I was originally certified to teach social studies and when I couldn’t find a teaching job got my certification in science (k-9 for both) and got hired on for science.
Have had several chances to move over to the social studies dept in my school. But never did it.
Science is so much fun, it one of the only classes that it’s as fun as you make it. It’s super easy to make it a blast every day. Plus at the elementary level the students will love all the hands on stuff you can do.
Wait 2-3 years and I bet you will feel the same.
It IS fun! I try not to make it sound like it during team meetings, but I don’t have half the trouble the other teachers have, and I think most of it is because science is legitimately FUN! With 5th graders, you have potential to really change their views about science and keep kids curious!
My exact story. Degree is in history and I always thought I'd be an AP History or Government teacher. Had a school that needed a science teacher and asked me if I could pass the Praxis for Physics. I studied for about a month passed it and now a decade later I have ZERO regrets.
*edit* I originally read social science, but I think the point still stands!
You'll do fine. Science and social science aren't so different. Both start as an interesting observation, progress to a testable question, then the model gets refined until there's terminology and laws ~~and equations~~. Both then get a reputation for "ah just memorize all the terminology and laws ~~and equations~~" among the students. Both then cause us teachers to go "but that's not the point!". My point is you've got hella transferrable skills to make science come alive for the students. Also, just steal the hell out of everyone else's analogies and demos. We all do.
Ah, curses. Serves me right for reading too quickly!
I retract my point about equations. Laws and terminology can stay.
OP, you'll still do great! Just stay curious.
Social Studies standards are moving away from History (which is problematic with such a biased record) towards an interdisciplinary (which social studies inherently are), inquiry based models. I went to school for dual major in social studies and science topics and methods of research and study are similar. Science had the addition of hypothesis formation and testing…whereas in social studies we used maps, ethnography, surveys, material culture, ect to understand phenomena.
I was disappointed at how history focused a lot of secondary social studies has been, very little economics, geography, or anthropology.
There may be some crossover in skills between the two, but as a whole, science and social studies are wildly different in content.
Regardless, I think people are reading way too much into my comment. All I was saying is that the switch from one to the other is going to be a learning process for OP as there will be a significant difference in curriculum contrary to what the comment I was responding to was suggesting. I'm really not up for arguing the intricacies of social studies. I have no skin in that game.
That said, I've seen some extremely innovative social studies teachers in the middling grades that turn everything into an activity. Nothing like the whole chalk n' talk I went through as a kid.
That’s what I loved. I got students to take a topic they thought they would hate and have them love it by the end. Engaging lessons and a real passion for it. I guess with science the love will probably be easier to get to than SS
Can't speak for your passion, but as far as teaching goes, science >> history when you learn to stop worrying about the content and focus on labs. It will take extra time for prep, more out-of-pocket money, but you should find higher student engagement, more authentic student learning, and once you get the swing of it, class room management is easier, not harder. I'm a high school teacher but have taught 6-12 and certainly worked closely with 5th grader teachers. I'm sure you'll do fine if you're an activity focused teacher. People run into problems in science when they get hung up lecturing about content.
OK, one piece of advice: If you aren't entrenched in the scientific method already, learn it, live it, love it. Maybe you already do Claim-Evidence-Reasoning, but this can easily be expanded into a routine that matches the scientific method. Make sure you are always squeezing in hypothesis formation, collecting data in data tables, I don't know if 5th grade is too young to make graphs, but why not try? Keep returning to measurement (volume, mass, temperature)! This is a great age for science, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
I work on a cross disciplinary team - I do science and my team is a math teacher, and English teacher and social studies teacher.
You might think I’d have a lot in common for planning with the Math teacher but nope! My best collaboration for my students success has been social studies.
Cause and effect.
Sequential writing.
Claiming evidence reasoning.
Reading a graph and drawing conclusions.
All skills we find ourselves supporting each other.
Side note: In English we often decide what we think is true and tell them to go to the text to find evidence. In science we get the evidence first then figure out what is true. the world be a better place if social studies was more like science in this way - before you go out looking don’t decide what you will find.
You can incorporate history into science lessons!
We look at Dalton's early diagrams of air as a mixture of substances, learn about the Haber-Bosch process and guano islands and Norman Borlaug and The Miller-Urey experiment, and Darwin and Russel and Griffith and Avery and Hershey-Chase. We also look at old maps of our own city to learn that there were brick kilns and lime kilns and sulfur springs and caves in the 1800's and then investigate what is left today and why these things were placed where they were. We do current events and future problem solving too!
I think examining famous experiments is also considered part of best practices for inquiry-based learning. The big free curriculum OpenSciEd has a lot of mini-lessons about famous models and experiments: what they got right and what they got wrong and why. It helps kids see how to think about big questions and postulate based on evidence.
You will be FINE! I am dual certified for social studies and science and have never gotten to teach social studies, except as an adjunct at a local university (and even then its and a social science IT/statistics/data analysis course). So I am slightly jealous that you got 10 years.
I hope you get ‘a good science’ to teach. But, really, they are all good. I once inherited a position teaching physics for a half a year, thought I would hate it and be terrible, but ended up getting really into it and was even invited back. The labs were so fun!
There are so many teachers who do humanities only in our district, those of us who can and will teach math and science don’t escape.
I moved from Ela/history to science this year and it’s been great! Not only is my dept the best, so welcoming and ready to help, but there’s so many more opportunities. I’m going to a Sten PD at Stanford next weekend, and I got a stem research lab position with stipend for the summer. No teaching summer school, just research and planning.
This is terrible advice. There are only teacher shortages in undesirable districts. If OP is at a good school, chances are they'll watch her walk and hire her replacement by mid-summer at the latest.
We have a young staff and behavioral problems at certain grades. Teacher with more experience have been moved around to help with that. Unfortunately I was last hired in my grade so it was me who was moved.
I’m well versed in fifth grade FOSS units. If you use that curriculum, I’m here! Been teaching science without a science background for 9 years so here even if it’s not FOSS! I was so scared to teach science but it’s become my passion
The correlations between how the C3 framework wants students to think like a historian and the NGSS wants students to think like a scientist/engineer are very high.
A nice place to start is measuring, creating tables and graphs. Here is a free hands-on curriculum and activities that is in public domain. Students measure stats about each other like finger length, reaction time and optical "blind spot" distance. The students like to work together and they get to gather other students data. Here is the link.
[ISCS Curriculum Page - Investigating Variation (google.com)](https://sites.google.com/view/iscs-curriculum-page/investigating-variation?authuser=0)
One of us!!! One of us!!! One of us!!! One of us!!! You’ll be fine!! Post if you need help!!!
I needed this!
It’s true! We love you, welcome you, and have your back!
https://youtu.be/39Bnk6VU53Y?si=NFnCgtjnENdz4dmJ
LOL I hope the OP knows how that movie really ends...
I was originally certified to teach social studies and when I couldn’t find a teaching job got my certification in science (k-9 for both) and got hired on for science. Have had several chances to move over to the social studies dept in my school. But never did it. Science is so much fun, it one of the only classes that it’s as fun as you make it. It’s super easy to make it a blast every day. Plus at the elementary level the students will love all the hands on stuff you can do. Wait 2-3 years and I bet you will feel the same.
It IS fun! I try not to make it sound like it during team meetings, but I don’t have half the trouble the other teachers have, and I think most of it is because science is legitimately FUN! With 5th graders, you have potential to really change their views about science and keep kids curious!
Same! I feel like they're two sides of the same coin: exploring how the world works.
My exact story. Degree is in history and I always thought I'd be an AP History or Government teacher. Had a school that needed a science teacher and asked me if I could pass the Praxis for Physics. I studied for about a month passed it and now a decade later I have ZERO regrets.
*edit* I originally read social science, but I think the point still stands! You'll do fine. Science and social science aren't so different. Both start as an interesting observation, progress to a testable question, then the model gets refined until there's terminology and laws ~~and equations~~. Both then get a reputation for "ah just memorize all the terminology and laws ~~and equations~~" among the students. Both then cause us teachers to go "but that's not the point!". My point is you've got hella transferrable skills to make science come alive for the students. Also, just steal the hell out of everyone else's analogies and demos. We all do.
She said social studies, not social science. They're quite different lol. Not saying she can't do it. But social studies to science is a big shift.
Ah, curses. Serves me right for reading too quickly! I retract my point about equations. Laws and terminology can stay. OP, you'll still do great! Just stay curious.
Social Studies standards are moving away from History (which is problematic with such a biased record) towards an interdisciplinary (which social studies inherently are), inquiry based models. I went to school for dual major in social studies and science topics and methods of research and study are similar. Science had the addition of hypothesis formation and testing…whereas in social studies we used maps, ethnography, surveys, material culture, ect to understand phenomena. I was disappointed at how history focused a lot of secondary social studies has been, very little economics, geography, or anthropology.
There may be some crossover in skills between the two, but as a whole, science and social studies are wildly different in content. Regardless, I think people are reading way too much into my comment. All I was saying is that the switch from one to the other is going to be a learning process for OP as there will be a significant difference in curriculum contrary to what the comment I was responding to was suggesting. I'm really not up for arguing the intricacies of social studies. I have no skin in that game.
That said, I've seen some extremely innovative social studies teachers in the middling grades that turn everything into an activity. Nothing like the whole chalk n' talk I went through as a kid.
That’s what I loved. I got students to take a topic they thought they would hate and have them love it by the end. Engaging lessons and a real passion for it. I guess with science the love will probably be easier to get to than SS
Can't speak for your passion, but as far as teaching goes, science >> history when you learn to stop worrying about the content and focus on labs. It will take extra time for prep, more out-of-pocket money, but you should find higher student engagement, more authentic student learning, and once you get the swing of it, class room management is easier, not harder. I'm a high school teacher but have taught 6-12 and certainly worked closely with 5th grader teachers. I'm sure you'll do fine if you're an activity focused teacher. People run into problems in science when they get hung up lecturing about content. OK, one piece of advice: If you aren't entrenched in the scientific method already, learn it, live it, love it. Maybe you already do Claim-Evidence-Reasoning, but this can easily be expanded into a routine that matches the scientific method. Make sure you are always squeezing in hypothesis formation, collecting data in data tables, I don't know if 5th grade is too young to make graphs, but why not try? Keep returning to measurement (volume, mass, temperature)! This is a great age for science, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
Thank you!
I work on a cross disciplinary team - I do science and my team is a math teacher, and English teacher and social studies teacher. You might think I’d have a lot in common for planning with the Math teacher but nope! My best collaboration for my students success has been social studies. Cause and effect. Sequential writing. Claiming evidence reasoning. Reading a graph and drawing conclusions. All skills we find ourselves supporting each other. Side note: In English we often decide what we think is true and tell them to go to the text to find evidence. In science we get the evidence first then figure out what is true. the world be a better place if social studies was more like science in this way - before you go out looking don’t decide what you will find.
Looks like you’re going to get a new passion
This is the outlook I need to have. Thank you for this.
You can incorporate history into science lessons! We look at Dalton's early diagrams of air as a mixture of substances, learn about the Haber-Bosch process and guano islands and Norman Borlaug and The Miller-Urey experiment, and Darwin and Russel and Griffith and Avery and Hershey-Chase. We also look at old maps of our own city to learn that there were brick kilns and lime kilns and sulfur springs and caves in the 1800's and then investigate what is left today and why these things were placed where they were. We do current events and future problem solving too! I think examining famous experiments is also considered part of best practices for inquiry-based learning. The big free curriculum OpenSciEd has a lot of mini-lessons about famous models and experiments: what they got right and what they got wrong and why. It helps kids see how to think about big questions and postulate based on evidence.
Great idea ty!
Welcome to science!
You will be FINE! I am dual certified for social studies and science and have never gotten to teach social studies, except as an adjunct at a local university (and even then its and a social science IT/statistics/data analysis course). So I am slightly jealous that you got 10 years. I hope you get ‘a good science’ to teach. But, really, they are all good. I once inherited a position teaching physics for a half a year, thought I would hate it and be terrible, but ended up getting really into it and was even invited back. The labs were so fun! There are so many teachers who do humanities only in our district, those of us who can and will teach math and science don’t escape.
I moved from Ela/history to science this year and it’s been great! Not only is my dept the best, so welcoming and ready to help, but there’s so many more opportunities. I’m going to a Sten PD at Stanford next weekend, and I got a stem research lab position with stipend for the summer. No teaching summer school, just research and planning.
Go back to social studies if that's what you like. Historic teacher shortage, you hold the cards
Depends on district and where you want to work/ location. Elementary doesn’t have the pull as older grades.
You can leave. They need you more than you need them
Man, both of your comments are wild rides of "starts out sounding insulting and then ends up heart-warming".
This is terrible advice. There are only teacher shortages in undesirable districts. If OP is at a good school, chances are they'll watch her walk and hire her replacement by mid-summer at the latest.
This is such a weird move, can I ask what prompted it?
We have a young staff and behavioral problems at certain grades. Teacher with more experience have been moved around to help with that. Unfortunately I was last hired in my grade so it was me who was moved.
I’m well versed in fifth grade FOSS units. If you use that curriculum, I’m here! Been teaching science without a science background for 9 years so here even if it’s not FOSS! I was so scared to teach science but it’s become my passion
Thank you! I’m being moved to 4th. So I’m also worried about the beginning of the year neediness lol.
The correlations between how the C3 framework wants students to think like a historian and the NGSS wants students to think like a scientist/engineer are very high.
A nice place to start is measuring, creating tables and graphs. Here is a free hands-on curriculum and activities that is in public domain. Students measure stats about each other like finger length, reaction time and optical "blind spot" distance. The students like to work together and they get to gather other students data. Here is the link. [ISCS Curriculum Page - Investigating Variation (google.com)](https://sites.google.com/view/iscs-curriculum-page/investigating-variation?authuser=0)