Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8 (2007)
Chapter: 6 Understanding How Scientific Knowledge Is Constructed
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Suggested Citation:"6 Understanding How Scientific Knowledge Is Constructed." National Research Council. 2007. Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11625.
Understanding How Scientific Knowledge Is Constructed
Major Findings in the Chapter:
The research base on children’s understanding of how scientific knowledge is constructed is limited. Most studies have been conducted in laboratory settings and do not take into account instructional history and children’s opportunity to learn about this aspect of science.
Most children do not develop a sophisticated understanding of how scientific knowledge is constructed.
Methods of science dominate the school science curriculum, with little emphasis on the role of theory, explanation, or models.
Children’s understanding of science appears to be amenable to instruction. However, more research is needed that provides insight into the experiences and conditions that facilitate their understanding of science as a way of knowing.
Science is not only a body of knowledge, but also a way of knowing. One important underpinning for learning science is students’ understanding of the nature and structure of scientific knowledge and the process by which it is developed. Our vision of K-8 science features this understanding as one of the four strands. We have elevated this focus to the status of a strand for several reasons. We view understanding of the nature and structure of scientific knowledge and the process by which it is developed as a worthy end in and of itself. In addition, emerging research evidence suggests that students’ grasp of scientific explanations of the natural world and their ability to engage successfully in scientific investigations are advanced when they under-
stand how scientific knowledge is constructed. In this chapter we address how children come to understand both “how we know” in science and “why we believe” scientific evidence.
For more than a century, educators have argued that students should understand how scientific knowledge is constructed (Rudolph, 2005). One rationale that is often invoked, but not empirically tested, is that understanding science makes for a more informed citizenry and supports democratic participation. That is, citizens who understand how scientific knowledge is produced will be careful consumers of scientific claims about public scientific issues (e.g., global warming, ecology, genetically modified foods, alternative medicine) both at the ballot box and in their daily lives.
A second justification among educators is that understanding the structure and nature of science makes one better at doing and learning science (see review by Sandoval, 2005). That is, if students come to see science as a set of practices that builds models to account for patterns of evidence in the natural world, and that what counts as evidence is contingent on making careful observations and building arguments, then they will have greater success in their efforts to build knowledge. Viewing these processes from a distance—not merely enacting them—enhances students’ ability to practice science. Schauble and colleagues (1995), for example, found that fifth grade students designed better experiments after instruction about the purpose of experimentation.
We begin the chapter with an elaboration on science as a way of knowing, sketching the goals of the enterprise, the nature and structure of scientific knowledge, and the process by which it is constructed. This elaboration is intended to provide a sense of the target we have for students’ learning. That is, it represents currently accepted ideas about the nature of scientific knowledge that are important to teach in grades K-8.
Building on this model of science, we first turn to the cognitive research literatures to examine the intellectual resources relevant to this strand that children bring to kindergarten. In an earlier chapter (Chapter 3), we discussed the developmental research on children’s early “theory of mind,” that is, their growing awareness of their own and other’s minds and their understanding of expertise. In this chapter, we first discuss how during the K-8 years, they build on these understandings to develop some initial epistemological ideas about what knowledge is and how it is constructed. Next, we consider how they begin to think about what scientific knowledge is and how it is constructed. In the field of science education, this research is often found under the general heading of students’ understanding of the nature of science. Finally, we consider external influences on students’ understanding of science as a way of knowing, including teacher knowledge, the epistemic model that may underlie the curriculum, and the literature—albeit extremely small—that has been focused on classroom-based interventions in epistemic advancements.
Before delving into this research, one major caveat is in order. Almost all of the research investigating children’s thinking relevant to this strand has been conducted in the research laboratory, examining how their thinking develops over time irrespective of instructional history or opportunities to learn. It allows us to point to developmental trends and base-level competencies that can be expected in a given age span in normally developing children. However, inferences from this research base about the upper limits of children’s capability are inappropriate and are likely to yield underestimates. Furthermore, as almost all of this research attends to development and not opportunities to learn, it provides little insight into the kinds of experiences and conditions that facilitate children’s understanding of science and thinking about their own knowledge. A few studies have begun to explore the effects of teaching approaches on the development of epistemological understanding. We offer a limited discussion of this literature here. Later, in Chapters 6 and 9, we discuss in more depth studies that provide insight as to supportive classroom conditions and provide better proxies for what is possible when those conditions exist.
UNDERLYING MODEL OF THE NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
Before considering the research that may elucidate the intellectual resources and challenges that learning this strand might pose to children in the K-8 years, we briefly review approaches the field has taken to articulate the underlying model of building scientific knowledge. In this explication, we consider the goals of the enterprise, the nature and structure of scientific knowledge, and how knowledge is developed, with a focus on what is most relevant for student learning. (For a more complete discussion of our view of the nature of science, see Chapter 2.) While we acknowledge there is no simple correspondence with this model of science and the epistemic goals of the curriculum at any particular grade level, consideration of both relevant cognitive research and instructional design is informed by close consideration of the normative model.
Osborne and colleagues (2003) have proposed taking a consensus view to identify the ideas about science that should be part of the school science curriculum. They conducted a study to examine the opinions of scientists, science educators, individuals involved in promoting the public understanding of science, and philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science. They identified nine themes encapsulating key ideas about the nature of science that were considered to be an essential component of school science curriculum. These included science and certainty, analysis and interpretation of data, scientific method and critical testing, hypothesis and pre-
diction, creativity/science and questioning, cooperation and collaboration in the development of scientific knowledge, science and technology, historical development of scientific knowledge, and diversity of scientific thinking.
Sandoval reviewed Osborne and others’ definitions of science epistemology (e.g., Driver et al., 1996; Lederman et al., 2002; McComas and Olson, 1998) and presented a more manageable list of four broad epistemological themes, which we pause to discuss briefly. First, Sandoval asserts that viewing scientific knowledge as constructed is of primary importance that underscores a dialectical relationship between theory and evidence. Students, if they are to understand what science is, must accept that it is something that people do and create. From this flows the implication that science involves creativity and that science is not science because it is “true” but because it is persuasive.
The second theme is that scientific methods are diverse: there is no single “method” which generically applies to all scientific inquiries (experiments may be conducted in some fields, but not in others). Rather than relying on one or several rote methods, science depends on ways of evaluating scientific claims (e.g., with respect to systematicity, care, and fit with existing knowledge).
Third, scientific knowledge comes in different forms, which vary in their explanatory and predictive power (e.g., theories, laws, hypotheses; for more on this, see Chapter 2). This is a theme often overlooked in traditional analyses (including Osborne’s) but one that is central to understanding the constructive nature of science and the interaction of different knowledge forms in inquiry. Fourth, Sandoval asserts that scientific knowledge varies in certainty. Acknowledging variable certainty, Sandoval argues, invites students to engage the ideas critically and to evaluate them using epistemological criteria.
Another approach to defining the aspects of understanding the epistemology of science that science curriculum should inhere is to consider the aspects of epistemology that have been linked to enhancing the development of science understanding. Although the literature does not offer a systematic treatment of this notion, there are pockets of evidence that suggest a relationship between aspects of epistemology and students’ understanding and use of scientific knowledge.
For example, there is evidence that when students come to view argumentation as a central feature of science, this can have considerable positive effects on their understanding and use of investigative strategies (see, e.g., Sandoval and Reiser, 2004; Toth, Suthers, and Lesgold, 2002). Songer and Linn (1991) have also analyzed the effects of a dynamic versus a static view of science and found that a dynamic view is conducive to knowledge integration. Hammer (1994) has identified a relationship between views of knowledge (in terms of coherence, authoritativeness, and degree to which knowl-
edge is constructed) and achievement differences in science among undergraduate physics students.
In addition, there is also evidence that students’ epistemology of models—an aspect of epistemology that receives little attention in the normative and consensus views of the nature of science—has important implications for a range of conceptual and practical outcomes. Gobert and colleagues have studied the epistemology of models of students in the middle grades, high school, and college, including their understanding of models as representations of causal or explanatory ideas, that there can be multiple models of the same thing, that models do not need to be exactly like the thing modeled, and that models can be revised or changed in light of new data. They have documented correlations between measures of students’ sophistication in the epistemology of models and their ability to draw inferences from texts and transfer causal knowledge to new domains, as well as conceptual development (Gobert and Discenna, 1997; Gobert and Pallant, 2001).
Similarly, Schwartz and White (2005) studied seventh grade student learning using a software environment that allowed the students to design, test, and revise models. They examined a battery of pre- and postmeasures of physics content knowledge, inquiry, and knowledge of modeling. They found that students’ pretest modeling knowledge was the only variable that was a significant predictor of success for all three posttest measures, and it was the best predictor of both posttest content and modeling knowledge. While these studies examine but a few slices of epistemology, they suggest that certain features of epistemological understanding can offer students powerful leverage for science learning. These studies also suggest an important way to think about defining what students should learn about epistemology and the nature of science and call attention to an area worthy of future study.
UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE IN THE K-8 YEARS
In this section, we separate the research literature into that concerned with the development of children’s understanding of knowledge in general and that more specifically concerned with the development of their understanding of scientific knowledge. Changes across the K-8 grades reflect increasing variability in students’ opportunities to learn about knowledge construction in science and increasing variability in their understanding of science as a way of knowing. Also contributing to the complexity of this picture, multiple literatures with fundamentally different methodological tactics and analytical lenses have contributed contrasting models of the limitations and emerging competences of K-8 students.
Understanding Knowledge Construction
There are multiple lines of research, largely disjointed, that are relevant to K-8 students’ understanding of knowledge construction. This research encompasses both a continuation of the developmental research literature and the “epistemic cognition” literature investigating stages in older students’ stances toward knowledge and knowing.
One line of research in the developmental literature involves a continuation of the theory of mind frame into the elementary school years. There is evidence that 6-year-olds (in limited contexts) are beginning to develop a view of mind as an “active interpreter.” That is, they become more aware that people actively construct their own understanding of the world and are aware of the role of prior knowledge in seeing. At the same time, the literature suggests, children continue to elaborate on their understanding of mind (and different mental states) throughout elementary school.
Young children’s understanding of the constructive nature of knowledge itself has not been studied extensively, but the limited research suggests that upper elementary school students tend to fall short of viewing knowledge as rooted in a theoretical world view. Kuhn and Leadbeater (1988), for example, fictionalized two conflicting historical accounts of the “Livian Wars.” They asked students to interpret the accounts in response to a variety of probe questions that they were asked after reading the two accounts. Students were asked to articulate differences between the accounts, consider reasons for the differences, and discuss whether both accounts could be correct. They were scored in terms of epistemological level, from treating the two pieces as factual accounts that might differ only in specific facts reported, to understanding that they reflect contrasting interpretations, filtered through world views. They found that no sixth graders responded in terms of the higher levels.
The work of Perry (1970/1999), consisting of longitudinal studies of Harvard male undergraduates, constitutes an early and influential line of research on stages in understanding knowledge construction. Researchers have made substantial methodological and conceptual advances since Perry’s time (see the discussion of instructional intervention studies in the next section). However, work that continues in the tradition of Perry maintains his general findings that, over the early to late adolescent years, individuals display shifts in their general stance toward knowledge and knowing. Specifically, many young people enter early adolescence embracing an “absolutist” or dualist view of knowledge and truth, one that assumes that there is one right answer to every question and differences of opinion are explainable by misinformation or faulty reasoning. At some point, usually during adolescence, youngsters become aware that others may disagree with them on matters about which they hold strong beliefs.
As these young people begin to understand that knowing necessarily involves interpretation and its consequent ambiguities, they may enter an epistemological crisis, characterized by what Chandler, Boyes, and Ball (1990) called “epistemic doubt.” In this state, they struggle with the erosion of their certainty and may lose confidence altogether that it is possible to be certain about anything. The temporary result may be subjective relativism, a stance epitomized in the quintessential adolescent remark, “Whatever.” Subjective relativism is the notion that as all beliefs are subjectively held, it is impossible to verify any of them with certainty, so no one’s beliefs or opinions are better or worse than those of anyone else.
This relativism is regarded as an early reaction to the recognition that knowledge is conjectural and uncertain, open to and requiring interpretation. In later adolescence or early adulthood, some individuals may pass through relativism to embrace a contextualist commitment to reasoned judgment, although this move is by no means typical or inevitable. The individual continues to understand that knowledge is neither certain nor complete but comes nevertheless to accept that, with good judgment and careful reason, it is possible over time to achieve successively closer approximations of the truth.
Much of this research has been performed with college undergraduates, and the homogeneity of the participants may in part account for the degree of general agreement in the findings about the overall nature of change. However, different models propose different numbers of sublevels along the way. Moreover, there are some disagreements about the extent to which change is regarded as universal or not, the ages at which shifts typically occur, and also the extent to which it is regarded as stage-like and structurally integrated, or composed of a series of relatively independent beliefs about knowledge and learning. Some accounts emphasize change that is primarily linear and hierarchical, whereas others propose that change is merely adaptation to one’s immediate or global environment and thus may not be unidirectional.
Most of the models appear to assume that epistemology is trait-like, so that it is a relatively stable feature of the individual. However, a few (e.g., Hammer and Elby, 2002; Sandoval, 2005) argue that epistemology is situational, an interaction of the individual’s cognitive and historical resources and environmental features that cue or elicit patterns of those resources.
At first glance, some of these ideas appear to be inconsistent with research that suggests that much earlier—indeed, by the time they begin elementary school—children already are well aware that individuals can hold different beliefs about the same objects and events. Beliefs are not simply copies of reality; they are products of the activity of knowing—therefore, they are subject to verification and are potentially disconfirmable by evidence (Perner, 1991). If young elementary schoolchildren understand these
concepts, how can adolescents be deemed to hold an “absolutist” position toward knowledge? Chandler, Hallett, and Sokol (2002) suggest that, although young children are aware of representational diversity, this does not mean that they consider it a necessary or legitimate aspect of knowledge. Instead, they are more likely to believe that there is one right answer and that other interpretations are simply wrong or misinformed.
Chandler, Hallett, and Sokol (2002) propose that young children do not understand that diversity of interpretations is “somehow intrinsic to the knowing process;” that is, that interpretation is an unavoidable aspect of all knowledge. Hence, the criteria for knowledge cannot easily be specified, and all knowing is associated with an unavoidable degree of ambiguity.
Understanding the Nature of Science and How It Is Constructed
Multiple lines of research are relevant to the issue of children’s understanding of the nature of science and how it is constructed. And once again, the relations between the lines of research are complex. Relevant lines of research include the science-specific developmental literature, the epistemic cognition literature focused on understanding of science as a way of knowing, and survey-based data focused on children’s beliefs about the nature of scientific knowledge and how it is constructed. Finally, we consider how science curricula, instructional interventions, and teachers’ notions of science may influence children’s understanding of science as a way of knowing.
It is straightforward to imagine how holding either absolutist or relativist epistemologies could lead to a distorted view of the nature of science. Indeed, research directed more explicitly at young students’ grasp of the nature of scientific knowledge and practice has produced findings with interesting parallels to the more general developmental literature. For example, Carey and Smith (1993) point out that many students do not understand that science is primarily a theory-building enterprise. They may learn about observation, hypotheses, and experiment from their science textbooks, but they rarely understand that theories underlie these activities and are responsible for both the generation and interpretation of both hypotheses and experiments. The commonsense epistemology that young students typically hold is unreflective; to the extent that they think about it at all, children often think of knowledge as stemming directly from sensory experience, even though they do know that some knowledge is inferred rather than observed (Sodian and Wimmer, 1987), and they are even aware that the same object may be interpreted differently by different observers (Taylor, Cartwright, and Bowden, 1991).
Carey and Smith (1993) suggest that children may not make clear distinctions between theory, specific hypotheses, and evidence, and they may expect to find simpler and more direct relations between data and conclusions than are warranted. Like the absolutists described in the developmental psychology literature, they tend to regard differences in conclusions or observations as being due to lack of information or misinformation, rather than legitimate differences in perspective or interpretation. There is limited or no awareness that one’s beliefs may be connected into coherent frameworks, and that these frameworks may have an influence on what one observes via the senses. For this reason, Kitchener and King (1981) argue students fail to understand that controversy is a part of science and that authorities are deemed, by definition, to share a common set of true beliefs. We suggest, however, an additional factor that may explain this finding, but that is not considered in this body of research. Children are rarely taught about controversy in science, so why would they come to view scientific knowledge as contested?
Carey et al. (1989) asked seventh graders a series of questions about the goals and practice of science and about the relationships between scientists’ ideas, experiments, and data. Students’ responses to these interviews were coalesced into three global perspectives about the nature of science, ranging from Level 1, in which scientists were regarded simply as collecting facts about the world, to Level 3, in which scientists were seen as concerned with building ever more powerful and explanatorily adequate theories about the world. A second interview study (Grosslight, Unger, Jay, and Smith, 1991) probed middle school students’ understanding of models and modeling and achieved similar results. Many children regarded models merely as copies of the world, a Level 1 perspective. Level 2 children understood that models involve both the selection and omission of features, but emphasis remained on the models themselves rather than on the scientists’ ideas behind the model. Finally, in Level 3 epistemology, models were regarded as tools developed for the purpose of testing theories.
Almost all seventh graders in these studies were at Levels 1 or 2, described by the researchers as “knowledge unproblematic” because from this view, disagreements about the nature of reality are considered due to ignorance or misinformation and knowledge is regarded as relatively straightforward. In contrast, in “knowledge problematic” epistemologies, seldom or never achieved by the students in these studies, knowledge is regarded as being organized into theories about the world that are actively constructed via a process of critical inquiry and that are often successively revised over extended periods of time.
The science education research on learners’ and teachers’ views about the nature of science is mixed (McComus and Olson, 1998; Lederman et al., 2002; Lederman, 1999; Osborne et al., 2003). When data are gathered em-
ploying survey instruments that probe learners’ views of science outside any specific context of inquiry, the results indicate that even high school and undergraduate students do not develop accurate views about the theory revision and responsiveness to evidence.
Similarly, Driver et al. (1996) interviewed same-age pairs of students at ages 9, 12, and 16 about the purposes of scientific work, their understanding of the nature and status of scientific knowledge, and their understanding of science as a social enterprise. They classified students’ responses about epistemology into three overall levels, with the lowest levels reflecting little acknowledgment of interpretation and successive levels indicating the importance of forms of thinking that do not rely solely on sensory input. The reasoning considered at the lowest level was reasoning grounded in phenomena; at the next, empirical reasoning based on relationships between variables; and finally, the highest level was reasoning that uses imagined models. Like the Carey and Unger studies, Driver et al. (1996) characterized children as moving from perspectives that emphasize unproblematic, sensory-based knowledge in which truth is considered a relatively simple objective to attain, to views in which science is acknowledged to depend on active interpretations of staged events (experiments), mental manipulations, and coherent, connected bodies of knowledge that may include many areas of uncertainty.
Much of this research literature suggests that K-8 students have a limited understanding of how scientific knowledge is constructed. However, it is not clear to what extent one can attribute such limitations to developmental stage, as opposed to adequacy of instructional opportunity or other experiences. In the words of Carey and Smith (1993, p. 243): “Two questions of urgent importance to educators now arise. First, in what sense are these levels developmental? Second (and distinctly), do these levels provide barriers to grasping a constructivist epistemology if such is made the target of the science education?”
Consider first the model of science as a way of knowing underlying the science children experience in the science curriculum, their primary source of information about the nature of the discipline. As noted in other chapters, in the upper elementary school years, the process of scientific knowledge construction is typically represented as experiment, with negligible acknowledgment of the role of interpretation or, more generally, the active role of the scientist in the process of knowledge construction. In the early grades, the typical emphasis on description of phenomenology through the basic science process skills of observation, categorization, measurement, etc., also reflects a distorted image of science, far removed from a constructivist epistemology.
In the same vein, science aspires to construct conceptual structures, with robust explanatory and predictive power, yet this is seldom either explicit or implicit in the K-8 science curriculum. An analysis of science
curriculum by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) indicates that all curricular content is typically represented as of equal importance, with little attention to its interconnections or functionality. According to Roseman, Kesidou, Stern, and Caldwell (1999), authors of the AAAS report, the science texts evaluated by AAAS included many classroom activities that either were irrelevant to learning key science ideas or failed to help students relate their activitiy to science ideas.
Science curriculum has long been criticized as reflecting an impoverished and misleading model of science as a way of knowing (e.g., Burbules and Linn, 1991; Hewson and Hewson, 1988). Methods of science dominate the school science curriculum, with little emphasis on the role of theory, explanation, or models. More contemporary views of science (Giere, 1991, 1999; Solomon, 2001; Longino, 1990) “as a multidimensional interaction among the models of scientists, empirical observation of the real world, and their predictions” are seldom included (Osborne et al., 2003, p. 715).
Although there are notable exceptions to this pattern, most K-8 curricula would appear to at least exacerbate the epistemological shortcomings with which children enter school. In the words of Reif and Larkin (1991, p. 733): “Science taught in schools is often different from actual science and from everyday life. Students’ learning difficulties are thus increased because scientific goals are distorted and scientific ways of thinking are inadequately taught.”
Another factor that needs to be considered in understanding and attribution of children’s shortcomings in this regard is teachers’ understanding of science as a way of knowing (Akerson, Abd-El-Khalick, and Lederman, 2000). The epistemic cognition literature has documented shortcomings in students at all levels of study, including college and beyond. It is not surprising that shortcomings in the understanding of science as a way of knowing have been identified in K-8 teachers.
A small literature of classroom-based design studies indicates that these limitations may be at least to some degree ameliorable by instruction. Design studies, in which researchers create conditions favorable to students’ learning about the scientific enterprise, show that elementary and middle school students can develop their understanding of how scientific knowledge develops (Carey et al., 1989; Khishfe and Abd-El-Khalick, 2002), including a more sophisticated understanding of the nature and purpose of scientific models (Gobert and Pallant, 2001; Schwartz and White, 2005). With appropriate supports for learning strategies of investigation, children can generate meaningful scientific questions and design and conduct productive scientific investigations (e.g., Metz, 2004; Smith et al., 2000).
For example, in the small elementary school in which she was the lone science teacher, Gertrude Hennessey was able to systematically focus the lessons on core ideas built cumulatively across grades 1-6. She chose to
emphasize generating, communicating, and evaluating theories via the intelligibility, plausibility, fruitfulness, and conceptual coherence of the alternatives (see Table 6-1). Research on her sixth grade students’ understanding of the nature of science suggested that they had a much better sense of the constructive, knowledge problematic nature of the enterprise than did sixth graders from a comparable school (Smith et al., 2000).
In another example, students showed improved understanding of the process of modeling after they engaged in the task of designing a model that works like a human elbow (Penner et al., 1997). In this study, students in first and second grade in two classrooms participated in a model-building task over three consecutive 1-hour sessions. They began by discussing different types of models they had previously seen or made. They considered the characteristics of those models, and how models are used for understanding phenomena. They were then introduced to the task of designing a model that functions like their elbow. After discussing how their own elbows work, children worked in pairs or triads to design and build models that illustrated the functional aspects of the human elbow. After generating an initial model, each group demonstrated and explained their model to the class followed by discussion of the various models. Students were then given an opportunity to modify their models or start over. In interviews conducted after the session, students improved in their ability to judge the functional rather than perceptual qualities of models compared with nonmodeling peers. They also demonstrated an understanding of the process of modeling in general that was similar to that of children 3 to 4 years older.
Researchers have also identified important curricular features that support the development of a more sophisticated epistemology. Curricula can facilitate the epistemological development of students when they focus on deep science problems, provide students opportunities to conduct inquiry, and structure explicit discussion of epistemological issues (see, e.g., Bell and Linn, 2000; Davis, 1998; Smith and Wenk, in press). It is also important to note that students’ understanding of epistemology does not grow unproblematically from inquiry experiences. In order to advance their understanding of epistemology, learners engaged in inquiry need explicit cues to reflect on their experiences and observations and consider the epistemological implications (Khishfe and Abd-El-Khalick, 2002).
The research base related to children’s understanding of knowledge in general and of scientific knowledge specifically is limited. Much of the work on knowledge has been carried out with college-age populations, although some studies in developmental psychology have looked at children’s under
TABLE 6-1 One Progression of Increasingly Sophisticated Metaconceptual Activities in Grades 1-6
Students’ Role
Teacher’s Role
Explicitly state their own views about the topic under consideration
Begin to consider the reasoning used to support their views
Being to differentiate what they think from why they think it
Finds a variety of ways in which students can externally represent their thinking about the topic
Provides many experiences for students to begin to articulate the reasoning used to support ideas/ beliefs
Begin to address the necessity of understanding other (usually peer) positions before they can discuss or comment on those positions
Toward the end of the year, begin to recognize inconsistency in the thoughts of others, but not necessarily in their own thinking
Continues to provide an educational environment in which students can safely express their thoughts, without reproaches from others
Introduces concept of consistency of thinking
Models consistent and inconsistent thinking (students can readily point out when teacher is being inconsistent)
Explore the idea that thoughts have consequences, and that what one thinks may influence what one chooses to see
Begin to differentiate understanding what a peer is saying from believing what a peer is saying
Begin to comment on how their current ideas have changed from past ideas and to consider that current ideas may also need to be revised over time
Fosters metacognitive discourse among learners in order to illuminate students’ internal representations
Provides lots of examples from their personal work (which is saved from year to year) of student ideas
Student’ Role
Begin to consider the implications and limitations of their personal thinking
Begin to look for ways of revising their personal thinking
Begin to evaluate their own/others’ thinking in terms of intelligibility, plausibility, and fruitfulness of ideas
Continue to articulate criteria for acceptance of ideas (i.e., consistency and generalizability)
Continue to employ physical representations of their thinking
Begin to employ analogies and metaphors, discuss their explicit use, and differentiate physical models from conceptual models
Articulate and defend ideas about “what learning should be like”
Provides historical examples of very important people changing their views and explanations over time
Begins to use students’ external representations of their thinking as a way of evaluating their ideas/ beliefs (in terms of intelligibility, plausibility, and fruitfulness) in order to (a) create, when necessary, dissatisfaction in the minds of the learner to facilitate conceptual exchange or (b) look for ways of promoting conceptual capture in the mind of the learner
SOURCE: Smith et al. (2000).
standing of how knowledge is constructed. Many researchers assume that epistemology is trait-like, although some argue that it is situational—an interaction of cognitive and historical resources with environmental features that cue or elicit those resources.
Looking across the various lines of research, most children in grades K-8 do not further develop the rudimentary knowledge and skills that are so evident during the preschool years. Young children tend to move from one level of understanding to the next slowly, if at all, and by middle school few students reach higher levels of understanding, at which knowledge is viewed as problematic and claims are necessarily subjected to scrutiny for their evidentiary warrants. In large measure, this pervasive pattern probably reflects more about the opportunities to learn that children encounter in their
education than a measure of what they could do under different conditions. Evidence from design studies, discussed in this chapter and to which we return in Chapter 9, suggests that, under optimal curricular and instructional conditions, children can develop very sophisticated views of knowledge. Yet the contrast is remarkable between the capabilities of preschool children and modal patterns of development in older children and the lack of sophisticated reasoning about knowledge in early adolescents.
We argue that in carefully designed, supportive environments, elementary and middle school children are capable of understanding and working with knowledge in sophisticated ways. Instruction in K-8 science can significantly advance their understanding of the nature and structure of scientific knowledge and the process by which it is constructed. Design studies, in which researchers create conditions favorable to students’ learning about the scientific enterprise, suggest that elementary students can develop higher levels of how scientific knowledge develops. With appropriate supports for learning strategies of investigation, children can engage in designing and conducting investigations that enable them to understand science as a way of knowing (Gobert and Pallant, 2001; Klahr and Li, 2005; Metz, 2004; Schwartz and White, 2005; Smith et al., 2000; Toth, Klahr, and Chen, 2000). The core elements of this scientific activity involve articulating hypotheses, laws, or models, designing experiments or empirical investigations that test these ideas, collecting data, and using data as evidence to evaluate and revise them. We will discuss this literature in depth in Chapter 9.
Current science education does not typically offer the kind of educational environments that have been shown to support children’s understanding of scientific knowledge. Rather, there is a tendency to overemphasize methods, often experimental methods, as opposed to presenting science as a process of building theories and models, checking them for internal consistency and coherence, and testing them empirically. This lack of attention to theory, explanation, and models may exacerbate the difficulties children have with understanding how scientific knowledge is constructed. It may, in fact, strengthen their misconceptions, such as the view that scientific knowledge is unproblematic, relatively simple to obtain, and flows easily from direct observation. While curricula may be one source of this problem, teachers’ lack of understanding of science as a way of knowing may also play a role. The role of teachers and teacher knowledge in science education is taken up in greater detail in Chapter 10.
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Davis, E.A. (1998). Scaffolding students’ reflection for science learning. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
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Giere, R.N. (1991) Understanding scientific reasoning. New York: Holt Reinhart and Winston.
Giere, R.N. (1999). Science without laws. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Gobert, J., and Discenna, J. (1997). The relationship between students’ epistemologies and model-based reasoning. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED409164). Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, Department of Science Studies.
Gobert, J., and Pallant, A. (2001). Making thinking visible: Promoting science learning through modeling and visualizations. Presented at the Gordon Research Conference, Mt. Holyoke College, Hadley, MA, August 5-10.
Grosslight, L., Unger, C., Jay. E., and Smith, C. (1991). Understanding models and their use in science: Conceptions of middle and high school students and experts. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 28, 799-822.
Hammer, D. (1994). Epistemological beliefs in introductory physics. Cognition and Instruction, 12(2), 151-183.
Hammer, D., and Elby, A. (2002). On the form of a personal epistemology. In B.K. Hofer and P.R. Pintrich (Eds.), Personal epistemology: The psychology of beliefs about knowledge and knowing (pp. 169-190). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Hewson, P., and Hewson, M.,(1988). On appropiate conception of teaching science: A view from studies of science learning. Science Education, 72(5), 529-540.
Khishfe, R., and Abd-El-Khalick, F. (2002). Influence of explicit and reflective versus implicit inquiry-oriented instruction on sixth graders’ views of nature of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39, 551-578.
Kitchener, K.S., and King, P.M. (1981). Reflective judgment: Concepts of justification and their relationship to age and education. Journal of Applied and Developmental Psychology, 2, 89-116.
Klahr, D., and Li, L. (2005). Cognitive research and elementary science instruction: From the laboratory, to the classroom, and back. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 14(2), 217-238.
Kuhn, D., and Leadbeater, B. (1988). The connection of theory and evidence. The interpretation of divergent evidence. In H. Beilin, D. Kuhn, E. Amsel, and M. O’Loughlin (Eds.), The development of scientific thinking skills. St. Louis, MO: Academic Press.
Lederman, N.G. (1999). Teachers’ understanding of the nature of science and classroom practice: Factors that facilitate or impede the relationship. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 36, 916-929.
Lederman, N.G, Abd-el-Khalick, F., Bell, R.L., and Schwartz, R.S. (2002). Views of nature of science questionnaire: Towards valid and meaningful assessment of learners’ conceptions of the nature of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39(6), 497-521.
Longino, H. (1990). Science as social knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
McComas, W.F., and Olson, J.K. (1998). The nature of science in international science education standards documents. In W.F. McComas (Ed.), The nature of science in science education: Rationales and strategies(pp. 41-52). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.
Metz, K.E. (2004). Children’s understanding of scientific inquiry: Their conceptualization of uncertainty in investigations of their own design. Cognition and Instruction, 22(2), 219-290.
Osborne, J.F., Collins, S., Ratcliffe, M., Millar, R., and Duschl, R. (2003). What “ideas-about-science” should be taught in school science? A Delphi study of the expert community. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 40(7), 692-720.
Penner, D., Giles, N.D., Lehrer, R., and Schauble, L. (1997). Building functional models: Designing an elbow. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 34(2), 125-143.
Perner, J. (1991). Understanding the representational mind. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books/MIT Press.
Perry, W.G. (1970/1999). Forms of intellectual and ethical development in the college years: A scheme. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston.
Reif, F., and Larkin, J.H. (1991). Cognition in scientific and everyday domains: Comparison and learning implications. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 28(9), 733-760.
Roseman, J., Kesidou, S., Stern, L., and Caldwell, A. (1999). Heavy books light on learning: AAAS Project 2061 evaluates middle grades science textbooks. Science Books and Films, 35, 243-247.
Rudolph, J.L. (2005). Epistemology for the masses: The origins of the “scientific method” in American schools. History of Education Quarterly, 45(2), 341-376.
Sandoval, W.A. (2005). Understanding students’ practical epistemologies and their influence on learning through inquiry. Science Education, 89, 634-656.
Sandoval, W.A., and Reiser, B.J. (2004). Explanation-driven inquiry: Integrating conceptual and epistemic scaffolds for scientific inquiry. Science Education, 88, 345-372.
Schauble, L., Glaser, R., Duschl, R., Schulze, S., and John, J. (1995). Students’ understanding of the objectives and procedures of experimentation in the science classroom. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4(2), 131-166.
Schwarz, C., and White, B.Y. (2005). Metamodeling knowledge: Developing students’ understanding of scientific modeling. Cognition and Instruction, 23(2), 165-205.
Smith, C.L., Maclin, D., Houghton, C., and Hennessey, M.G. (2000). Sixth-grade students’ epistemologies of science: The impact of school science experiences on epistemological development. Cognition and Instruction, 18(3), 285-316.
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Solomon, M. (2001). Social empiricism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.
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Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8 Get This Book
Buy Hardback | $69.95 Buy Ebook | $54.99
What is science for a child? How do children learn about science and how to do science? Drawing on a vast array of work from neuroscience to classroom observation, Taking Science to School provides a comprehensive picture of what we know about teaching and learning science from kindergarten through eighth grade. By looking at a broad range of questions, this book provides a basic foundation for guiding science teaching and supporting students in their learning. Taking Science to School answers such questions as:
When do children begin to learn about science? Are there critical stages in a child's development of such scientific concepts as mass or animate objects?
What role does nonschool learning play in children's knowledge of science?
How can science education capitalize on children's natural curiosity?
What are the best tasks for books, lectures, and hands-on learning?
How can teachers be taught to teach science?
The book also provides a detailed examination of how we know what we know about children's learning of science--about the role of research and evidence. This book will be an essential resource for everyone involved in K-8 science education--teachers, principals, boards of education, teacher education providers and accreditors, education researchers, federal education agencies, and state and federal policy makers. It will also be a useful guide for parents and others interested in how children learn.
Front Matter i–xvi
Executive Summary 1–8
Part I - Introduction: 1 Science Learning Past and Present 9–25
2 Goals for Science Education 26–50
Part II - How Children Learn Science: 3 Foundations for Science Learning in Young Children 51–92
4 Knowledge and Understanding of the Natural World 93–128
5 Generating and Evaluating Scientific Evidence and Explanations 129–167
6 Understanding How Scientific Knowledge Is Constructed 168–185
7 Participation in Scientific Practices and Discourse 186–210
Part III - Supporting Science Learning: 8 Learning Progressions 211–250
9 Teaching Science as Practice 251–295
10 Supporting Science Instruction 296–330
Part IV - Future Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research: 11 Conclusions and Recommendations 331–356
Appendix A: Overview of Learning Progressions for Matter and the Atomic-Molecular Theory 357–365
Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff 366–372
Index 373–388


New model could speed up colon cancer research
Introducing genetic mutations with CRISPR offers a fast and accurate way to simulate the disease.
Anne Trafton | MIT News Office
Using the gene-editing system known as CRISPR, MIT researchers have shown in mice that they can generate colon tumors that very closely resemble human tumors. This advance should help scientists learn more about how the disease progresses and allow them to test new therapies.
Once formed, many of these experimental tumors spread to the liver, just like human colon cancers often do. These metastases are the most common cause of death from colon cancer.
“That’s been a missing piece in the study of colon cancer. There is really no reliable method for recapitulating the metastatic progression from a primary tumor in the colon to the liver,” says Omer Yilmaz, an MIT assistant professor of biology, a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and the lead senior author of the study, which appears in the May 1 issue of Nature Biotechnology.
The study builds on recent work by Tyler Jacks, the director of the Koch Institute, who has also used CRISPR to generate lung and liver tumors in mice.
“CRISPR-based technologies have begun to revolutionize many aspects of cancer research, including building mouse models of the disease with greater speed and greater precision. This study is a good example of both,” says Jacks, who is also an author of the Nature Biotechnology paper.
The paper’s lead authors are Jatin Roper, a research affiliate at the Koch Institute and a gastroenterologist at Tufts Medical Center, and Tuomas Tammela, a research scientist at the Koch Institute.
Mimicking human tumors
For many years, cancer biologists have taken two distinct approaches to modeling cancer. One is to grow immortalized human cancer cells known as cancer cell lines in a lab dish. “We’ve learned a lot by studying these two-dimensional cell lines, but they have limitations,” Yilmaz says. “They don’t really reproduce the complex in vivo environment of a tumor.”
Another widely used technique is genetically engineering mice with mutations that predispose them to develop cancer. However, it can take years to breed such mice, especially if they have more than one cancer-linked mutation.
Recently, researchers have begun using CRISPR to generate cancer models. CRISPR, originally discovered by biologists studying the bacterial immune system, consists of a DNA-cutting enzyme called Cas9 and short RNA guide strands that target specific sequences of the genome, telling Cas9 where to make its cuts. Using this process, scientists can make targeted mutations in the genomes of living animals, either deleting genes or inserting new ones.
To induce cancer mutations, the investigators package the genes for Cas9 and the RNA guide strand into viruses called lentiviruses, which are then injected into the target organs of adult mice.
Yilmaz, who studies colon cancer and how it is influenced by genes, diet, and aging, decided to adapt this approach to generate colon tumors in mice. He and members of his lab were already working on a technique for growing miniature tissues known as organoids — three-dimensional growths that, in this case, accurately replicate the structure of the colon.
In the new paper, the researchers used CRISPR to introduce cancer-causing mutations into the organoids and then delivered them via colonoscopy to the colon, where they attached to the lining and formed tumors.
“We were able to transplant these 3-D mini-intestinal tumors into the colon of recipient mice and recapitulate many aspects of human disease,” Yilmaz says.
More accurate modeling
Once the tumors are established in the mice, the researchers can introduce additional mutations at any time, allowing them to study the influence of each mutation on tumor initiation, progression, and metastasis.
Almost 30 years ago, scientists discovered that colon tumors in humans usually acquire cancerous mutations in a particular order, but they haven’t been able to accurately model this in mice until now.
“In human patients, mutations never occur all at once,” Tammela says. “Mutations are acquired over time as the tumor progresses and becomes more aggressive, more invasive, and more metastatic. Now we can model this in mice.”
To demonstrate that ability, the MIT team delivered organoids with a mutated form of the APC gene, which is the cancer-initiating mutation in 80 percent of colon cancer patients. Once the tumors were established, they introduced a mutated form of KRAS, which is commonly found in colon and many other cancers.
The scientists also delivered components of the CRISPR system directly into the colon wall to quickly model colon cancer by editing the APC gene. They then added CRISPR components to also edit the gene for P53, which is commonly mutated in colon and other cancers.
“These new approaches reduce the time frame to develop genetically engineered mice from two years to just a few months, and involve very basic gene engineering with CRISPR,” Roper says. “We used P53 and KRAS to demonstrate the principle that the CRISPR editing approach and the organoid transplantation approach can be used to very quickly model any possible cancer-associated gene.”
In this study, the researchers also showed that they could grow tumor cells from patients into organoids that could be transplanted into mice. This could give doctors a way to perform “personalized medicine” in which they test various treatment options against a patient’s own tumor cells.
Fernando Camargo, a professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard University, says the study represents an important advance in colon cancer research.
“It allows investigators to have a very flexible model to look at multiple aspects of colorectal cancer, from basic biology of the genes involved in progression and metastasis, to testing potential drugs,” says Camargo, who was not involved in the research.
Yilmaz’ lab is now using these techniques to study how other factors such as metabolism, diet, and aging affect colon cancer development. The researchers are also using this approach to test potential new colon cancer drugs.
The research was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the V Foundation V Scholar Award, the Sidney Kimmel Scholar Award, the Pew-Stewart Trust Scholar Award, the Koch Institute Frontier Research Program through the Kathy and Curt Marble Cancer Research Fund, the American Federation of Aging Research, and the Hope Funds for Cancer Research.


China’s 2014 Corruption Fight Crucial to Economic Reform, Says Premier
Tim Donovan
Speaking at an early February meeting of the State Council, Premier Li Keqiang linked China’s ongoing fight against corruption to economic reform, saying that the Chinese government has “too much” influence on the country’s economy, making it “easy for corruption to breed.” The remarks, not published by state media until February 23, also noted that government intervention in microeconomic activities hinders the “decisive” role of the market, a key goal of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP...
US, Chinese Officials Set Busy Bilateral Calendar for 2014
USCBC Staff
Bilateral engagement between the United States and China has begun to ramp up, with the US-China Business Council (USCBC) taking an active role in discussing key business issues with governments from both nations. USCBC is currently soliciting comments from members on their top priorities for the 2014 Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT), whose working groups are set to meet in the coming months. Following the release of its 2014 board of directors’ Statement of Priorities, USCBC...
Shanghai FTZ Administration Releases Organizational Responsibility Chart
Although the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) administration announced its organizational structure soon after the zone launched in September, it has not yet publicly released the responsibilities of its ten departments. The US-China Business Council (USCBC) recently obtained a copy of this chart from the zone’s human resources bureau, and has translated it into English for member companies.
Responsibilities of the departments include organizing the implementation of...
NDRC, MIIT to Focus on Sustainable Development and Innovation in 2014
Owen Haacke and Angela Fan
Two key ministries responsible for China’s economic and industrial development have said they would advance policies to promote a more sustainable, innovative, and technologically advanced economy. In their 2014 work plans, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) both pledged to address industrial overcapacity and promote sustainable economic development, while tackling issues that affect many foreign companies...
What China’s Administrative Licensing Reforms Mean for US Companies
Jennifer Xuejiao Yang and Stephanie Henry
Following the first session of the 12th National People’s Congress in March 2013, Premier Li Keqiang announced that reforming China’s administrative approval system is a top priority, and vowed to eliminate or decentralize around 500 items during his administration. Since that time, the State Council has taken a number of steps to promote administrative licensing reform, including a September notice to control new administrative licensing processes, a December catalogue on government...
New Leading Group, Shanghai FTZ Announcements Indicate Economic Reform Slowly Advancing
Chinese government agencies have recently taken steps to advance economic reform, from establishing a high-level leading group headed by President Xi Jinping to releasing new plans for financial and administrative licensing changes in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ). While each of these moves may have positive implications for foreign companies doing business in China, they have yet to fulfill the promises made in third plenum reform documents and in statements from key officials about...
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Veteran Stories
Veteran Stories:
William H Cameron
Pictured here is the ship HMCS Kitchener (K 225), upon which Bill Cameron sailed throughout the war, as well as signatures from the ship's crew on arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1945.
Bill Cameron
Bill Cameron and his girlfriend walk along Grandville Street in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the time of his discharge in 1945. They were later married in 1949.
Bill Cameron pictured here on leave with a friend from the ship.
Bill Cameron during wartime.
Bill Cameron and fellow shipmate on board HMCS Kitchener during the war.
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"I will never forget the massive ships and planes, etc., in the English Channel and the action taking place at Normandy with landing craft hitting the beaches with soldiers."
D-Day (Normandy Landings)
Boulogne, France
Convoys
The Landings in Normandy
HMCS
HCMS
The Canadian Encyclopedia is your authoritative reference of all things Canadian.
On approximately January 1944, I was drafted to a ship, a corvette in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, the HMCS Kitchener, K225, which was in refit after duties in the Mediterranean and the Torch Invasion [Operation Torch, British invasion of North Africa]. Most of the crew were new to the ship and because of this refit work done on the ship. After leaving Liverpool, we sailed on a shakedown cruise [testing the ship’s performance] to Bermuda, which was an extremely rough trip as to the weather and so lost many Carley floats [life rafts], etc., during the storms. Another set of repairs had to be carried out. After returning from Bermuda, we were assigned to duties on the North Atlantic as convoy protection against German subs. Corvettes were not a big ship, with a complement of 100 to 125 men. They were designed for anti-submarine offenses because they were very seaworthy and maneuverable. They had two depth charge [anti-submarine weapon] throwers on each side of the ship and cages of depth charges on the quarterdeck, where they would roll off the stern when required. The idea of these depth charges was to drop them on a sub, both on top and side of the submarines, submerged sub, causing a concussion effect on the hull and damaging it in many ways, so it would either sink or resurface. Other armaments they carried was six Oerlikon 20 millimeter guns [anti-aircraft weapon], one on each side of the bridge and two each side of the aft parts of the ship. One four inch gun on the forecastle, one set of Hedgehogs [anti-submarine weapon] also on the forecastle and one, two inch pom-pom [Quick Firing 2 pounder anti-aircraft] guns at mid-ship. Corvettes were used very effectively for north Atlantic convoy protection of 10 to 20 ships. From our duties of escort work, in the Atlantic, we were sent to the United Kingdom and arrived at Scotland in the Clyde River area. From this area, we sailed to Scapa Flow where we were put through very extensive exercises regarding ships, planes, PT [Patrol Torpedo] boats and subs, etc., along with hundreds of other navy ships. Unbeknownst to us, this was exercises to fix ships for the Normandy landings in France. After completing these exercises, we were sent into the English Channel and arrived at Plymouth Harbour approximately 1 June 1944 and tied up alongside the USS Augusta, an American cruiser, which was [General] Omar Bradley’s flagship. At this time, our captain, Lieutenant John Moles, talked to us regarding the invasion plans for June 5th and gave us a document from the supreme commander, [General Dwight] Ike Eisenhower, as to what to expect at this time. We were directed to escort two World War I French battleships to Normandy, filled with cement and to be sunk for breakwater on the beaches. This did not sit very well with our captain or crew, to be going into this kind of battle with these two old ships. So our captain had our duties changed to join in the U.S. navy escort group, protecting troop landing craft and ships at Omaha Beach. D-Day was changed to June 6th, due to weather conditions. On D-Day, we sailed with an American convoy of ships carrying soldiers for landing at Omaha Beach. I will never forget the massive ships and planes, etc., in the English Channel and the action taking place at Normandy with landing craft hitting the beaches with soldiers. Our job at the beachhead was to rescue men in the water or assist anything, or anybody while standing off at Normandy. We were with the second flotilla to land at Omaha Beach. We sailed back to the English Channel and landed at Milford Haven, Wales, where we ran from there to the end of the war. Our job was convoy protection for all ships going to Normandy and Omaha Beach. During our service, there were many ships sailing from Milford Haven. Some were not fortunate to survive the English Channel theatre of war. The corvette, [HMCS] Regina, [HMCS] Trentonian and the [HMCS] Alberni were torpedoed and lost a great many men during this period. I believe our safe return was mostly due to the credit of our captain, Jack Moles, of London, Ontario. We were the first Canadian sailors the town of Milford Haven had ever seen and from the start of operations out of Milford Haven to the end of the war, the town treated us extremely well.
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13 September 2018 at 8:56pm
British teenager Courtney Hadwin makes it to final of America's Got Talent
Courtney Hadwin, 14, was overjoyed after the announcement was made on television. Photo: AP
A 14-year-old British teenager was thrilled to tears after being told she secured a place in America's Got Talent.
Courtney Hadwin covered Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild, which won her spot in the final.
The performance that secured Courtney Hadwin's place in the final
News of the singer's achievement overseas has been met with joy from her fellow schoolmates at The Academy at Shotton Hall in County Durham.
Courtney Hadwin's school friends react to her performance on America's Got Talent
In a message on Twitter the excited teenager thanked her fans and teachers for their support.
She wrote: "@howiemandel you have believed in my from right at the beginning can’t thank you enough."
The young singer was sent straight through to the live semi-finals after stunning judges with a cover of Otis Redding's Hard To Handle.
She was judge Howie Mandel’s golden buzzer winner and has won high praise from music mogul Simon Cowell.
After watching the singer's performance he said: “You’re a bundle of excitement and it’s raw and messy.
"I saw you at the beginning of the show, shaking like a leaf and then you come out on stage and turn into a maniac.
“That’s why I absolutely love you."
Singing star died after jumping in front of a train
George Michael swaps drugs for Coronation Street.
Prince to perform in Shepherd's Bush tonight


Brazil’s top court rules to make homophobia a crime
Transgender rights activist waves a transgender flag as they protest the killings of transgender women this year, at a rally in Washington Square Park in New York, U.S., May 24, 2019. (Reuters/Demetrius Freeman)
RIO DE JANEIRO — A majority of judges in Brazil’s top court has voted to criminalize homophobia in a move welcomed by campaigners concerned about a rollback in gay rights and the murder of hundreds of LGBT+ people every year.
Six of 11 of Brazil’s Supreme Court judges late Thursday agreed that acts of homophobia and transphobia should be treated under current anti-discrimination laws until the country’s parliament passed legislation dealing with LGBT+ protection.
This would make violence against LGBT+ people a crime and make it illegal to deny access to education or jobs, to refuse service in stores, or to bar LGBT+ people from public buildings.
The court will resume voting in the first week of June, and, after the remaining judges vote, the ruling will go into effect.
Felipe Carvalho, president of the Niteroi Diversity Group, a non-profit that focuses on rights for LGBT+ people, said the vote was a “very significant step”.
“This won’t end LGBT-phobia, but it opens a number of possibilities for us,” Carvalho told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Homophobia is common in Brazil, a deeply religious country where both the Catholic Church and the popular evangelical Christian movement are frequently critical of gay rights and violence against LGBT+ people is rife.
The ruling comes after President Jair Bolsonaro, a self proclaimed “proud homophobe” who took power in January, removed LGBT+ responsibilities from the human rights ministry and declared that Brazil must not become a “gay tourism paradise”.
The court’s judges said their ruling addressed a failure by lawmakers to legally protect the LGBT+ community.
At least 320 LGBT+ people were killed in Brazil in 2018 and 126 murders have been reported so far this year, according to watchdog group Grupo Gay da Bahia.
Brazil is also the most dangerous country in the world to be transgender, according to the Trans Murder Monitoring project, with at least 167 people killed in the 12 months to Sept. 2018.
Human rights campaigners expected that the Supreme Court ruling would put pressure on lawmakers to finally act.
“We hope that this leads Congress to pass bills to protect the LGBT population,” said Bruna Benevides, a LGBT+ campaigner who was suspended from the military after coming out as trans.
“In my case, (the ruling) can lead to courts recognizing my right to be (in the military).”
A day before the court ruling, the Senate approved a bill that would criminalize homophobia in a first round of voting. The bill will have to go through a second round of voting and then be sent to the lower house of Congress for approval.
The speaker for the Senate’s bill, centrist politician Alessandro Vieira, said he would prefer Congress to decide the matter but the court’s ruling was understandable because lawmakers had delayed LGBT+ legislation for so long.
“When we have a three decade delay (on voting LGBT+ bills), it’s fair that the judiciary acts,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.—Reporting by Fabio Teixeira; Editing by Belinda Goldsmith; Thomson Reuters Foundation
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https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/w/white-tailed-deer.html
AnimalsPhoto Ark
About the White-Tailed Deer
White-tailed deer, the smallest members of the North American deer family, are found from southern Canada to South America. In the heat of summer they typically inhabit fields and meadows using clumps of broad-leaved and coniferous forests for shade. During the winter they generally keep to forests, preferring coniferous stands that provide shelter from the harsh elements.
Adult white-tails have reddish-brown coats in summer which fade to a duller grayish-brown in winter. Male deer, called bucks, are easily recognizable in the summer and fall by their prominent set of antlers, which are grown annually and fall off in the winter. Only the bucks grow antlers, which bear a number of tines, or sharp points. During the mating season, also called the rut, bucks fight over territory by using their antlers in sparring matches.
Female deer, called does, give birth to one to three young at a time, usually in May or June and after a gestation period of seven months. Young deer, called fawns, wear a reddish-brown coat with white spots that helps them blend in with the forest.
Diet and Behavior
White-tailed deer are herbivores, leisurely grazing on most available plant foods. Their stomachs allow them to digest a varied diet, including leaves, twigs, fruits and nuts, grass, corn, alfalfa, and even lichens and other fungi. Occasionally venturing out in the daylight hours, white-tailed deer are primarily nocturnal or crepuscular, browsing mainly at dawn and dusk.
In the wild, white-tails, particularly the young, are preyed upon by bobcats, mountain lions, and coyotes. They use speed and agility to outrun predators, sprinting up to 30 miles per hour and leaping as high as 10 feet and as far as 30 feet in a single bound.
Although previously depleted by unrestricted hunting in the United States, strict game-management measures have helped restore the white-tailed deer population.


This walk, as do all the described walks, commences at St Andrews church South Stoke. There is parking on The Street outside the church.
Proceed (south) along The Street past the school, Perch and Pike PH and Chapel Close and as the road turns sharply to the left, continue (south) on the Ridgeway Path. After about ¼ miles the path becomes an access road to the houses and then the river comes into view on the right. You will then pass Goring Sailing Club and the Leatherne Bottel PH, which is riverside on the right. Continue south on the path, which now follows the river at a distance, with the Great Western railway on the left. You will soon get a glimpse of Cleeve lock.
After about ¾ miles the path (now a track) joins a road on a hair-pin bend. Tturn left here (east), (the Ridgeway Path continues south on its way to Avebury) and proceed under the railway bridge to the cross roads with the B4009.
Taking care crossing the B4009, continue straight ahead (east), into Elvendon Road and after about ¾ miles you will reach Battle farm, having past Cleeve Down housing estate and Summerfield Rise on your right. Take the footpath on your left (north), signposted Beech Lane and Woodcote, and follow this for about ½ miles as it hugs the edge of Wroxhills Wood before turning (east) into the woods. Here you can see Bluebells in the spring and are accompanied by the bird songs. You will shortly reach a point where two paths cross, turn left (north) and proceed on this path for about ¼ miles, which brings you to the edge of the wood. As you exit the woods take time to enjoy the panoramic view of the valley, being able to see the edge of the North Downs and the Chilterns and in the distance Wittenham Clumps and Didcot Power Station. Turn left (west) here and follow the track. After a short while (just past a fenced off building) another path joins from the right. Take this path and continue until it meets the single track road, this is the Icknield Way. Cross the road and take the single track road (going west) that is almost directly opposite. Keep on this road for about ¾ miles, passing Grove farm and cottages on your right, until it meets the B4009.
Turn right (north) onto the B4009 and proceed with care and caution. A few yards past the brow the hill, crossing the B4009 with care, turn left (west) into South Bank and proceed under the railway bridge and at the bottom of South Bank follow the road round into The Street and continue straight ahead until you reach St Andrew’s church on the right.
This is the end of the walk.


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C80 Group Acquires YDBC Ltd
C80 Group has announced the purchase of Yorkshire Dales Building Consultancy Ltd (YDBC).
YDBC Ltd was seen as the perfect acquisition for C80 Group because of its geographical location and the complimentary services that C80 Solutions currently offers. Both have been operational for over 10 years and have experienced strong organic growth in what is a highly specialised industry.
Mark Heptonstall, Managing Director and founder of the C80 Group was pleased that the deal had been completed before the end of the calendar year, putting the company in a position to relaunch YDBC’s services immediately. Regarding the acquisition, he announced, “C80 Solutions delivers the full range of energy assessment, building compliance, consultancy, and testing services. Over the last 10 years, we have built a team of highly skilled consultants and have carefully laid the foundations for our expansion. This new acquisition will allow us to deliver not just a broader portfolio of services, but also greater value to our clients. Customers will now have the support of our experienced and qualified staff to guide them through both the building compliance and the building regulation process”.
Operating as a sister company to C80 Solutions, YDBC’s offices in Leyburn will be retained and a new region will be opened straight away from C80 Group’s head office in Horsforth, Leeds. It will continue to serve the existing areas of Yorkshire and the North East, with a staged plan for expansion over the next 5 years. Gerard Marsh will stay on as director and principal surveyor. All current staff will be retained as part of the acquisition.
About C80 Solutions
Founded in 2009, C80 Solutions is a building compliance and assessment specialist, delivering energy assessment, compliance, consultancy and testing services for the UK residential and commercial sectors. Its clients include some of the nation’s largest housebuilders, contractors, developers, M&E Engineers, architects, and local authorities. The company has three main objectives: to save its clients time, money and make the process of meeting building regulations straightforward and hassle-free. In 2019, the company was the winner of the Energy Efficiency Awards Regional Consultancy of the year. For more information, visit https://www.c80solutions.co.uk/
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Ali Smith: How I Write
‘ARTFUL’
The British writer, whose new book, Artful, is an intoxicating mixture of lecture and ghost story, talks about what makes her cry and the places that inspire her.
David Sandison/eyevine, via Redux
Where did you grow up? In Inverness, Scotland, in a small house in a street parallel to the Caledonian Canal.
You are a member of the Royal Society of Literature. What does membership entail? Are there robes and fireside chats with goblets of sherry, that sort of thing? No, ha, nothing quite so effete. It's a body of people which organizes exciting events about books and schools of thought in national and international literatures, digs up funding from under unexpected stones, and acts as a focal communal body for people working in or interested in literature—important for people in a job that is by nature solitudinous. There's a perk you'll be interested in, though, if you're interested in goblets of sherry: if you are elected as a fellow, you get to sign the fellow register with a pen which belonged to Byron or Dickens (you get to choose which). If you imagine the range, the versatility in form and tone arcing between those two writers, and apply it now to, then magnify it by, contemporary literatures, interests, demands and needs—that's the RSL. Not a sherry glass in sight.
What is a distinctive habit or affectation of yours? Cultivating privacy in a world now unused to it. And sniffing instead of blowing my nose. My partner gives me quite a hard time about it, but not as hard a time, she says, as I'm giving my nasal tubes.
What is your favorite item of clothing? I really like jackets, and tend to buy them to the detriment of my need of all the other items.
Please recommend three books (not your own) to your readers. The three novels I've most recently really loved: The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan, Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck and The Gold Rimmed Spectacles by Giorgio Bassani. The first is a debut, the second is a recent-ish German novel, the third is a 1950s Italian work, and all three are about how history and the novel, when these concepts meet—history at its most brutal and the novel at its most uncompromising—can be transformed by fusion with each other into a legacy of human understanding.
Do you have a writer friend who helps and inspires you? I'm blessed in my good friends, and some of them happen to be writers, though that's almost never what our friendships are about. And every writer I've ever read, living or dead, has in one way or another helped and inspired. I have a feeling it’s important not to mix the two up.
What is a place that inspires you? Anywhere in the sun, anywhere under the old blue sky. And, more specifically recently, the church of San Clemente in Rome, where Masolino's magnificent fresco of St. Catherine is just the upper layer of a building that goes down for centuries, an experience of time and stratification which echoes everywhere in Rome, and was, I thought, a bit like standing in a place straddling the conscious and the subconscious.
Describe your routine when conceiving of a book and its plot, before the writing begins. Do you like to map out your books ahead of time, or just let it flow? It's really a time where articulation and articulacy come under a particular pressure, I mean a pressure very particular to whatever the book that's waiting to be written is. It's a process of allowing yourself not to know, and to lose or shed your customary articulacy, then allowing yourself to see (hear, sense, all the senses) by different means. It's the opposite of public. After that, it's a case of instinct and edit, we need them both.
You write short fiction and novels (as well as plays). Does your approach differ from one format to the other? No. They all need the same attention, and the balance between instinct and edit.
I’ve recently embarked on a project to read a short story a day, and write a response essay to each. Could you name three great short stories that I should read, but which are not on everyone’s hit list? It is exciting to me that you'd work on a project like that, and also that people have “hit lists” of short stories. Chekhov's tiny story, “After the Theatre;” George Mackay Brown's story, “Witch;” Muriel Spark's story, “The House of the Famous Poet.” That covers life, death, and afterlife (I think the short story form is pretty much always concerned with all three).
What is the difference between American and British literature? How about between English and Scottish literature? I could say a lot of words here, like enthusiastic and metaphysical and class system and political and invisible and Presbyterian and experimental courage and Caledonian antisyzygy. If you hold a seminar, tell me, and I'll come and speak at it, if you want.
Consider yourself invited! I should design a seminar just to have you come speak at it.What I know most is that the difference between us is what makes us interesting and attractive and problematic and exciting and vital to each other. Give me difference over indifference any day.
Describe your writing routine, including any unusual rituals associated with the writing process, if you have them. I use pencils. Not very mysterious.
Is there anything distinctive or unusual about your work space? No, it's just a desk, with the stuff I’m working on all over it. It looks out on to the tops of trees and then sky.
What is guaranteed to make you laugh? Harpo Marx. Gracie Fields. Being tickled.
What is guaranteed to make you cry? I can never tell. It's quite exciting. For instance, the other night I watched a 1920s short film called Regen (Rain), a Dutch film about—yes—rain, a day of rain over Amsterdam, and it was so beautiful, pivoted between its pasts and its futures, and at the same time so like rain will always be, that there was an image of a cloth pegged and blowing on a line in black and white nearly a hundred years ago and I was moved to tears.
Do you have any superstitions? Yes, I've got them all. If anyone knows of any obscure ones, tell me.
What is something you always carry with you? An extra pair of glasses in case, and in a case.
If you could bring back to life one deceased person, who would it be and why? I'd ask them to give Katherine Mansfield some of the years she never got to have.
What is your favorite snack? Fruit in almost all forms. Happy with apples.
What phrase do you over-use? "That's interesting." (But only because things are endlessly interesting.)
What is the story behind the publication of your first book? I had a job, I got ill, I left the job to get better, and while I was getting better, I wrote some stories. I sent them to some publishers and the fifth one who replied said they'd take them. Then they went bankrupt. Then that bankrupt publisher got bought by a bigger firm. Story: in the end is the beginning, and in the beginning is the end.
Was there a specific moment when you felt you had “made it” as an author? I hope never to have such a moment.
What do you need to have produced/completed in order to feel that you’ve had a productive writing day? I'm happy to have nothing, so long as I'm sure I've been working.
Tell us something about yourself that is largely unknown and perhaps surprising. I'm quite good on the harmonica, and can get a tune out of most musical instruments, so long as the tune is “Oh Susannah.”
Tell us a funny story related to a book tour or book event.I met an internationally esteemed writer at a literary party being given in her honor. She was wearing a beautiful pink flouncy frilly dress. I complimented her on it. She said, "Ach, it's my nightgown. I couldn't decide what else to wear."
What advice would you give to an aspiring author? When it comes to words like “leap” and “faith,” you need a word like “of.”
What would you like carved onto your tombstone? I don't want a tombstone. You could carve on it "She never actually wanted a tombstone."
What is your next project? I hope it's a book. (Leap. Faith. Of.)


Herbert von Karajan (born Salzburg, Austria, 5 April 1908; died Salzburg 16 July 1989) was an Austrian conductor. He was probably the best-known conductor in the world during his time. He conducted the greatest orchestras, and made many wonderful recordings. He was the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 35 years.
2 Marriage, and wartime career
3 After the war
4 His fame and personality
Early years[change | change source]
Herbert von Karajan was born in Salzburg. His name at first was Heribert Ritter von Karajan. In 1916, he went to study the piano at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. There he was told he should learn conducting. By 1929, he was conducting at the Festspielhaus, Salzburg and in 1934 he led the Vienna Philharmonic for the first time. He conducted regularly in Ulm and Aachen.
In 1937, Karajan first conducted the Berlin Philharmonic and the Berlin State Opera He was very successful when he conducted Tristan und Isolde. In 1938 a Berlin music critic called him Das Wunder Karajan (The Karajan miracle). He started to make recordings. However, one day in June 1939 he was conducting "Die Meistersinger" at Bayreuth in front of Hitler and his guests the King and Queen of Yugoslavia when he suddenly could not remember the music (he was conducting without the score). The singers stopped and the curtain came down. Hitler was very angry and said that Karajan would never conduct at Bayreuth again. This event may actually have helped his career after World War II. Many people who had worked for the Nazis and for Hitler were not allowed to work.
Marriage, and wartime career[change | change source]
During the war, in 1942, Karajan married Anita Gütermann. She was the daughter of a rich man who had a business making sewing machines. His wife was partly Jewish. This caused the Nazi’s to talk about whether Karajan should still be allowed to conduct. By 1944, he was not in favour with the Nazis, but he was still conducting in Berlin. He left Berlin and went to Milan, Italy with his wife in February 1945. Karajan divorced Anita in 1958.
Although he was deposed after the war because of his Nazi connections, he started to conduct again in 1946.
After the war[change | change source]
Karajan gave his first concert after the war in 1946 in Vienna with the Vienna Philharmonic. He was banned again by the occupying Russians, but started conducting again the next year.
Karajan gave many concerts with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra for the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna. He conducted at La Scala in Milan for the 1948-49 season. From 1947, he made many recordings with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Vienna Philharmonic in Vienna.
In 1951 and 1952, he conducted again at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus where he changed the seating plan for the orchestra that had been compulsory since Wagner made it in 1876.
In 1955, after the death of Wilhelm Furtwängler, he was made artistic director (conductor) for life of the Berlin Philharmonic. From 1957 to 1964 he was artistic director of the Vienna State Opera.
He very often conducted the Vienna Philharmonic and gave many concerts at the Salzburg Festival. He continued to work very hard performing, conducting, and recording until his death in 1989. In Karajan's last years he left the Berlin Philharmonic after arguments with them, and concentrated on working again with the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic.
His fame and personality[change | change source]
Herbert von Karajan had very good musicianship and memory. He conducted without a score in front of him, very often with his eyes closed. He is remembered for being very strict (like a dictator) and always insisting on having things the way he wanted. There are many stories about him that show this. He insisted on being paid very high fees. When he was being filmed conducting an orchestra, he wanted the cameras to show him all the time. When he conducted Wagner at the Metropolitan Opera, he made the stand for the conductor higher so that the audience could see him.
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Austrian conductors
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People from Salzburg
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This page was last changed on 3 November 2018, at 03:14.


Russian Operative Disappointed Gerrymandering Taking All The Fun Out Of Hacking 2020 U.S. Election
SEE MORE: Russia
SMOLENSK, RUSSIA—Lamenting that any interesting challenge in disrupting the vote has been completely removed from his job, Russian operative Pavel Artemyev reportedly expressed disappointment Friday that gerrymandering has taken all the fun out of hacking the 2020 election. “I really thought it would be a huge thrill trying to dismantle the U.S. democratic system, but it looks like all the work has already been done,” said Artemyev, who claimed that any excitement he once had about diminishing Americans’ faith in their democracy quickly disappeared upon the realization that elected U.S. officials had tirelessly toiled to suppress voters with discriminatory and partisan-rigged district maps. “I got into this because I wanted to make a difference, only to hack the Florida rolls and find out most of the African American voters have already been purged. It kind of sucks because there’s no way my work could be as substantive as polling-place closures, malfunctioning equipment, and laws that allow election officials to reject ballots without standards or repercussions. I’m basically getting paid to do nothing.” At press time, Artemyev had settled on creating and spreading false news stories about Sharia Law in the U.S. only to discover dozens of American publications already doing that as well.