Activities to TEACH a Standard VS. Activities ABOUT a Topic
One of the big problems with teaching science to young students is that many curricula, or activities suggested to teachers as great for teaching fill in the blank, are often just activities ABOUT a topic instead of lessons designed to TEACH a standard.  Let’s clarify this extremely important distinction.
A standard is the articulation of an idea, or a skill, that explicitly defines what it is that students should know or be able to do. For example, students should be able to skip count by 5s, 10s, and 100s - that’s a skill from the grade 2 mathematics standards; or students should understand that sound can make matter vibrate and vibrating matter can make sound – that’s a concept from the grade 1 science standards. Lessons designed to teach this science standard will look quite different from activities that are just about sound. (Examples to follow.)
Designing lessons to teach a science standard typically requires an even further division of the standard into sub-components of knowledge and experiences required to ensure students learn all aspects of the idea. Such a division might include, but would not be limited to, the following ideas:
If I hear a sound, then something must be vibrating;
If I can make something vibrate, then it should produce a sound that I can hear; and
If I can stop the vibrations from something that is making a sound, then the sound should stop.
This level of detail makes clear the range of experiences and observations students need to gain mastery of the content.
To further delineate the distinction between activities to teach a standard versus activities about a topic, let’s look at several examples. The first three are classic activities about sound. Activities like these are ubiquitous on the internet and common in many curricular materials. And while students may have fun doing these activities and think they are “doing science,” their opportunity to learn the standard outlined above is essentially non-existent. (The inclusion of these videos in this discussion should not be construed as criticism of the individuals nor their respective organizations. The videos were not presented as an entire teaching unit, but rather cool activities to help students learn about sound.)
Moaning Balloons - Spinning a hex nut inside a balloon does produce a very cool sound, but how does this activity teach or reinforce the idea that something is vibrating? What’s vibrating….the balloon or the nut? How can a young student tell what’s vibrating? What’s their evidence? Same questions related to swinging the tube around! What’s the evidence students can point to in saying that something is vibrating? Also, students at this age – concrete thinkers – do not have the mental capacity to think about air molecules, much less air molecules vibrating. (Not sure if she said centripetal or centrifugal force. There’s no such thing as centrifugal force – but regardless, let’s not bring force and motion ideas into a lesson trying to teach the first grade sound standard.)
Cup & Bucket Sounds - Using a damp cloth to pull on a string attached to an inverted cup also produces an interesting sound. But again, what’s vibrating -the string - the cup? What can students point to that provides evidence of a vibration? (By the way, let’s not bring friction into any lesson for first graders; friction is difficult enough for middle and high school students and is well beyond the understanding of very young students.)
Secret Sound -Banging a coat hanger into the wall with strings attached to fingers next to your ears also produces a cool sound. But again, what’s the evidence to support an understanding of the relationship between vibration and sound?
Contrast these videos with the following sequence of observations and experiences designed to allow students to build an understanding of the relationship between sound and vibration.
Place your hand on your throat like this:
Blow. What do you hear? What do you feel? You can probably hear your breath, but very little sound and you don’t really feel anything in your fingers.
Now, place your hand on your throat again. Hum, speak, sing or yell. What do you hear? What do you feel? You certainly hear a sound and now you feel something happening in your throat. There’s a difference in the way your throat feels when you make a sound and that difference provides one piece of evidence about the relationship between sound and vibration.
While feeling the vibration in the throat provides some evidence, students can’t see anything vibrating. We should go further to help students visualize this relationship. A next step might include taking a rubber band stretched between two chairs, across a box, or around some drawer pulls. What happens when you pluck the rubber band?
You hear a sound and now you can see the rubber band vibrating (moving back and forth). Â
Now put your hand on the rubber band to make it stop moving (vibrating). What happens? The sound stops. The student is experiencing more evidence about the relationship between sound and vibration: if I pluck the rubber band, I can see it vibrating and I can hear a sound; and when I stop the rubber band from vibrating, the sound stops.
How about another one? Place a meter stick (yard stick) on a flat surface (table or counter) letting one end hang out over the end of the table or counter. Use your hand, or a heavy book, to hold the other end tight against the table. Pluck the meter stick.
You hear a sound and you can see the meter stick vibrating. Put your hand on the meter stick; you stop the vibration and you stop the sound.
A complete unit designed to teach the standard would not necessarily stop at this point. But it should be clear that these three simple activities are much more likely to help students develop an understanding of the standard than the moaning balloon, bucket and string or coat hanger activities.
It is imperative that the science curriculum, and in turn teachers, provide students with activities and experiences that allow them an opportunity to learn the standard not just play with activities about a topic.
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