Darcy Pattison - My STEAM Notebook: 150 Years of Primary Source Documents from American Scientsits

017 Darcy Pattison

ISBN: 978-1-62944-072-9

A ll Rights Reserved . No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

M ims House

1309 Broadway

Little Rock, AR 72202

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Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication data

N ames : Pattison, Darcy, author.

Title: My STEAM notebook : 150 years of original source documents from American scientists /

by Darcy Pattison ; foreword by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan

Description: Little Rock, AR : Mims House, 2017

Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-62944-072-9 | LCCN 2016914531

Subjects: LCSH Science--Methodology--Juvenile literature. | Notebooks--Juvenile literature. |

Scientists--Juvenile literature. | Science--Study and teaching (Elementary)--United States. |

BISAC JUVENILE NONFICTION / Science & Nature / General

Classification: LCC Q175.2 .P37 2016 | DDC 509.2/2--dc23

N OTE : This ebook has been modified from the original paperback. All information is included, but the layout has been changed to make it more appropriate for ebook readers.

ISBN: 978-1-62944-078-1

Created with Vellum

W e had the pleasure of meeting author Darcy Pattison in the spring of 2016 at a Picture-Perfect Science teacher workshop we were facilitating in Arkansas. We were very familiar with Darcys work, as we had just written a lesson for our new book, Picture-Perfect STEM Lessons, using one of her latest nonfiction picture books for children: Burn: Michael Faradays Candle. When we found out that Darcy lived near the workshop location, we were delighted that she would be able to join us one afternoon to read some of her books and talk with teachers about her writing process. There she read aloud Nefertiti the Spidernaut: The Jumping Spider Who Learned to Hunt in Space, and this remarkable true story inspired us to write a Spider Science lesson to include in our new book. Afterwards, Darcy joined us for dinner and we had a lively discussion about interesting topics for nonfiction books, the state of elementary science education in general, and the types of curricular resources that might help elementary science teachers better integrate science, reading, and writing. We all acknowledged the struggle that many teachers across the country face to include science and engineering in the curriculum, when accountability pressures for student achievement in reading, writing, and mathematics are ever increasing. During that conversation, the concept of a book to help teachers implement STEM concepts through notebooking was discussed. Darcy embraced the idea and ran with it! The result is My STEAM Notebook, an intriguing look at the notebooks of several great American scientists, done in an engaging, interactive format.

Teachers and parents alike will appreciate this kid-friendly approach to science notebooking. Take a look inside, and you will find original source documents to help children understand the multidisciplinary nature of the work that scientists do. Reading through these historical documents, along with the biographical information about each scientist, clearly shows how scientists use writing, drawing, mathematics, and problem solving as they seek to understand the natural world.

This books innovative format not only lets students peek inside the notebooks of actual scientists, but invites them to record their own ideas right alongside. The books process- oriented approach provides students with real-world examples of science and engineering practices, opportunities to engage in these practices for themselves, and a place to record their experiences.

We have no doubt that My STEAM Notebook will be an invaluable resource for teachers who want their students to experience the connections among science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics in a uniquely personal way.

K aren Ansberry and Emily Morgan

Cofounders, Picture-Perfect Science

Authors of the Picture-Perfect Science Lessons series (NSTA Press)

O ne item which seems quite naturally to be inseparable from you in your work is your notebook. Many years ago, during my Congo wanderings, I was given a ring file pocketbook, which has been a treasured and useful memento of that country for more than three decades... --Jack Vincent, British ornithologist 1

Scientists tend to be fanatical about their notebooks. For those who get into the habit of recording in a notebook, it becomes a confidante. It includes their thoughts, actions, evaluations, dreams, speculations, observations, tedious lists of specimens, and much more. Its fitting that young scientists turn to these historical journals for clues on what to include in their own science notebooks.

O bserving historical science notebooks

To write this book, I looked at hundreds of different notebooks from a variety of American scientists. Most came from the Smithsonian Field Book project2 and the National Library of Medicine3. Notebooks from biologists and doctors are different. Throw in the notebooks from the Silicon Valley engineers housed at the Computer History Museum4, and scientists notebooks expressed many different goals and approaches. Some emphasized one step of the scientific process more than another. Each notebook looks different because scientists were trying to accomplish different goals. Even the shapes of the physical books varied.

Engineers tended to emphasize idea generation, the design phase, or drawings of how to build something. Biologists tended to tell a narrative of observing or collecting specimens in the wild. In the laboratory, notebooks tended to be more procedural, or this is what I did and how I did it. Medical research included be exact chemical procedures in a laboratory. Notebooks for those researchers held pages of mathematical figures, dense tables of data, and little narrative. Doctors involved in public health, however, traveled to sites with disease outbreaks, worked with community organizers to make changes, or worked on public education campaigns. Their notebooks are often travelogues with notes on disease scattered throughout.

Some scientists were compulsive about writing down everything, while others merely jotted things now and then. Overseas travel often inspired a detailed diary, and then the scientist wrote nothing for a decade. But through the varied experiences of American scientists, the notebooks are there. Why?