I teach 8th grade science to about 155 inner city school students. I require them to read an article a week that relates to current happenings going on in the world around us. They love this assignment until they notice all of my science magazines are at least 5 years old.
Upon choosing their first week's article to read several students realized that the magazines were very outdated (one still discussed Pluto as being a planet). This discovery sparked a very rich discussion on the fact that what they were reading about could be very different today and that they wanted to have up-to-date information for their personal research.
Science is an ever changing discipline. New discoveries are made, next steps are taken and data changes. In order for these students to be competitive and relevant in the building of their knowledge, old materials will just not do! If they are to become future scientists and researchers they should be able to at least start with the current science going on in the world today. My students read at least one current article a week and report back to me their new learning. Students also apply their learning in class when completing the scientific method, step 2, research!
In Their Own Words
We want to be able to read about science that is going on right now in the world, not what happened 5 or more years ago. I mean, everyone knows that Pluto isn't listed as a planet anymore. - Destinee
I am really interested in life in the ocean and when I read my first article I knew it was old because more of the Great Barrier Reef has died in the last 5 years, so I need to know that percentage for now. The data is old. - Serenity
Our classmates will thank us. That is for sure. We (our advisory class) talked about the concern, and Mrs. Lantinga came up with the idea to ask DonorsChoose.org for help, but the rest of the classes (about 125 8th graders) don't even know that we asked, so if we are able to get the current magazines, they will thank us! - Cory
I think that the rest of the kids will look at us as leaders because we saw a problem and came up with an idea for a solution, and that's what a leader would do. - Ashlyn
We are really smart kids, but we can't get smarter if we are learning about stuff that isn't even true any more. A lot of us want to become scientists, and so we need information about the world today. - Remy
We also asked for magazines about current choices that kids have to make today because we thought the stories would really help us with all the stuff going on in our lives. If we become better people because of it then the whole community becomes a better place. - Emily
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