Context:

The Project Science Circus Center was created at Appalachain State University, under the advisement of Jeff Goodman, in the Fall of 2007 for Science Instruction in the Elementary School. My classmates and I were each assigned a science process skill, and were required to create a center that enabled the students to interact with the center, using that process skill, with no adult instruction. The process skills included Observation, Inferences, Classifying, Measuring, Recording Data, Predicting, Comparing and Contrasting; and Planning and Investigating. My center, "Eye See," focuses on the process skill Observation.

Impact:

This center was just one of the centers created for each of the process skills in my class. While my skill was observation, my classmates were assigned one of the other science process skills: predicting, classifying, measuring, inferring, interpreting, analyzing, and synthesizing. One of the main requirements of the center was for it to be a hands on discovery of the assigned process skill.

This project is intended to have students observe closely. They are to learn that simply looking at something to make a quick assumption is not an effective practice of observing. When I brought this project into my sixth grade internship placement, I discovered that both the higher level and lower level students excelled and were challenged by this center. Students who were of higher level preferred the measuring and analyzing of the parallel line sections, while the lower level students really enjoying watching the movement images. I noticed them placing a finger on a section and saying, 'when my finger is on it, it will not move, but when my finger is off, it looks like it is moving.' I was really impressed with the observations that the students recorded and discussed as a result of this center. One regret that I have with taking this center into the classroom environment, was the setting that the project occupied. There was not a place in the class that the project could stand in column form, allowing the students to move around the four sides as intended. Instead, I had a back wall to display it on, and students piled into the same small space, something I planned for students not to do.

The following North Carolina Standard Coarse of Study Objectives are met with the Project Science Circus:

NCSCOS Grade Six Content Connection:

Competency Goal 1: The learner will design and conduct investigations to demonstrate an understanding of scientific inquiry.

1.01 Identify and create questions and hypotheses that can be answered through scientific investigations.

1.02 Develop appropriate experimental procedures for:

•Given questions.

•Student generated questions.

1.06 Use mathematics to gather, organize, and present quantitative data resulting from scientific investigations:

•Measurement.

•Analysis of data.

•Graphing.

•Prediction models.

1.08 Use oral and written language to:

•Communicate findings.

•Defend conclusions of scientific investigations.

Alignment:

Standard 10: Teachers provide active inquiry experiences in the teaching of science by using various questioning skills and developing science processing skills (predicting, classifying, measuring, inferring, interpreting, analyzing, and synthesizing).

Students will be required to complete a center that is a hands on exploration of the process skill assigned to them. Students will have experience creating a center of their own process skill, and will master that skill in here. When the students have the Process Science Circus, because of the nature of the hands on activity, they will learn what is involved with each skill by manipulating the centers.