2 . Maps, number lines, shapes, artwork and other materials tend to cover elementary classroom walls. However, too much of a good thing may end up _______ attention and learning in young children, according to research published in Psychological Science.

Psychology researchers Anna V. Fisher, Karrie E. Godwin and Howard Seltman of Carnegie Mellon University looked at whether classroom displays affected children’s ability to maintain _______ during instruction and to learn the lesson content. They found that children in highly decorated classrooms were more distracted, spent more time off-task and demonstrated smaller learning _______than when the decorations were removed.

“Young children spend a lot of time — usually the whole day — in the same classroom, and we have shown that a classroom’s _______ environment can affect how much children learn,” said Fisher, lead author and associate professor of psychology in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Should teachers _______ their visual displays based on the findings of this study?

“We do not suggest by any means that this is the answer to all _______ problems. Furthermore,_______ research is needed to know what effect the classroom visual environment has on children’s attention and learning in real classrooms,” Fisher said. “_______, I would suggest that instead of removing all decorations, teachers should consider whether some of their visual displays do make it difficult for young children to _______.”

For the study, 24 kindergarten students were placed in ________classrooms for six introductory science lessons on topics they were unfamiliar with. Three lessons were taught in a heavily decorated classroom, and three lessons were given in a sparse (稀疏的) classroom. The results showed that while children learned in both __________ types, they learned more when the room was not heavily decorated. Specifically, children’s __________ on the test questions was higher in the sparse classroom (55% correct) than in the decorated classroom (42% correct).

“We were also interested in finding out if the visual displays were removed, whether the children’s attention would __________ to another distraction, such as talking to their peers, or the total amount of time they were distracted would remain the same,” said Godwin, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology and fellow of the Program in Interdisciplinary Education Research.

However, when the researchers totaled all of the time children spent off-task in both types of classrooms, the rate of off-task __________ was higher in the decorated classroom (38.6% time spent off-task) than in the sparse classroom (28.4% time spent off-task).

The researchers hope these findings will lead to further studies into developing guidelines to help teachers design classrooms __________.

4 . How to Become a Scientist

Here is some advice for students who think they might like to become scientists.

Become an observer. One of the most important things you can do to become a good scientist is to practice watching everything carefully. Find a comfortable chair and put it in the middle of your garden or a park. Sit in the chair for thirty minutes or an hour. Watch the insects that fly past or land on the plants. Look at the shapes of leaves and branches. Listen to the sounds of insects.     1     Use a microscope to look closely at interesting objects.

Learn everything you can about a topic that interests you. Suppose you’d like to explore flowers by using a microscope. Go to the library and check out some flower books. See what you can find on the Internet. Pick some flowers and carefully take them apart.     2     The more you know about flowers from reading about them and observing them, the more you’ll understand when you look at them with a microscope.

Ask for help from a knowledgeable person. After you’ve learned everything you can on your own, ask someone else to help with questions you still have. Maybe there’s someone at a nearby school or museum who knows about insects, spiders, or something else you’d like to learn about.     3    

Find a scientist to talk to or find a place where scientific research is being done. If you still want to learn more, you can find a scientist to talk to at a nearby university, or research station.     4     Explain what you’re interested in. Ask if you can schedule a time to visit. Most scientists are happy to talk to students who share their passion for science.