To Sink or Not to Sink: Using Literature to Support Scientific Inquiry (2005)

To be, or not to be, that is the question. William Shakespeare Hamlet, Act III, Scene I (p.127) Introduction In Hamlet, Shakespeare invites readers to ponder a famous philosophical question: To be or not to be? In this article we report on a strategy lesson that invited young children to explore the scientific question: To sink or not to sink? We begin with a brief discussion of the rationale for conducting this strategy lesson in a primary classroom. Then, we describe the larger professional development context in which this strategy lesson took place. Next, we identify the materials and outline the procedures that were used to implement this lesson in a second grade classroom, and we include samples of data collection sheets that resulted from this lesson. Finally, we share lessons learned from this experience and some intriguing questions for future inquiry. Background Since the dawn of time, children all over the world have been curious about objects that sink and objects that do not sink. For centuries now, watching how some objects sink and others do not sink, and wondering why, children have loved to play with floating objects in a pottery bowl, a tide pool, or a large bathtub. More recently, children have enjoyed throwing objects like coins (and who knows what else) in backyard swimming pools, anxiously waiting until the coins sink to the bottom, and then excitedly diving in after them. And, in school, children have excitedly conducted experiments by making little rafts (or huge boats and even ships) out of aluminum foil and finding out how many pennies the raft will hold before it sinks. Whether in ancient history or contemporary times and whether at home or at school, the point is this: children have learned about objects that sink or do not sink through play, curiosity, and experimentation. The other point is this: like children, teachers also learn through exploration and experimentation. The same holds true for us. In this instance we wanted to explore and experiment with two questions: (a) What do young children understand about the way different objects behave in water? and (b) How can literature be used to support scientific inquiry about the concept of buoyancy and the attribute of sinking? We used these questions to develop a strategy lesson that responded to concerns expressed by teachers in the Literacy Focus Group (described later) about the teaching of science in a primary classroom. First, teachers have difficulty providing hands-on, inquiry-based science instruction. The primary issues are limitations of time, few resources, and experience. Therefore, we developed a strategy lesson that used relatively inexpensive resources and taught important scientific concepts within a reasonable period of time. Second, teachers know what standards-based instruction is, but they don't know what it looks like in the primary classroom. Therefore, we developed a lesson that illustrated an example of putting standards-based science instruction into action using national science education standards (NRC, 1996). Third, teachers have little experience with interdisciplinary teaching and learning. For the most part teachers in primary grades organize the school day teaching single disciplines (math, science, reading) in isolated and discrete blocks of time. Therefore, we developed and implemented a strategy lesson that integrated literacy and science in a one hour block of time. And fourth, teachers expressed much confidence in areas of life science and earth science, but less confidence in areas of physical science. Therefore, we developed a strategy lesson that addressed an important concept in physical science: buoyancy, specifically the attribute of sinking or not sinking. It is important to note that we chose to focus on sinking versus not sinking, and to describe the work in this way, because we wanted children and teachers to focus on the presence or absence of a single attribute, in this case sinking. …