500 Wilcox Street

Joliet, IL 60435

Inquiry in Action

INTRODUCTION TO PHYSICAL SCIENCE
For Educators

Fall 2007

Course: PYSC 115 - 4 Semester Hours – Inquiry In Action
SEMESTER: Fall 2007
PREREQUISITE: None
LECTURE HOURS: MWF 12 noon – 1:00 PM
LAB HOURS: M 1:00 – 2:50 PM

Professors: Dr. Salim M. Diab

OFFICE: Room 215, St. Albert
PHONE: 740 3855 (Ext. 855)
OFFICE HOURS: MWF 9 – 10 AM

HOME PHONE: 740-8302

e-mail: sdiab@stfrancis.edu
Homepage: http://www.stfrancis.edu/ns/diab/etherman.htm

Mrs. Cathy Nelson

Assistant Professor of Education

Office: S457

Phone: (815) 740-2277

Email: cnelson@stfrancis.edu

Course Description:

This course has been designed to provide elementary education majors with the background in Physics and Chemistry needed to teach elementary Physical Science. The course will use laboratory investigations and hands-on approach to enhance understanding of physical science concepts and to emphasize the nature of discovery in science. An in-service learning experience has been added to this course to allow students to apply what they have learned by developing and teaching science lessons to 4^th or 5th grade students at Farragut Elementary School.

Based on the National Science Education Content Standards for Physical Science and Science as Inquiry, the physical science topics covered include Scientific Questions and Their Investigations, Physical Properties, Physical Change, Chemical Change, States of Matter, Density, and Mixtures and Solutions.

Textbook 1: Introductory Physical Science (IPS) Eighth Edition, by Haber-Schaim, Gendel, Kirksey, and Pratt, SCI, 2005. ISBN: 1-882057-25-2

Many of the values and principles used in this course have been re-established and reinforced by the Benchmarks for Science Literacy developed by Project 2061 at AAAS and by the National Science Education Standards published by the National Academy of Sciences.

When a topic is introduced, there is a close match with both of the above national documents. More than that, the content and methodology of science are clearly represented in the questions and problems in the textbooks, as well as in the accompanying assessment packages.

The list below summarizes the national recommendations met by IPS for the past 35 years.

Values and Principles of IPS		National Recommendations

Adjustable to a wide range of talents.		"Science for all Americans"

Has a central theme that disregards the boundaries between disciplines.		"Thematic approach" "Integrated science"

Learning occurs individually, in pairs, and interactively by the whole class.		"Cooperative learning

Topics carefully selected to allow enough time for students to digest and apply what they have learned to new situations.		"Less coverage, more depth"

Always develops evidence for generalizations. "How do we know?"		"The nature of science."

Encourages thinking through the logical development of ideas and multiple-step problems.		"Higher-level thinking skills"

Stresses oral and written communication.		"Reading and writing in context"

Assessment of achievement is multidimensional including unstructured lab tests.		"Authentic assessment"

Textbook 2: Inquiry in Action: Investigating Matter Through Inquiry, 2^nd edition, A project of the American Chemical Society Education Division, Office of K-8 Science, 2005. ISBN: 0-8412-3935-5

Essential Features of Inquiry:

Students begin with a question that can be answered in a scientific way
Students rely on evidence in attempting to answer the questions
Students form an explanation to answer the question based on the evidence collected
Students evaluate their explanations
Students communicate and justify their proposed explanations

Inquiry in Action uses a guided-inquiry approach. Each demonstration begins with a teacher demonstration or student observation that serves as motivation for either student or teacher questioning. Together, the teacher and the students develop a question to investigate and begin to design an experiment to answer the question. In most investigations, this initial designing and conducting of experiments is done with substantial teacher guidance. This approach allows teachers to model the thinking processes involved in investigating a scientific question and gives students familiarity with the science concepts and a context for further investigation. As students gain experience, they take on more responsibility in designing experiments later in the investigation to answer related questions.

The activities in Inquiry in Action include many suggestions for questioning strategies before, during, and after the activities. Each activity also includes examples of experimental procedures with all the required materials, expected results, and assessment ideas. All these suggestions and examples can serve as a guide as teachers develop the investigations with students. The spontaneous nature of the inquiry, individual teaching styles, and variety of potential responses from students will determine how much activity and investigation is actually conducted.

Course Objectives:

Upon the successful completion of this course, the student should be able to:
1. understand the language of science and its use within the scientific community.
2. understand and appreciate the evolutionary progress of scientific ideas and their historical context.
3. gain concrete knowledge associated with our physical world with special emphasis on designing, performing, analyzing, and reporting scientific experiments that govern our macroscopic as well as the microscopic world.
4. study selected theories of physical science and be able to conceptualize these theories mathematically and graphically.

Course Outcome:

At the end of this course the student should be able to:

demonstrate comprehension of basic physical science principles needed to teach elementary science and recall some of the major historical development of these ideas;
participate in the scientific enterprise by designing, performing, evaluating, and reporting basic scientific experiments; and
apply basic physical science concepts to new situations and to teaching of elementary school science.

Course Requirements:

A considerable portion of your class time will be spent doing experiments to understand first-hand how nature behaves.
To arrive at reliable experimental results, you will be required to collect a large amount of data. You will do this by sharing your team’s data with the entire class and drawing conclusions jointly.
A well-kept notebook will be of great help in organizing your work and improving your learning.
Solve as many problems as you can between sections and at the end of each chapter. Problem-Solving will sharpen your skills and build a solid foundation of science content for the future.
To demonstrate your understanding of the science concepts, you will be required to take an assessment tool – individually and in collaboration with others - after each chapter. These tools might be multiple choice questions, short answers, problem-solving or, essays.
To demonstrate your understanding of the experimental nature of science, you will be required to conduct, perform, collect data, and analyze a weekly experiment demonstrating your understanding of the investigative nature of science. These experiments shall be used as a vehicle for class discussion and dialogue.
To demonstrate your ability as educator of science, your will be required to develop activities for the science classes at Farragut Elementary School. The activities must adhere to the National Science Teachers Association or Illinois State Standards and should take no more than 45 minutes to complete. These activities will be discussed and critiqued in lab by your peers and faculty from the College of Education.

Your lesson plan will follow the standard College of Education lesson plan found at: http://www.stfrancis.edu/ed/LessonPlan.doc and the plan must be turned in the week before you teach the lesson. The lessons will then be taught to the students from Farragut during the laboratory period; it is the responsibility of the students with the help of the instructor to gather and prepare all materials for the Farragut session. Inquiry in Action manual by ACS is an excellent resource as well as other books with ideas for activities are available from Mrs. Nelson and the Curriculum Library in the College of Education. The Internet and ERIC database are also excellent resources.

To assess your development and success in this area, a Journal Writing assignment will be required. The journal should contain your reflections on the development of the experience and how the children reacted to the science activities. It is important to reflect on the children’s attitudes towards science, the difficulties they encountered, successes and your own attitude towards the teaching of science. Make sure to attach your lesson plan to your journal entry, reflecting on how well you developed the activity, why you think that it was an appropriate activity to use at Farragut, and your overall assessment of how well the activity achieved the intended goals.

Course Schedule:

Text: Intro. To Physical Science

TOPIC	Theory	Experiments
Chapter 1
Volume and Mass	--volume --reading scales --mass --balances	1.1 Heating baking Soda 1.4 Measuring volume by displacement of water 1.8 Sensitivity of a balance
Assessment	Review, Applications, and Extensions	Short Essay
Chapter 2	Theory	Experiments
Mass Changes in Closed System	--graphing data (Microsoft Excel) --histograms --conservation of mass --laws of nature	2.1 Mass of dissolved salt 2.4 Mass of ice and water 2.5 Mass of copper and sulfur 2.6 Mass of gas
Assessment	Review, Applications, and Extensions	Short Essay
Chapter 3	Theory	Experiments
Characteristic Properties	--properties of materials --density --significant figures --range of densities --boiling point and air pressure --identifying substances	3.2 Mass and volume 3.5 Density of solids 3.6 Density of liquids 3.7 Density of a gas 3.9 Freezing and melting 3.11 Boiling point
Assessment	Review, Applications, and Extensions	Short Essay
Chapter 4	Theory	Experiments
Solubility	--concentration --wood and grain alcohol --solubility of gases --acid rain --drinking water	4.1 Dissolving a solid in water 4.3 Comparing concentrations 4.4 Effect of temperature on solubility 4.6 Isopropanol as solvent 4.7 Solubility of carbon dioxide
Assessment	Review, Applications, and Extensions	Short Essay
Chapter 5	Theory	Experiments
Separation of Mixtures	--petroleum --separation of insoluble solids --separation of soluble solids --mixture of gases: oxygen and nitrogen --mixture of pure substances	5.1 Fractional distillation 5.4 Separation of a mixture of solids 5.6 Paper chromatography
Assessment	Review, Applications, and Extensions	Short Essay

TOPIC	Theory	Experiments
Chapter 6
Compounds and Elements	--breaking down pure substances --synthesis of water --law of constant proportion --complete and incomplete reactions --elements --elements near the surface of the earth	6.2 Decomposition of water 6.4 Synthesis of Zinc Chloride 6.6 Reaction with copper 6.7 Separation of a mixture of copper oxide and copper 6.9 precipitating copper
Assessment	Review, Applications, and Extensions	Short Essay
Chapter 7	Theory	Experiments
Radioactivity	--radioactive elements --radioactive decomposition --a closer look at radioactivity --radioactivity and health	7.3 Radioactive background 7.4 Collective radioactive material on a filter 7.5 Absorption and decay
Assessment	Review, Applications, and Extensions	Short Essay
Chapter 8	Theory	Experiments
Atomic Model of Matter	--models --molecules --spectral analysis --half-life	8.2 A black box 8.4 Constant composition using fasteners and rings 8.6 Flame test for some elements 8.7 Spectra of some elements 8.9 An analog for radioactive decay
Assessment	Review, Applications, and Extensions	Short Essay
Chapter 9	Theory	Experiments
Sizes and masses of Molecules and Atoms	--thickness of a thin layer --mass of helium atoms --mass of polonium atoms --atomic masses and molecular formulas
Assessment	Review, Applications, and Extensions	Short Essay
Chapter 10	Theory	Activities
Classification of Elements: Periodic Table	--classifying elements --extraction of elements from compounds --periodic table and historical perspective	10.5 Atomic mass and other properties of atoms 10.7 Elements in the fourth row
Assessment	Review, Applications, and Extensions	Short Essay

Expectations of Students:

1. Attendance is required. A good attendance including the transcription of a good set of notes will greatly improve the student's chances for achieving a satisfactory grade in this course.
2. Homework assignments are intended to increase the problem solving ability of the students. It is important to attempt to solve every assigned problem using your text and other web sources.

3. Evaluation:

-- Ten assessments (10 points each = 100 pts.)

-- Homework and Cooperative Learning (100 pts.)

-- Four Laboratory Reports (25 points each = 100 pts.)

-- Presentation of independent project (100 pts.)

-- Evaluation of science activities for Farragut students (100 points each)

-- Reflective journal (100 points)

-------------------------------------------------------Total Pts = 600

4. Academic integrity must be always preserved. Any violation will be handled according to guidelines in the College Catalog.
7. Breakdown for grading:

91-100%   A
81-90%     B
71-80%     C
61-70%     D

Special Needs:

The University strives to be in compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations. Students with disabilities who require reasonable accommodations to fully participate in course activities or meet course requirements are encouraged to register with the Office of Disability Services to discuss access issues. Please call 815-740-5060 or visit the Library L 214 to coordinate accommodations.

Academic Support Services:

Various types of academic services offered by the Academic Resource Center (ARC) 815-740-5060 located in Room 214 in the Library. Online and distance learning students can contact ARC for appropriate resources. Library services include a number of online services and full text databases. Call the Library at 815-740-5041 for additional information.

As a Catholic university rooted in the liberal arts, we are a welcoming community of learners challenged by Franciscan values and charism, engaged in a continuous pursuit of knowledge, faith, wisdom, and justice, and ever mindful of a tradition that emphasizes reverence for creation, compassion, and peacemaking. We strive for academic excellence in all programs, preparing women and men to contribute to the world through service and leadership.