Preface
Famous Scientists is an e-book developed by the English Language Education Section, Curriculum Development Institute, Education Bureau. It is based on the experience gained from the tryout of the Collaborative Research and Development (“Seed”) Project “Developing Literacy Skills through Promoting Reading across the Curriculum (RaC) in the English Classroom at KS2” implemented in the 2019/20 school year.
Aims
Famous Scientists aims to
- enhance students’ reading skills, develop their multimodal literacy and facilitate self-directed learning through reading across the curriculum and making use of the interactive features of the e-book for students to reflect on their performance;
- nurture students’ generic skills as well as positive values and attitudes, and kindle their interest in science through reading the inspiring life stories of selected famous scientists; and
- connect students’ reading and writing experiences and develop their writing skills.
Content
Famous Scientists features the biographies of selected famous scientists from different generations, nations and fields of expertise, together with learning activities. Details are as follows:
| Type of learning task | Famous scientist | Field of expertise |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Reading | Li Shizhen (1518-1593) | Traditional Chinese medicine |
| 2. Reading | Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) | Astronomy, physics and philosophy |
| 3. Reading | Isaac Newton (1643-1727) | Mathematics, physics and astronomy |
| 4. Reading | Thomas Edison (1847-1931) | Invention |
| 5. Reading | Marie Curie (1867-1934) | Discovery of radioactive elements |
| 6. Reading | Albert Einstein (1879-1955) | Theoretical physics |
| 7. Writing | Jonas Salk (1914-1995) | Medical research |
Famous Scientists is designed for students at Key Stage 2. It consists of six reading tasks and one writing task. Each reading task comprises an inspiring life story of a famous scientist and follow-up learning activities. In addition to the achievements in different fields of expertise, “Other information” of the scientists is presented in a separate text box to motivate students to explore more about the scientists. The writing task connects with the reading tasks. The life story of Jonas Salk is used to illustrate the features of a biography. Students are then guided to search for information about a famous scientist they admire most on the Internet and write a biography of the scientist. To promote assessment as/for learning, students are asked to conduct self-assessment upon completion of their writing and revise it, if necessary.
To facilitate students’ self-directed learning and develop their multimodal literacy, appropriate interactive features are included in the e-book, e.g. the user-friendly layout design, navigation, embedded audio files for reading passages, mouseover glossary, answer-checking function, prompts, etc. Apart from exposing students to biographies, a variety of text types is included in the learning and teaching materials, namely, timelines, tables / graphic organisers and glossary, to enrich students’ reading experiences.
How can the e-book be used?
The e-book can be used in various ways. Teachers could select an appropriate reading task and integrate it into a teaching unit with a related theme, e.g. inventions or amazing people, to help students develop reading skills as well as positive values and attitudes through the life story of the famous scientist. The other reading tasks could be used for extended reading. Teachers could ask students to complete the other reading tasks on their own and have them share their learning experience in class.
As for the writing task, teachers could adopt it as an extended activity of a related teaching unit. During the learning and teaching process, teachers could help students connect their reading and writing experiences, guide them to understand the features of a biography, search for information on the Internet, write their own biography and conduct self-assessment upon completion of their writing.