Paper Planes Help Students Learn to Teach Science

Paper airplanes will be flying all around Marilyn Webster's classroom tomorrow, March 6, and she's not going to do a thing to stop it.

In fact, she'll instruct her students in the bachelor of education program at Mount Saint Vincent University to make and test the paper planes. It's part of a full-day workshop on how to teach science to elementary students.

"Our Grade 6 science curriculum in Nova Scotia includes a unit on flight," said Ms. Webster, a science consultant at the Department of Education. "Experimenting with different materials and different designs helps students to understand how flight works."

She taught science for more than 20 years before joining the department. In addition to her full-time job, she teaches the Mount's first-year science course for those who plan to be elementary teachers. The workshop is an extension of her regular class time.

"My goal is to teach student teachers how to help children gain the knowledge they need to figure things out for themselves and really understand science, rather than just memorizing the information the teacher gives them," she said.

During the workshop, the student teachers will use technology to take temperature readings and create a graph, learn how to organize and conduct a field trip and rise to a design challenge.

"The design challenge is a lot of fun for students of all ages," said Ms. Webster. "With materials like straws, pop bottles, tinfoil and balloons, they have to make paper airplanes, musical wind instruments, wind-powered boats and machines that will carry a small object over a short distance."

These and other methods promoted by Webster are also used by Carol Scarff, a professor in elementary science education at the Mount. She helped recruit Ms. Webster to teach at the university.

"We like to have faculty who take a hands-on, minds-on approach to teaching science," said Ms. Scarff. "We also want to have a closer relationship between the department, where they develop curriculum, and the university, where we teach how to teach curriculum. This arrangement gives us both of these."

The department responded to the university's request for Ms. Webster's time as a step toward strengthening its relationships with teacher training institutions in the province. Stronger ties and communication will result in better teachers entering the profession.

Learning innovative methods of teaching science will help teachers in training when they begin their placements in Nova Scotia classrooms in next month. In March and April, students will be working on science projects and participating in science fairs around the province. March is also Youth Science Festival Month in Nova Scotia.