My STEAM Notebook is an elementary science interactive workbook that brings the past into the future in a powerful way. Primary source documents from 150 years of American scientists provide an amazing look into the practice of keeping a science notebook. Featuring notebooks from ten scientists, students learn how to write and draw in ways that help develop their understanding of science.
The workbook helps teachers implement the Next Generation Science Standards, the Common Core State Standards for ELA, and the STEAM initiative. Historical documents are interspersed with notebook pages for students to use in recording observations.
Historical documents will:
- Emphasize the importance of writing in science and model effective writing and drawing to record observations
- Introduce students to eleven American scientists who have made lasting contributions
- Introduce students to a variety of scientific fields
- Demonstrate the importance of notebooks across a wide variety of science specialties including ornithology (birds), behavioral evolutionary biology, malacology (mollusks), botany (plants), entomology (insects), zookeeper, epidemiology (infectious diseases), agrostology (grasses), ichthyology (fish), and taxidermy (preserving specimens).
Using the interactive notebook pages, students will learn to:
- Record observations through writing and drawing
- Develop explanations and arguments based on evidence
- Write narrative and informative essays
- Understand the interconnections between drawing and writing to provide information
The notebook pages are deceptively simple in their organization. Headers encourage careful recording of important information, and a Table of Contents keeps everything at the student's fingertips. Odd-numbered pages provide a grid for math or handwriting help. Even-numbered pages are for free-form writing, drawing, or gluing in teacher-provided worksheets. Each scientist inspires suggestions for how to work in the notebook.
Sample STEAM questions--Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math--are included for each scientist. This is a nuts and bolts interactive STEAM notebook that will help elementary science come alive for students.
Ansberry, Karen: - Co-founder of Picture-Perfect Science, a series that uses trade picture books to teach science.
Morgan, Emily: - Co-founder of Picture-Perfect Science, a series that uses trade picture books to teach science.
Pattison, Darcy: - Children's book author Darcy Pattison finds inspiration in writing about science and nature; twice her books have been honored as NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Books. Her nature picture books include Nefertiti, the Spidernaut: The Jumping Spider who Learned to Hunt in Space (2016); Abayomi, the Brazilian Puma: The True Story of an Orphaned Cub (Mims House), an NSTA 2015 Outstanding Science Trade Book; Wisdom, the Midway Albatross: Surviving the Japanese Tsunami and Other Disasters for Over 60 Years (Mims House), a starred review in Publisher's Weekly; Desert Baths (Arbordale), an NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book 2013; and, Prairie Storms (Arbordale). Burn: Michael Faraday's Candle (Mims House, Spring 2016) is a physical science book about how a candle burns, based on Michael Faraday's famous 1848 juvenile Christmas lecture. Other picture books include The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman (Harcourt), which received an Irma Simonton Black and James H. Black Award for Excellence in Children's Literature Honor Book award, starred reviews in BCCB and Kirkus, and has been published in a Houghton Mifflin textbook; Searching for Oliver K. Woodman (Harcourt); 19 Girls and Me (Philomel); and 11 Ways to Ruin a Photograph: A Military Family Story (Mims House). Her series, The ALIEN, INC. CHAPTER BOOK SERIES includes Kell, the Alien; Kell and the Horse Apple Parade; Kell and the Giants; and Kell and the Detectives. She is also the author of middle grade novels and teaches nationally a Novel Revision Retreat. For more, see darcypattison.com/about
