Thank you to all of the wonderful educators, parents, district leaders, colleagues, etc., who took time to attend the webinar this evening!  We would love to hear more about your favorite picture book that you use to teach math, science, technology, engineering -- or just your favorite picture book and how you use it!  Let's keep the conversation going here and cross post it to the MyNCTM forum as well.

Several of the questions that participants had submitted before the webinar on Connecting Mathematics and Science through Literature and Storytelling focused on including/incorporating/locating books that have cultural relevance, stories that showcase a different perspective than your own (across race, religion, sexual orientation, location, etc.), and books that incorporate culturally relevant pedagogy.  While there is a need to ensure any book you select has accurate content and information, it is also extremely important for students to see themselves in the texts.  The following are some recommendations for different lists that provide a variety of texts.

 

A Mighty Girls 2020 Book List

Children’s Books about Women Scientists

2020 Math Books for Kids (SLJ)

Culturally Responsive Books for Students

Diversify Your Classroom Book Collection

10 Nonfiction Books that Humanize Mathematics

#BlackinSTEM: 17 Nonfiction Books That Spotlight Black Scientists, Thinkers, and Inventors (SLJ)

 

*The SLJ links are part of their journal.  At the time this is posted, SLJ is providing access to teachers during the pandemic and information should come up online.

 

Thanks for taking the time to share your expertise with us in the webinar.  It was informative and fun.  I'm stealing the tools you used to engage my own students!

I am a storyteller.   That's one of the ways I engage my students.  But they are stories from my life, and not stories from books. For example, when we are learning about heat transfer, I tell them about the time I was at a picnic and got a popsicle stuck on my tongue.  The popsicle was kept on dry ice so it wouldn't melt. Later that same day, I was accidentally burned by the glowing end of a cigarette.  Both are great examples of heat transfer.  I think that those stories are more valuable than I could find in a book.

What are your thoughts?  Is it better if we stick to fiction - that can be reproduced year after year?  A book can be used by many teachers consistently.  If I tell my story it is mine.  I have had other teachers try to use my stories without success.  In one case they said, "This happened to Mrs. Foote."  In another case, they pretended it happened to them.  Both fell flat. 

I think if we have our own stories, we should use them.  But if we don't have stories, we should find them.  Stories are gold.

 

I am part of a small group of STEM teachers that is organizing a virtual STEM conference in April. We had a very successful virtual conference last spring, Elementary STEM CON 20, that had over 5000 teacher participants. We have just last week launched the registration for our next conference that will be much larger with more sessions for secondary and special education. Many of the sessions and workshops focus on integration of STEM into other subjects.  I am doing two of the sessions on literature and STEM integration. In addition, we have some amazing author guests, scientists, and engineers who will be part of panel discussion each day of the conference. We also have professional development hours available through several universities. You can check out STEM CON and Beyond  at http://bit.ly/3soetbu

Wendy Severin Goldfein

I have used excerpts from the following books in my high school biology classes:

Microbe Hunters, by Paul deKruif (originally published in 1926); Chapter 1 on Leeuwenhoek's discovery of microbes and his crafting of magnifying lenses captivated my sophomores; we also used this reading to explore the characteristics of successful scientists.

T. rex and the Craters of Doom, by Walter Alvarez (1997); a great adventure and scientific detective story about the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs and many other species, told by the detective himself. Shows the complexity of science in action and how scientific knowledge is advanced. Another book that fits in this category is A Fish Caught in Time, by Samantha Weinberg (2000).

Rosalind Franklin and DNA, by Anne Sayre (1975). An account of the contributions of Franklin to the discovery of the DNA helix structure, told from her perspective. I used this to balance the perspective of James Watson, after showing "Life Story," aka "Race for the Double Helix," a BBC production from 1987 [starring Jeff Goldblum and based on Watson's bestseller The Double Helix (1968)] in class. Another thrilling tale of how science works, told by the participants and their biographers, and another opportunity to explore the characteristics of successful scientists and equity themes.

When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals, by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy (1995). New York Times bestseller; I had juniors and seniors in a second-year biology elective course read passages from this book when we were studying animal behavior and the techniques used by scientists to study animal behavior. This generated great discussions about Western science (and other) perspectives on other species.

 

Birgit Musheno

 

I will have to admit even though I am a science geek, I found myself somewhat fascinated by the use of books to make mathematics meaninginful. I was an okay math student but iI was not totally enamored of learning in mathematics  because it was always taught in isolation and I couldn't find the purpose and/or the relavance sometimes.  The discussion the other night piqued my interest to read some of the mentioned books and reflecting on them in the context of the practice of Mathematical and Computational Thinking.

 

 

Kathy

Thanks so much for an informative and passionate presentation! I like this video that shows the use of read alouds as entry point into the content-building background knowledge.(23) Interactive Read-Alouds with Trade Books - YouTube.  In middle school I used "There's a Hair in my Dirt" by Gary Lawson and Dr. Suess' "The Lorax."  When I taught high school I used "Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters" by Matt Ridley.

We've talked a lot about stories coming through books, but Nancy Foote made a wonderful point above about oral stories and telling our own stories. She also wisely noted that sometimes other people can't tell our stories, or can't tell them in the way that we can. Anyway all of this made me think about math storytellers who work in an oral mode. One of my very favorites is Vi Hart. If you've never come across her work check out her youtube channel. This short one Infinity Elephants will give you the idea. I often use it with my calculus students.

Back in the 1990's (I am old), I worked on the University of Pittsburgh's chemistry van program. The program took a demo show to schools in the area. In a single show, the demo team would go through a set of demos that would span most of the main topics in an intro chem course ... and yet do so in a way that would run a cohesive thread through these demos. At around the same time, I read Atkin's book Atoms, Electrons and Change. In a similar manner, his book took a set of very disparate chemistry concepts and integrated them through the storyline of a carbon atom traveling through the Earth system. I was hooked -- hooked on a content storyline as a better way to design a curriculum than by some pre-ordained topic sequence. I revamped all of the high school chemistry courses to follow a storyline through the entire curriculum -- e.g. using the framing device of the Greek Four Element model (earth, fire, water, air) in my introductory chemistry course.

Fast forward to my current work as a science teacher educator. I push the whole storyline approach to my pre-service teachers and show them models from my own curriculum design. Thankfully, there are supporting resources readily available (e.g. Next Generation Science Storylines). The problem is, that my pre-service teachers need continued support in using this approach -- because it runs against the grain of their own personal experiences -- when they become in-service teachers. This seems to be a place where STEM teacher leadership can come into play. Can we find and support a cadre of STEM teachers who believe in and support the use of storylines and literature in STEM classes so that they can encourage and provide guidance to other teachers who want to try this approach but either lack the expertise or confidence to do so?

It seems like a project like STEM TLNet is the perfect platform / mechanism for undertaking such an effort. Given the research by people like Paul Zak (see representative link) around the power of storytelling for learning, and given the lack of traditional STEM curricula built around storylines, an effort of this nature would need a group like STEM TLNet to have any hope of having a real impact.
 

My job revolves around creating outdoor program for K-12 students (aligned with State standards) and community programs (birding, maple sugaring, summer camps, etc.). 

At this time, we have been working through our Michigan Pioneer program. We have a log house, log barn and sugar shack to immerse the learners in the daily lives of a pioneer family. 

As non-native, white females my colleagues and I have really honed in on creating programs through diverse lenses, since our audience is diverse and our Michigan history is highlighted by "good things" the white men have done.

The books we are considering using to adapt the program are:

• The Gift is in the Making, by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
• Iniatig's Gift of Sugar: Traditional Native Sugarmaking. We Are Still Here: Native American's Today Series, by Laura Waterman\
• The Birchbark House, by Louise Erdrich
• My Name is Seepeetza, by Shirley Sterling

Here is a search of Native American Authors and Illustrators: Picture Books

I was just about to tell you to check out Cynthia Leitich Smith, who is Native American herself, and wrote this post on resources on Native American books, but then I realized that is exactly the link you provided above! What great work you are doing. I'd love to visit your log house and sugar shack with my kids.

Cynthia is amazing, and a wonderfully supportive member of the children's book world. So I'll just add this. If you go to the search window on her blog and type in "native voices" you will get a series of blog posts interviewing Native American authors and focusing on their books and creations.

 

 

We have a growing collection of books and picture books we use on our website - https://stemazing.org/books-and-picture-books/

We need to add a ton more we use but some of our favorites are:

Ish by Peter H. Reynolds which we then use with lessons on the REAL primary colors (which are not red, yellow, and blue) and have students eventually paint a Rainbow-ish.

Everything by Andrea Beaty - Rosie Revere, Engineer; Iggy Peck, Architect; Ada Twist, Scientist; Sophia Valdez, Future Prez. These are all also beautifully translated into Spanish.

And don't forget classics likes Caps for Sale (also available in Spanish) by Esphyr Slobodkina.

The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires (great social emotional lesson)

Going Places by Peter and Paul Reynolds (great for engineering and biomimicry connection at the end)

Those Darn Squirrels by Adam Rubin (great for engineering design process)

Violet the Pilot by Steve Breen

Sun, Earth, Moon books by Stacy McAnulty

and on and on...

Hi, 

Thanks, it is engaging in facts. Most children are not able to take primary English Language courses. The STEM has improved fundamental compositions together with students’ excitable evaluations.  It can be supported by shifting elements skillfully and makes knowledge. Wow! Narrative books tell students about formative and summative assessments while are creating materials in similarly exciting traditional or virtual books. The students can figure out crafts and arts relating to the book topics and new vocabulary levels. Thanks for sharing yesterday's amazingness! :)

-Ibbi

What a cool thread with so many awesome books and resources! I'm excited to dig in :)

I wanted to share that some of our best experiences in teaching and learning high school science have been connecting lyrical or creative non-fiction essays to the work we do -- particularly on climate change, which is so fraught and so politicized and so, so sad.

When I first sat our Sunday New York Times on the table and saw the NYT Mag's cover story was about soon-to-be-extinct white rhinos, I was less than excited to read it. It was going to be so, so sad!!

But Sam Anderson's essay has a beautiful, hopeful, lyrical middle, about how love has a range, that shook me to my core. Below is part of it so you can see why I was surprised and delighted - the full text is at the NYT website at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/magazine/the-last-two-northern-white-rhinos-on-earth.html

:) Kirstin