User:EOT3000/OpenSciEd

OpenSciEd is an American nonprofit organization that creates open source science education materials and curricula for all grades, initially focusing on grades 6-8. OpenSciEd's approach is based on a science storyline, where students build upon their understanding of a topic by asking questions and investigating their answers through various activities. It has been adopted by 10 states. All materials are reviewed by and follow Next Generation Science Standards.

Participating States
OpenSciEd has been adopted by California, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Washington. However, because of the difficulty in switching from traditional education, not all districts in states which adopted the new standards use OpenSciEd.

Funding
OpenSciEd funders include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Effects of OpenSciEd
Many pilots of OpenSciEd materials have been done, widely reporting success. Teachers said that students were more engaged in the topic, which promoted thinking. A survey of 43 teachers participating in a field test of OpenSciEd in Massachusetts,

Approach to Education
According to OpenSciEd, traditional education frequently only pays attention to the point of view of experts, and doesn't consider how students view what they are learning. Because of this, many students don't understand why they are learning what they are, and don't connect the various concepts together. OpenSciEd attempts to solve this by creating a science storyline, where questions of phenomena lead to investigations, which link together to give students a good understanding of the topic.

Example
Unit 6.2, for grades 6-8, is centered around thermal properties of various containers. The first lesson introduces what OpenSciEd calls the anchoring phenomenon, a phenomenon caused by an unknown process, which will be investigated in coming lessons. For unit 6.2, this is 2 cups of a cold drink, one of which gains heat faster than another. A model is developed to explain which different features of the cup result in different thermal properties, and about how energy and matter can leave and enter different systems.

In lesson 2, an investigation is carried out to find out which features of the cup, such as wall thickness and cup material influence heat gain.

In lesson 3, the various cup designs from lesson 2 are tested to determine whether cups that keep cold well also keep heat well.

In lesson 4, the effect of lids on heat and mass loss are tested. A model is created to explain how heat and matter transfer may work.

In lesson 5, a claim is tested- are the cold water droplets on the outside of cold cups the result of water leaking through the cup walls?

In lesson 6, the effect of a lid is again tested, to see how matter can leave a system.

In lesson 7, a model is created to represent the interactions between matter and energy, to answer the question of how matter in a closed system can change temperature, without matter moving in and out of the system. OpenSciEd notes that 'students will likely use “heat waves” as an initial representation for heat', and says that this is ok, and in lessons 8-14 as students' understanding of heat increases, their representation of it in models will change.

In lesson 8, light is shone on various cups, and the temperature changes and reflected light are measured, to understand how light affects heat.

In lesson 9, to test whether or not heat or cold is leaving or entering a cup system by placing a cup of water into another cup and seeing how the temperatures of the 2 cups change.

In lesson 10, students see that a piece of candy dissolves faster in warm, than in cold water. To understand how this may work, food coloring is added to water of various temperatures, to see how quickly the color spreads. A historical study is read, which connects water particle speed to temperature. These three sources reinforce the idea that liquids are made of particles, and when heated they move faster.

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