (YEA) 2014! The YEA is Ireland’s biggest celebration of eco-action and participation in the programme is a great way to engage students in learning about environmental issues which link into the school curriculum, as well as developing key personal skills through their action-project.

Science Curriculum Links The YEA programme is designed to work with secondary curricula and links with Science, Geography, SPHE, CSPE, Mathematics and Art syllabi as well as the Leaving Cert Applied Programme. Participants choose their own topics under a range of themes including, biodiversity, climate change, energy, waste and water to name a few. In this way, projects can be tailored to link in strongly with students’ studies in Biology, Physics and Chemistry.

YEA action projects can also be undertaken as part of the Gaisce Awards and is also an opportunity for students participating in other science related programmes to enter their project into another initiative.

The YEA is also an increasingly popular option for transition year students and ECO-UNESCO has developed a formal Transition Year Module which provides the tools required for teachers and schools to integrate the programme into their formal TY programme.

Successful projects from 2013 explored issues such as water conservation; how home grown ‘fruit and veg’ can help mitigate

climate change; the importance of bees to biodiversity, exploring wave based hydro-electricity, educating peers on composting, waste and recycling and a lot more besides!

Free Training Free training to get groups up and running is being offered by ECO-UNESCO throughout September and October and can be delivered in the classroom upon request. Participants to the programme are fully supported by ECO-UENSCO throughout the year with a hotline, manual and toolkit available to all registered groups.

To register, book training and for full details on the programme visit www.ecounesco.ie or look out for the YEA information pack sent to your school.

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The Science of Food for Transition Year

Maeve Liston

This article outlines three experiments to investigate the Iron and Vitamin C content in different drinks and the effect of proteases

on jelly that can be carried out using materials from your kitchen. These activities can be carried out in Transition Year Biology or as interesting experiments at Junior and Senior Cycle Science and Biology respectively, when covering the topics of food and nutrition.

Experiment 1: Test for iron using teaMaterials• 2 cups of strong tea• Fruit juices (canned, bottled, include red juices, pine apple

juice prune juice, juice from spinach and cabbage)• Test tubes or drinking glasses• Droppers• Labels

Procedure1. Place about an inch of tea into each glass or test tube.2. Label the test tube with each juice you are going to test.3. Write a description of what the fruit juices look like before

testing.4. Add about an inch of juice to each test tube.5. Watch for any changes to the solution.6. If you see a cloudiness forming in the solution this indicates

that Iron is present in the juice.

Explanation

Juices that contain the most iron are red juices, pineapple juice and prune juice. Tea reacts with the iron in the juices forming a precipitate.

Make sure your tea is VERY strong. You may not see particles or you may just see cloudiness from particles in suspension. Cloudiness indicates a reaction. It will be hard to see with prune juice, but it is there.

Experiment Two: Test Different Juices for Vitamin CMaterials• Test tubes or drinking glasses• Droppers• A selection of different juices from citrus fruit and green

vegetables.• Vitamin C tablets

Indicator Solution*• Mix 1 tablespoon of corn flour into enough water to make a

paste. • To this paste, add exactly 250 millilitres of water and boil

for five minutes. Allow to cool. • Add 10 drops of the starch solution to 75 millilitres of water

by using the eyedropper. • Add enough iodine to produce a dark purple-blue colour.

Now the indicator solution is ready.

*This solution is very unstable and will decompose quickly; it should therefore be made up freshly when required.

Procedure1. Put 5 millilitres of indicator solution (roughly 1 teaspoon)

in a test tube (one for each sample) 2. Place a 100 mg vitamin C tablet in a small plastic bag and

crush it into a powder. Add the powdered vitamin C to 100 ml of water. Store the solution in a sealed dark coloured container in the fridge.


3. To the test tube, use a clean eyedropper to add 10 drops of different fruit and vegetable juices to be tested.

4. Place all of the test tubes against a white background. 5. Line up the tubes from lightest to darkest purple. The lighter

the solution, the higher the level of Vitamin C content.

Vitamin C causes the purple indicator solution to lose its colour. Vitamin C changes the royal blue corn flour-iodine vitamin C indicator solution to clear. The more drops of a substance containing vitamin C we needed to turn the solution clear, the weaker the concentration of vitamin C in that substance.

Variations• Compare juice from ripe and unripened fruit

• Compare fruit from fresh and bought juices.

• Compare fresh fruit or vegetable juice or vitamin C standard which had been exposed to the air under shade for one hour and non-exposed juices. Vitamin C decomposes over time when exposed to the air.

• Compare fresh fruit or vegetable juice or vitamin C standard which had been exposed to the air under direct sunlight for one hour and non-exposed juices. Vitamin C decomposes over time when exposed to the air. Vitamin C decomposes over time when exposed to the air, as well as to sunlight. The sunlight makes the decomposition rate faster.

• Investigate the effect of heat on Vitamin C. Heat each juice to be tested, and let it boil for about 10 minutes. Allow the juices to cool and then test using the indicator solution. All the juices will not affect the royal blue colour of the corn flour-iodine solution. Heat completely destroys the Vitamin C content in all the juices tested. You could also test the effect of pouring boiling water into a Lemsip and pouring water of around 30 degrees into a Lemsip. The boiling water will also have an effect on the vitamin C content in Lemsip.

Experiment Three: Proteases in Different Fruits

Materials• Jelly• Plastic containers/Petri dishes• A selection of different chopped fruits including pineapple

and kiwi

Procedure1. Mix up some jelly according to the instructions and allow it

to set.2. Chop various types of fruit into small pieces. We used

orange, kiwi, tinned pineapple and fresh pineapple.3. Place the chopped fruit on the jelly and leave for 30

minutes.

The orange and tinned pineapple will have no effect on the jelly. The fresh pineapple and kiwi will cause the jelly to go soft and watery around where the fruit was in contact with the jelly.

Explanation

Jelly is made up of long thin protein molecules. The reason that jelly sets is that as the gelatin molecules tangle up as they cool creating a huge intertwined tangle that traps the water and makes a flexible solid. The pineapple contains an enzyme called bromelain and kiwi fruit another enzyme called actinidin; both of these enzymes are proteases which break down protein molecules.

Kiwi fruit

Fresh pineapple

Tinned pineapple

Orange

All fruits will have some proteases but pineapple and kiwi fruit have far more. Exactly why is not known but it is probably to repel pests. This is also the reason why your mouth tingles if you eat too much of them. The proteases start to digest the skin of your mouth.

In the canning process the pineapple is heated up to kill all the bacteria inside. This heat causes the enzymes to ‘denature’ and so does not have any effect on the jelly.

Dr. Maeve ListonLecturer in Science EducationMary Immaculate College Associate and Senior Research Fellow at the NCE-MSTLE-mail: [email protected]

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Are we all alone?Paul Holland

People have gone through phases. In our early history, survival was all that mattered, with little time for reflection. Civilisation

developed as did religion, and we saw ourselves as the centre of God’s creation. Only in the last few centuries did a general picture of the Universe, of which we were a pretty small part, emerge. With it came the hope / belief that we were not alone. There were so many galaxies, stars and planets – with planets now being discovered at a furious rate – probability alone seemed to indicate that we had a Universe teeming with life. Surely there are human-like civilisations out there? Maybe not, if the probability is low enough and the “life-span” of the Universe not long enough. Enter the Lotto 20 times a week and ask yourself if that guarantees you the jackpot.We can say one thing for definite. If the Universe is actually infinite or we have an infinity of parallel Universes, then we will have Earth millions of times over and millions of variations on it. This would include, but not be limited to, worlds where the dinosaurs survived, worlds where they don’t play hurling in Kilkenny and places where the only difference is that you arrived for work a minute earlier this morning. But this is only speculation.............

Some scientists, while acceding to the possibility, feel that extraterrestrial civilisations are at best an extremely unlikely and rare occurrence. There appears to be a “habitable zone” in our galaxy. Too near the centre, there is a great density of stars with their associated flares, comets, supernovas and probably a black hole – any matter falling towards it would release deadly radiation in the same way that water flowing down the sink releases noise. The evolution of life would be a challenging prospect here as it might be in the outer reaches of the galaxy. Here, there is not much star formation so overall nuclear fusion would not generate much of the heavier elements needed for solid planetary formation and life in general. A further consideration is that our galaxy is a bit like a solar system with the stars orbiting around the centre. In some of our neighbours, star motion is more random – this militates against the survival of stable planetary systems.

Astronomers have defined the habitable zone around stars – the range of distances a planet can be from a sun and still maintain life as we know it. Too far from a star, a planet will be too cold. Nearer the star, water will evaporate and the planet gets too hot. Our own sun is somewhat larger and warmer than the average star – this makes its habitable zone wider. Giant stars have a very large habitable zone but they probably burn out too quickly for life forms to establish. Less massive stars are cooler and last longer but their habitable zone is very

narrow, reducing the probability of having planets within it. And our planet will not stay in the habitable zone because the sun will get hotter, moving the habitable zone beyond Earth’s orbit. That’s before the sun expands to swallow Earth prior to burning out completely.

We’ve had some lucky breaks. Earth has enough mass, and therefore gravity, to hold a substantial atmosphere. If it were a few times more massive, plate tectonics might be interfered with. Plate tectonics creates a steady flow of gases into the atmosphere which drive the nitrogen and carbon cycles – over time, a lot of gases vital to life get incorporated into minerals. A heavier Earth would also be a flatter one that might be completely covered with oceans – whatever might evolve would not include humans. We had the cosmic collision that gave us, for our size, a massive moon. Its tidal influence helps stabilise us in the gentle wobbling axial rotation that gives us the seasons and a less extreme planetary climate. (One of the planets, Uranus, practically points its pole at the sun as it moves on its axis and Mars has had drunken staggers in its

past). The ocean tides have also probably contributed to the scenario which encouraged animals to crawl out of the sea in the first place. It must be said that the moon doesn’t prevent the Earth’s orbit about the sun varying in a way that apparently gives us the Ice Ages – and, yes, one is due. Fortune has favoured us – there have been six catastrophic mass extinctions, and other less serious ones, to clear the playing field and let humans evolve.

The Earth is made of elements that make our life possible – it might not have been so lucky. The Solar System might have formed in a part of the galaxy with a different mix of chemicals. A planet composed primarily of carbon would be a bit like a ball of tar. In the early jockeying for position, Jupiter might have swept up the material in the habitable zone – there are “Jupiters” in orbits closer to their suns than our Mercury is. It would also appear that about half of all stars are part of binary or multiple systems. This certainly does not preclude planets but the likelihood is that their orbits would expose them to temperature ranges of hundreds of degrees which might be o.k. for extremophiles but not humans. And, in about 3 billion years time, we’re scheduled to collide with the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy – just as well it didn’t happen 3 billion years ago!

Extraterrestrial life – or civilisations? Plain fact is – we don’t know.

Paul Holland, formerly Presentation College, Galway

Picture (Wikipedia): The Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M32. is the nearest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way, yet light takes 2.5 million years to travel for it to us.


Chemistry Corner

John Daly

Lateral thinking questions can arise from students in a class for many reasons; idle chatter; time wasting; a class lottery on how

long the teacher can be kept off task; embarrassing the teacher by exposing their lack of knowledge; being genuinely curious; spotting the shortcomings in a proferred school-level scientific model; seeking confirmation or denial for a newspaper or web-based ‘factual statement’ etc.The experienced teacher will treat all queries with respect, deserved or not, and will direct the discussion as she/he sees fit, to fill gaps in knowledge; to clarify confusing media reports; to use the answer to add relevance to the topic at hand and to be, if possible, that most intangible thing – inspirational.

Having time now to read more at leisure, I would hope to draw to your attention topical research items from the world of chemistry. You may then wish, to use this short article to direct students, particularly TY students or potential SciFest researchers to a related area of research.

The element mercury LC Chemistry Related Topic:- Periodic Table Trends – Van der Waals Forces – Atomic Radii – Shielding EffectsThe element Mercury has always fascinated me. Its density its toxicity its history, its low melting point.

It is now difficult to show the element mercury to students due to its well recognised hazardous nature. Until I retired, I always demonstrated a sample in a double heavy glass walled sealed container to my students, handing it to each one in turn. It is difficult to appreciate its high density and quicksilver nature unless you hold a sample in your hand.

Its ability to form an amalgam with gold has been used for centuries as a means of extracting gold from its ore. I would re-tell my students the story of building a mercury barometer with my father and having my mothers wedding ring turn ‘silver’ as she watched, only to be reassured that the amalgam effect would wear off soon. Exposure to mercury vapour was not considered a high risk in the 1950s. You live, sometimes, and learn.

It always puzzles chemistry students as to why mercury is the only liquid metal element at room temperature and pressure.

Mercury is puzzling in several ways. It’s a liquid at room temperature and pressure, but all of its neighbors on the

periodic table are solids. Most metals share their valence electrons with surrounding metal atoms. Picture the metal as a lattice of positive ions glued together by “sea” of shared valence electrons. This electron sea model explains many properties of metals. For example, metals conduct electricity because the shared electrons are free to move about; taking an electron from one part of the metal will cause electrons from surrounding areas to rush in and fill the hole. Metals can be drawn into wire or pounded into sheets because the metal ions can slide past each other but still be bound together by the shared valence electrons. The electron sea model explains some trends in metal hardness and melting point. Harder, high-melting-point metals tend to share more valence electrons than softer, more easily melted metals.

Mercury hangs on to its valence 6s electrons very tightly. Mercury-mercury bonding is very weak because its valence electrons are not shared readily. (In fact mercury is the only metal that doesn’t form diatomic molecules [Hg2] in the gas phase). Heat easily overcomes the weak binding between mercury atoms, most likely Van der Waals forces, and mercury boils and melts at lower temperatures than any other metal.

The lanthanide contraction ( poor shielding of nuclear charge by 4f electrons ) is a partial but not sufficient explanation for the 6s electron orbital contraction. There is another more important factor. Mercury’s 6s electrons in coming very close to the centre of the atom swing around a very massive nucleus at speeds close to that of light. When objects move at such high speeds, relativistic effects occur. The s electrons behave as though they were more massive than electrons moving at slower speeds. The increased mass causes them to spend more time close to the nucleus. This relativistic contraction of the 6s orbital lowers its energy and makes its electrons much less likely to participate in chemistry- they’re buried deep in the atomic core.

This relativistic explanation has been theorised since the late 1970s but evidence to support the theory has just been published in Massey University, Albany, New Zealand. The research team used quantum mechanics to estimate the heat capacity of the metal with and without the inclusion of relativistic effects. The first calculation gave Mercury a melting point of 82°C but including the relativistic effects gave an answer close to the experimental value of -39°C.

As a related extension of this explanation, it might be a good stretching exercise for one of your more able students to investigate and explain to the class why gold is quite a rare metal in having a yellow colour rather than a silver colour.

Please don’t complain that you have no time for extra-curricular extensions and that you have a course to teach. Remember you also have a duty to the top 5 to 10% in your class as well as to everybody else. Your A1 students will find much of Leaving Cert Chemistry, insipid, a little infantile, lacking in mathematical rigour and condescending in the simplified models offered. You owe it to them to open some doors. I assure you they will be inspired.

ReferenceL. Howes, RSC Chemistry World, Aug 2013, Wikipedia, Relativistic

quantum chemistry

Images: Creative Commons

John Daly, Blackrock College, (retired)

www.ista.ie30

The longest dayPaul Holland

Dramatis personae: Miss Fitt, Miss Vernon, Miss Clarke (teachers)A year group of studentsMuseum attendantsOther teachers

Act 1. Among the dinosaurs

Miss Fitt, a long-suffering Science teacher, has been press-ganged into accompanying a year group on a school tour with two other teachers. After hours of travel since crack of dawn, they have reached their destination, the Dinosaur Museum, and are assembled in the lobby. Miss Clarke has just finished a roll call. The students kick their heels impatiently.

Miss Vernon: All right, silence! Listen up everybody!

Lucy (to Miss Fitt): When do we get out to the shops, Miss?

Miss Fitt: There won’t be any shops if you don’t behave yourself.

Miss Vernon: Miss Fitt! Will you stop talking please! Now, everyone listen.

Lucy (to Miss Fitt): Miss, when do we get....... (Miss Fitt moves away. Lucy follows)

Miss Vernon: It’s eleven o’clock now. You have two hours in the museum. We meet here in the lobby at one o’clock to go to the Petrified Forest restaurant.

Georgina: Where’s that, Miss?Miss Clarke: Look – just be in the lobby

at one sharp and we’ll bring you there.

Miss Vernon: Now are you all listening? After lunch you’ll be dropped in the city centre for some free time and we’ll all meet up outside here at five o’clock for the bus home.

Lucy (to Miss Fitt): Can’t we go to the shops now, Miss?

Miranda (to Miss Fitt): Yeah, this place is boring.

Miss Fitt: Oh for goodness sake stop it!Miss Clarke (handing a set of sheets

to Miss Fitt): Give one of these to everybody. (Miss Fitt starts distributing)

Albert (aggressively): I don’t want this.Miss Fitt: Take it! (Albert folds the sheet

and starts savaging it with a key)Miss Clarke: Everybody! On that sheet

you’ll see five questions. You’ll find the answers if you visit all the exhibits. If you don’t fill them in, no free time this afternoon!

Claire (to Miss Fitt): Are there real dinosaurs here, Miss?

Miss Fitt: I wouldn’t think so, Claire, but let’s go and look anyway. (Claire, Miss Fitt and others start moving upstairs towards the exhibit area)

Miss Vernon: Miss Fitt!Miss Fitt: Yes?Miss Vernon: Come here.Miss Fitt: Go on up, Claire. Yes? What?Miss Vernon: You stay here at the main

door. Some of them are only waiting their chance to sneak off if we don’t watch them. Don’t let anyone out for any excuse!

Miss Fitt: I was hoping to see some of the museum myself.

Miss Clarke: Oh we’ll be back in a few minutes!

(Exeunt Miss Vernon and Miss Clarke – out the main door. Enter Steve)

Steve: Miss, are you not coming upstairs?

Miss Fitt (a bit suspicious): Ah, later Steve. You go up and make the best of it. (Exit Steve. Enter Vanessa and Deborah)

Vanessa: Miss, I left a bottle of water in the bus. Can I go out and get it?

Miss Fitt: The bus is gone, Vanessa.Vanessa: Well, can I go out and buy a

bottle of water then? We’ll only be a minute.

Miss Fitt: No, you can’t go out.Attendant (overhearing): There’s a free

water dispenser on the second floor, girls.

Miss Fitt: Well there you are. Off with you!

Attendant: God it’s a great life you’re having Miss, that and your three-month holiday.

(Miss Fitt fixes him with an icy stare. Exit attendant)

Miss Fitt (to herself): The things I have to do in this blasted job!

(Tempus doesn’t fugit. Miss Fitt walks to and fro, seconds feeling like minutes, minutes like generations. Looks at her watch in frustration)

Miss Fitt: Where on Earth are they gone? (Enter Vanessa and Deborah. They walk past Miss Fitt out the door)

Miss Fitt: Stop! (They don’t)Miss Fitt: Come back at once! (She is

forced to give chase and overtake them)

Miss Fitt: Where are you going?Deborah: It’s none of your business.Miss Fitt: Get back inside, the two of

you!Vanessa: Why?Miss Fitt: You’ve already been told to

stay here till one o’clock.Deborah: What for? We’ve seen it, it’s

stupid anyway.Miss Fitt: Have you filled up the

question sheet?Deborah: Yeah! Are you satisfied?

(Neither Miss Fitt nor the girls notice Albert, Leonard and Colin taking advantage of the situation and sneaking out the door)

Miss Fitt: Show me your question sheets.Vanessa: We didn’t think we had to keep

them.Miss Fitt: Get back inside!Vanessa: Don’t touch me!Deborah: Oh come on Vanessa! You

can’t argue with her. Does that make you feel better, Miss?

(The two girls go back into the museum and head upstairs. Enter Steve, Marcella and Tim)

Steve: Miss, you really should come up. It’s very interesting.


Miss Fitt: Ah you go on back up, folks. I’m sure there’s plenty more to see.

Tim (sniggering): Miss, I was puzzled about a few things I saw there that I couldn’t understand.

Miss Fitt (playing along with the charade and watching the door): Like what?

Tim: Well, what’s supposed to have killed off the dinosaurs?

Miss Fitt: Oh Tim, you should know that a giant meteorite hit the Earth causing a severe climate change. (Marcella scribbles frantically)

Tim: And what did pteranodons do that most other dinosaurs didn’t?

Miss Fitt: They could fly, they had huge wingspans.

Tim: Were sharks around before the dinosaurs?

Miss Fitt: Yes, they were.Tim: What does the word ‘extinct’ mean,

Miss?Miss Fitt: A species doesn’t exist any

longer – and that’s something you should know for yourself.

Tim: And were dinosaurs a..amphibians or reptiles?

Miss Fitt: Use your head! Do you think dinosaurs looked like frogs?

Tim: I don’t know, Miss. Did they?Miss Fitt: Oh all right, they’re reptiles.

Now I’m not answering any more questions. Go back upstairs and learn something for yourselves.

Tim: Did you get them all, Marcella?Marcella: Yes! Come on, we’ll give

them to the others. (Marcella, Steve and Tim race off upstairs)

(Miss Fitt resumes her vigil by the door. She starts at the sound of a commotion upstairs which dies down again. She nearly crushes her mobile phone in her hand in frustration)

Miss Fitt (to herself): And of course that two wouldn’t give me their mobile numbers! Where on Earth are they?

(Commotion upstairs again, definitely louder and now interspersed with some screeches)

Miss Fitt (looks at her watch): Oh how much longer?

(Loud voices. Miss Fitt starts at the sight of the entire year group of her students trooping downstairs, escorted by about six angry attendants)

Attendant: Are you Miss Fitt?Miss Fitt: Yes.Attendant: And are these your students?Miss Fitt: Yes......

Attendant: Madam, we accept school groups on the understanding that they are well-behaved and properly supervised. While you’ve been standing here, your students have been writing graffiti on exhibits and verbally abusing any of my staff who challenged them. They’ve been racing around the floors, throwing water everywhere and harassing people who have paid to visit the museum. We will have to ask you to take them out of here right now.

Miss Fitt: There are two....Attendant (punching keys on a mobile

phone): If you’re not out of here immediately, I’m calling the police!

End of Act 1

Act 2. The day after

Scene: School staff roomTime: Next morning, about ten minutes

before class time(Miss Fitt is in conversation with

Peter. General conversation which gradually subsides as her story emerges)

Peter: You’re not serious! They kicked you out into the car park at about quarter past eleven and you had to keep them there until one.

Miss Fitt: Twenty past – that’s when the other two came strolling back.

Emer: I’d say they were pretty restless, were they?

Miss Fitt: It would have been easier to herd a hundred wildcats into a corner with fifty doors open behind you – I couldn’t relax for even a second, and they were screaming at me for keeping them there. And every now and again the museum staff were coming out giving me dirty looks.

Peter: But at least you got to go to the restaurant when Vernon and Clarke came back.

Miss Fitt: Well – I didn’t! They did a roll and then we found three of the boys were missing.

Cyril: The Alco gang, I bet!Miss Fitt: Vernon and Clarke took the

rest of them to the restaurant. They told me to wait at the museum until the other three showed up and not to move from there until they did – since it was my fault they had gone missing.

Emer: And what happened to them?Miss Fitt (nearly incoherent with rage):

Those three .... those three were waiting at the restaurant, told me later I had said nothing to them when they left! I was left standing outside

the museum until five o’clock when they all showed up for the bus home.

Cindy: And did nobody text you or come back to tell you they were OK?

Miss Fitt: I tackled Vernon and Clarke about it and they more or less said what was the problem with me, and that everything was all right now. And the pupils got a great laugh out of the whole thing!

Cyril (unsympathetically): You should have texted or called them or the school here the minute you were kicked out of the museum. You left yourself wide open.

Miss Fitt (sobbing): Oh I should have done this or done that... and I didn’t want to go on this stupid tour anyway after what happened the last time.... (Accepts a glass of water offered by Cindy)

Peter: What time did you get home eventually?

Miss Fitt: Oh yes! – they weren’t finished with me, no. Vernon and Clarke hopped off the bus about five miles short of the school. They told me to wait with the pupils until the very last one of them was picked up. I didn’t get back home until three o’clock this morning.

Peter: I’d have called in sick if I were you.

(Silence descends. Miss Fitt composes herself. Teachers drift off into separate groups. Conversations resume, growing in volume. Enter Miss Curley, the deputy principal, radiant and beaming confidence)

Miss Curley: Good morning everyone! Why – hello Miss Fitt! What are you doing in?

Miss Fitt: I have my usual class at nine o’clock. Ah.. is there a problem?

Miss Curley: I have a rota done out here to cover your classes. We weren’t expecting you in until twelve, or goodness!, maybe I’ve made a mistake. Weren’t you on the tour yesterday?

Miss Fitt: Yes! I was.Miss Curley: Well then, we decided the

teachers and students who went on the tour could have a late morning, it being such a long day you’d all be shattered. Did Miss Vernon not tell you?

THE END

Paul Holland, Galway

www.ista.ie32

CROSSWORDRandal Henly

Clues Across

1. System of winds rotating inwards to an area of low pressure (7)

6. Reddish brown colour associated with early monochrome photographs (5)

9. Fungus that can convert sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide (5)

10. Enzyme found in saliva that converts starch into simple sugars (7)

11. Plenty at an auction! (3)12. Mixture of metals (5)13. Large gland in the neck that

secretes hormones regulating growth and development (7)

14. The precursor of chemistry (7)15. The masking of one astronomical

body by another (7)20. Rudolph, the German engineer

who invented the type of engine that bears his name (6)

22. Such substances are capable of transmitting radiation without distortion (11)

23. A receiver of electromagnetic waves (6)

25. The galvanising element (4)26. Short scientists’ workrooms (4)

29. Mobile and destructive vortex of violently rotating wind (7)

31. Non-SI unit of heat (7)32. A height measurer (9)33. Flexible inelastic cords of strong

tissue that attach muscle to bone (7)

Clues Down1. The very poisonous CN– ion (7)2. Homogeneous solid of

geometrical shape and with plane faces (7)

3. Female reproductive organ (5)4. Perhaps a building that disfigures

the environment (7)5. Michael, who discovered the

principle of the dynamo (7)6. Natural pendant of calcium

carbonate (10)7. Pry moles for chemical

compounds (8)8. A blood vessel (6)

16. Joint surface tissue could become garlic tea (9)

17. What holds the components of potassium iodide together (5,4)

18. Each of the parts of the calyx of a flower (5)

19. Crustacean with five pairs of legs (4)

20. Its structure was discovered by Watson and Crick (3)

21. Spiral-horned African antelope (5)

24. Washed with water (6)27. They are measured in square

units (5)28. Express a form of matter (5)30. Boat propellors (4)

PrizeA prize (any item from the ISTA shop) will be given for the first correct response that is returned to the Editor.The list of shop items may be viewed on: http://www.ista.ie/publications/index.php

Clues Across

1. System of winds rotating inwards to an area of low pressure (7)

6. Reddish brown colour associated with early monochrome photographs (5)

9. Fungus that can convert sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide (5)

10. Enzyme found in saliva that converts starch into simple sugars (7)

11. Plenty at an auction! (3)

12. Mixture of metals (5)

13. Large gland in the neck that secretes hormones regulating growth and development (7)

14. The precursor of chemistry (7)

15. The masking of one astronomical body by another (7)

20. Rudolph, the German engineer who invented the type of engine that bears his name (6)

22. Such substances are capable of transmitting radiation without distortion (11)

23. A receiver of electromagnetic waves (6)

25. The galvanising element (4)

26. Short scientistsÕ workrooms (4)

29. Mobile and destructive vortex of violently rotating wind (7)

31. Non-SI unit of heat (7)

32. A height measurer (9)

33. Flexible inelastic cords of strong tissue that attach muscle to bone (7)

Clues Down

1. The very poisonous CNÐ ion (7)

2. Homogeneous solid of geometrical shape and with plane faces (7)

3. Female reproductive organ (5)

4. Perhaps a building that disfigures the environment (7)

5. Michael, who discovered the principle of the dynamo (7)

6. Natural pendant of calcium carbonate (10)

7. Pry moles for chemical compounds (8)

8. A blood vessel (6)

16. Joint surface tissue could become garlic tea (9)

17. What holds the components of potassium iodide together (5,4)

18. Each of the parts of the calyx of a flower (5)

19. Crustacean with five pairs of legs (4)

20. Its structure was discovered by Watson and Crick (3)

21. Spiral-horned African antelope (5)

24. Washed with water (6)

27. They are measured in square units (5)

28. Express a form of matter (5) 30. Boat propellors (4)

SCIENCE CROSSWORD 63

WinnerCongratulations to Marie Vaughan, Macroom, Co. Cork, who submitted the first correct solution to the last crossword. Well done.

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Set this experiment up on a heatproof mat or surface and ensure the room has ventilation as the alcohol vapour tends to smell.

Put the sand in a mound on the heat proof mat and make an indentation on the top. Do not push the indentation all the way down.

Pour the isopropyl alcohol onto the sand before adding the other ingredients.

Mix the sugar and baking powder together and place in the indentation in the sand.

Make sure it fi lls the indentation evenly to reduce the chance of the snake being skewed.

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• Heatproof mat • Sand • 4 tsp of icing sugar • 1 tsp of baking soda

• 5 tsp of isopropyl alcohol • Matches or gas lighter • Teaspoon

What other situations do we use raising agents for? Think about the uses in cooking.

The baking soda releases carbon dioxide when heated above 50 °C. Burning the alcohol creates the heat

and caramelises the sugar, giving the snakes their black appearance. The snakes grow because of the pressure from the gas (CO2) being

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• What is fuelling the fi re?

• What gas is produced? How do you know?

• Is the process reversible or irreversible?

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Lesson Study within a Community of Practice: In-school Professional Development

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