Robin Wooten, a science teacher at Holy Trinity Catholic School in Lenexa, Kansas, sent an interesting message to the NSTA “general science” email list this morning.
At the end of the year, when I survey my students on what they liked the most, one of the things that is always in the top 5 is the science songs I use. You know they make a difference when you see kids silently mouthing the words and tapping their feet while they answer a question on a test that was addressed in a song. In the 4 years I have used “Genetics” by Bobby Horton every one of my 6th and 7th grade students correctly named deoxyribonucleic acid as the hereditary material in cells and only 1 student misspelled it (I have about 75 students per year of all ability levels). [I use movie maker to put visuals and lyrics to the songs – takes a bit of time the first year but has a big payoff. By using the songs this way you can also edit out lyrics that might be more advanced or not pertinent or just to shorten the song]. This year, singing “On Goes the Water Cycle” by John Paul Taylor, Jr was named one of the top memories by the 8th grade graduating class (they sang this song way back in 5th and 6th grades). Students even ask where I get them so they can download them to their ipods and phones and come back to my classroom years later still able to sing the songs. Now, I even have some younger siblings who arrive in my class already knowing the songs care of big brother/sister.
One of my students’ other favorites is the Science Groove song “Glucose, Glucose” – teachers even come by my room to listen and watch that one. It sure helps me produce some leaps in the understanding of energy transformation and cell respiration. No matter what, because of that song, in my students’ minds, glucose will always be joined to ATP and ATP to having the energy to run away from predators (my video shows a man running from a bear that always gets them laughing for some reason). Not a bad payoff for a 2-3 minute investment of class time!
Since I just did my end-of-year survey, it was on my mind so I thought I would share an awesome resource that I have used to find science (and math) songs. Many of the songs in the database already have music videos available on youtube, etc. It is a huge database that you can search by many different means – very helpful. http://singaboutscience.org
Thanks to Robin for permission to re-post her message here!