CSI of the Week: Getting Students "Psyched" About Science

Drucella Crutchfield

by Drucella Crutchfield
Lecturer, English Department
Sam Houston State University
Huntsville, Texas

As an elementary school teacher with a combined class of grades 2-6, Drucella Crutchfield faced a familiar challenge: "My kids were bored." Specifically, they lacked enthusiasm about science, which many kids associated with rote memorization and little real application. Crutchfield's solution: use youngsters' natural curiosity about their world to reinforce the textbook lessons. She tells her story here.

They walk into your classroom, some excited and eager, others dragging their feet and slumping into their desks. No matter their attitude the first day, their expectation is the same: like it or not, they are there to learn something about science. Your attitude, your enthusiasm and your challenge will determine the level of their excitement to learn. You toss down the (cheap, disposable) gloves of challenge on the worktables. "If you are interested," you tell them, "put on a pair of gloves and gather around one of the worktables. Oh, and by the way, I'm Your Name, and together, we're going to discover the world."

You haven't asked their names yet, or called roll, but you direct them to the worktables, each holding special bits of our world. Depending on what your first unit covers, you will want to have a long box with various types of terra firma holding bugs, worms, simulated ponds with small turtles, minnows, tadpoles and various plant life. Don't forget the man-made items: marbles, magnets, nuts and bolts, gyroscopes, magnifying glasses and measuring items like rain gauges and thermometers.

Placing boxes of sealable disposable bags on each table, you challenge your students to each find something in the container that seems to be part of the world we live in, and to place it in the bag: "Oh, and don't forget to wear gloves to dig in the box, and be sure to get enough of its surrounding to protect it. When you have your item, come to my desk. I'll register it in your name." You are letting them experience the first "feel" of becoming an investigator.

As the students return to their desks, you'll introduce the textbook and their next step in the challenge: "For tomorrow, each student will use the textbook to find information about his/her item, and write at least five sentences (or whatever length fits) about the item. At the beginning of the class, each of you will introduce yourself to the class and read about, or explain, the item you chose. If you happen to lose it before class, then you will lose xx points on your daily grade, but you must have a replacement already in hand to explain to the class. It is your responsibility to protect your piece of our classroom world. By the way, notice that you threw your gloves away in the recycle bin, another way to protect our world."

You've set the mood for the class and haven't even issued the real challenge yet, that of becoming the Classroom Science Investigator. As the week progresses, you will use their items and elaborate on their reports, using the text material to affirm anything the students can discover about their chosen item. In this manner, you set the format for the rest of the term. The worktables remain for replacement items (the ones the dog ate), and for those interested to continue to accumulate and report to the class. On the last day of the week, you introduce the idea of the Classroom Science Investigation Agency, and the award of being chosen "CSI of the Week."

First, instead of having a few large containers on the worktables, suggest that the students set up their own "My World" containers, whether it be a shoebox or a custom-made container, with two-wall display boards to set around their boxes. They also need to each put together an "investigator's kit" with items like a magnifying glass, tweezers, a net, disposable gloves, and specimen containers. Beginning the following week, the students will begin sleuthing their own backyards to uncover clues of successive units of study. Their clues will be registered, catalogued, written about and reported on, and finally, displayed in their boxes or on their display boards.

In addition, each Friday, someone will receive the "CSI of the Week" award with the criteria changing from week to week. Here's the secret: you should have enough weeks of the term for each student to win the award (or for ties). Only you know the criteria from one week to another. That criteria should change to meet the needs of the individual students. I've found that giving the awards to the "best" students first and the weakest students last defeats the purpose of the challenge. Sandwich strong and weak students for awards by carefully monitoring their work and choosing criteria for that particular week that will actually reflect the best qualities of your weakest students or challenge the best qualities of your strongest students. The "Investigator" for that week gets to be your assistant the next week to register, catalogue, introduce or do whatever job you need done concerning the "Investigation Agency."

As the project grows, changes and takes on the qualities of your classroom, tabletops, containers and display boards will reflect the changing nature of the units and the growth in your students' abilities to detect and report the anomalies of their world around them. By the end of the year, your students will be ready to embrace the idea of a science fair. Having done "mini" science fairs during the whole course of study without realizing it, they've prepared themselves for the major event.

As you watch your classroom take a character of its own, "The Investigation Agency" begins to operate from the energy and enthusiasm of the investigators, rather than to depend on a constant charge from you. Your students learn to investigate the world around them and to become responsible for their environment.

After 20 years of teaching every level from preschool through high school, Drucella Crutchfield returned to Sam Houston State University to earn an undergraduate degree in Journalism and her Master's Degree in English. Currently teaching English Composition at Sam Houston, Drucella resides in Bryan, Texas, with her husband and two dogs. She enjoys freelance writing, photography and free time with their children and grandchildren. You may contact Drucella at rightword@verizon.net.