USING SCIENCE NOTEBOOKS TO INCREASE STUDENT INTEREST AND SUCCESS

Teaching Earth science to middle school students is an ever-evolving process, and one for which I have worked to improve upon each year. During the 2010-2011 school year I implemented science notebooks in an attempt to increase the investment students had in their learning, and subsequently their success. A science notebook is much like the field notebook of a geologist, where students write down key terms and ideas, procedures and observations, collect data, draw pictures to illustrate their understanding, or make conclusions when appropriate. While my initial attempts at this type of teaching and learning provided mixed results, with practice, it was clear that science notebooks afforded students with the unique opportunity to write down their initial impressions or ideas about a subject, to revisit and modify their statements, and in the process see the evidence of their own learning within the context of Earth science topics. Science notebooks also foster a link between K-12 classroom activities and the work of real scientists, whereby students are required to record their procedures and observations, their conclusions must be based on data collected, and their work is reviewed by peers in order to gain credibility. In addition, the use of science notebooks helps to clearly identify misconceptions that students’ hold, which guides teachers in providing more focused instruction to deal with such misconceptions. I will continue to implement science notebooks in my classroom for several reasons including the following; having notebooks allows me to provide individualized and relevant feedback to students on their learning and, the nature of the science notebook allows lessons to be individualized for every student, which I believe is one of its greatest attributes.