Icons for Literacy

In my imaginary classroom, I've developed an exercise to introduce students to general areas of science and the vocabulary related to each area. Scientific words can be jargon and so these words might be new to students. This exercise would help the students build their vocabulary while learning about science at the same time.

The exercise would include a number of short passages, written to grade level, about one particular area of science -- one of ten: biology, technology, chemistry, geology, archaeology, ecology, climatology, paleontology, cosmology, and sociology. After a lesson about these areas of science, students would be given a handout of the passages and asked to place an icon sticker next to the passage that relates to that field of science, then highlight the jargon words that relate to that science. This could also be done on a laptop or handheld device with the icons available to drag and drop next to the passage in a word processor. The icons are listed below. Can you name these areas of science?










Comments