Peer Review

Open Science Children's Stories: "Fly-in-Space"

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Reviewed:: Oct 1, 2019 by Teacher Education

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

Fly in Space is excellent example of an Open Science Children's Story about two fruit flys born on earth and raised in space. This story published under Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC-BY 4.0) by Pratham Books: Storyweaver platform can be easily translated into several world languages, making Science more accessible to children worldwide.

Website with a story collection including stories at multiple reading levels and in various disciplines. “Welcome to StoryWeaver, a digital repository of multilingual stories for children from Pratham Books. Now, every child can have access to an endless stream of stories in her mother tongue to read and enjoy.” This specific books is about “two fruit flies are born on Earth and raised in space.” Level 3 reading – 16 pages long with illustrations. Story is available to view for free. With an account, more capabilities are unlocked including download and translation.

Type of Material:

Reference Material

Recommended Uses:

Since parents, educators, writers, translators, and illustrators can use this site to find stories or create new stories for children, the possibilities at this site are endless.

Use as a supplementary text in elementary science class
Use as a homeschool reading text for those in grade school levels
Use as an example text for learning designers and education graduate students

Technical Requirements:

Internet connection. For more advanced capabilities, a free account is required.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

Identify the parts of a fruit fly, where they are born, and what they eat
Recall the scientific name of a fruit fly
Compare other flying animals to fruit flies
Recall the role fruit flies have played in research and in space travel

Target Student Population:

Grade School, Level 3 reading ability.

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Familiarity with fruit flies, outer space, space travel, and reading levels

Content Quality

Rating:

Strengths:

Concise story appropriate for level 3 readers introduces them to the topic of fruit flies
Cleverly hidden facts are woven into the story so children can learn about fruit flies while reading a short, enjoyable story
Facts at the back of the book offer opportunities for the teacher to expand on the book and create assignments, although reading the book can be an assignment in and of itself
Can be used in science or language arts classes or as a supplementary text to practice reading. Also has some potential for use as a second-language learning text.

Concerns:

Learning objectives are missing.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:

Strengths:

Although pre-requisite knowledge is not identified, it does identify the appropriate reading level.
Cleverly relates concepts throughout the book so they seem like part of the story and not a rote memorization task. For instance, the names of the two fruit flies combine to form their scientific name.
Story builds from basic concepts about the anatomy of fruit flies to how fast their wings flap and what they need to survive.
By creating a class account or having students create their own accounts, teachers could take this one step further and ask students to write and illustrate their own book.

Concerns:

Could benefit from a list of learning objectives so it is easier to integrate into classroom and homework assignments.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:

Strengths:

Easy and free to use even without an account on the site. Advanced features are also available with a free account.
High quality designs are submitted by illustrators.
Easy-to-use and responsive interface makes it enjoyable to use.

Creative Commons: