http://www.nsta.org/elementaryschool/connections/201104ClaimsEvidenceRubric.pdf
Scientific Writing Scaffolds As a department we've been working on different writing scaffolds. We use Constructing Meaning as a school which I think is mostly good. We've tried all kinds of different writing frames with varying degrees of success. Most of these come from Constructing Meaning. I'm going to take you in chronological order. Designing Science Inquiry: Claim + Evidence + Reasoning = Explanation In an interview with students, MIT's Kerry Emmanuel stated, "At the end of the day, it's just raw curiosity. I think almost everybody that gets seriously into science is driven by curiosity." Curiosity -- the desire to explain how the world works -- drives the questions we ask and the investigations we conduct. Let's say that we are planning a unit on matter. By having students observe solids and liquids, we have helped them define matter as something that has mass (or weight -- don’t worry about the difference with elementary kids!)