FA: Is it a Scientific Explanation?

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. This was one of our first attempts. 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!) and takes up space.

Claim Evidence Reasoning By far, the biggest shift in my teaching from year 1 to year 7 has been how much emphasis I now place on evaluating evidence and making evidence-based claims. I blame inquiry. Not inquiry in the generalized, overloaded, science teaching approach sense. Just the word. Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis? 3 CER Examples based on FUN Science! CER is an awesome format to teach science students, but CER examples are lacking. CER stands for Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning. It is a great format for writing explanations is it serves to tie together findings, data, and scientific principles. I am beginning to use CER with my classes and I love it. Unfortunately, while there are CER examples of student and, perhaps, popular school lab work, there is a lack of CER examples connected to REAL scientific research.

Teaching Critical Thinking Teaching Critical Thinking Reasoning from Evidence to Claims In addition to evaluating the reliability of evidence, one must ask whether the movement from evidence to claims or sub-claims is warranted. Certain tests for reasoning are especially useful in particular fields (e.g., tests of statistical reasoning). However, some questions about reasoning from evidence are widely helpful. Such questions include the following: