"If you build it, they will come..."

“If you build it, they will come.” Shoutout to my mom—probably the only person reading this blog right now:)

This iconic line is from Field of Dreams (not Field of Angels, though I like that version too). In the film, a mysterious voice convinces the main character to build a baseball field in the middle of his Iowa cornfield. Why? So a bunch of ghostly baseball legends can show up and play. Wild, I know—but stay with me.

The heart of the quote is this: lay the right foundation, and what you’re hoping for will show up.

Here’s my big aha moment (for the TL;DR crowd): If Ambitious Science Teaching or 5E lesson plans haven’t worked well for you in the past, it might not be the framework—it might be that your students need more background knowledge first. Build that foundation, and the engagement, the connections, the curiosity? They’ll come.

To start, I'm just going to go ahead and pretend that you know absolutely nothing about Ambitious Science Teaching. No worries my friend. Ambitious Science Teaching (or AST if you're into acronyms) is a specific framework that revolves around the idea of modeling. You do a bunch of different activities to uncover what’s going on at both the observable and unobservable levels, in order to explain a curious phenomenon - in my case: Where did the mountains go? 

Right at the beginning, students are asked to come up with a model of what they believe is happening. Then, over the course of the unit, students dive deeper. They learn, investigate, discuss, and slowly start to figure out all the different components and processes that are at play within the model. Throughout this time, students are consistently modifying their initial model -  adding and refining, until eventually they reach the end of the unit, where they can produce a final version that fully explains the phenomena

I cannot recommend the book on Ambitious Science Teaching enough. Seriously, go read it. But here’s the thing—the book can only take you so far… because it’s a book. And while I’ve been tinkering with this approach over the past few years, it wasn’t until I saw a professional in this framework model a series of lessons that I really started to understand how to bring it to life in my own classroom. 

Tip #1: Once you figure out your engaging phenomenon, give kids a solid starting point before they create a model.

My big issue in the past was that I would throw out the phenomenon and then immediately ask the kids to draw something about it. And surprise—they couldn’t. They just didn’t have enough background knowledge to even get started. Wait - they may have had it, but I hadn’t properly activated it.

You want them to be able to draw something that’s headed in the right direction, even if it’s missing 95% of what’s actually happening. That’s okay! That’s the point - they’ll learn that. The key is they need to get something down that you can build on. So - let’s look at what I did: My phenomena: The Appalachians were once as tall as the Himalayas, but now they are a fraction of the size. “Where did the mountains go?”

First step to activate background knowledge: I showed them pictures of the Himalayas and the Appalachians. (Remember, the Himalayas = giant and dramatic. The Appalachians = older and “relaxed”.) I also showed them an infographic that helped visualize the difference in size between the two. Then I shared a slideshow—Himalayas as the “before” (around 300 million years ago), and the Appalachians as the “now.” 

I built in some simple activities. First students independently made observations of the “before” and “after” photos, recording their thoughts in a Venn Diagram. I made it super clear that we were focusing on the differences because those differences are basically the effects. And once we understand the effects, we can start working backwards to figure out the causes. Then I had students share out and I captured these thoughts in a shared class diagram. Frankly - right right is what made the difference. In the past, I’ve glossed over this part - I’ve done it, but not with fidelity. Mostly because I didn’t have enough time, but partially because I didn’t think the kids needed it. I thought this was simple enough that it could be rushed. 

But what I’ve figured out… finally… is when I slow down and give students space to share their thoughts, there are numerous benefits: 1) this gives students that did not have ideas, ideas. It gives them a place to get started b) it allows people that did have ideas a chance to here other ideas and build on their own and last) it visually shows we’re in this together and we’re going to work together, that in fact we NEED to hear other people's ideas to grow our own. 

Building this foundation had two key parts: first, helping students activate their own thinking, and second, surfacing ideas that—while not originally theirs—felt familiar and accessible. Maybe those ideas were tucked away in their memory somewhere, or maybe shared experiences made it easy for them to connect. Either way, it was about making the content feel like something they already had a foothold in.After that, students did some individual thinking and jotting down of ideas. Then we shared out AGAIN. This collective brainstorming really pushed our thinking forward.

Finally, during the last 10 minutes of class, I gave students time to begin building their initial models. What they produced was… minimal—but it was something. A real something. A spark. They had a starting point, and even more importantly, they had curiosity.

It hit me then: building up background knowledge—making it visible, relatable, and accessible—that was the foundation I’d been missing. That was my baseball field in the corn.