Teach Them to be Scientists

Teach Them To Be Scientists
The road is before you. The destination is clear.  You know what stops to make on your journey, and you know where most of the speed bumps will lie. Your challenge is keeping your vehicle tuned up. You must take care that each part of your vehicle is in good working order, otherwise the whole trip may be affected.
Each month, we will investigate one part of the vehicle that will help us reach our destination-- fostering scientific thinking. The road is science education. The stops are the Disciplinary Core Ideas. The speed bumps are time, resources, students’ prior knowledge, etc. The vehicle is the Science and Engineering Practices, and the more equipped the vehicle, the better we can navigate the road.
	I remember a time when a science fair project was just one more thing to get done. It was a grade I needed to earn, and it was a lot of work my mom was going to have to help me with. This is not how I want my students to see the science investigations we do in class or, hopefully, the ones they do outside of class. I want students to see the value in asking scientific questions and investigating their world. I want them to develop ways to answer their questions. I want to give them the skills to design investigations. I want them to be confident in their ability to be scientists.
This month we will learn how to teach students to plan and carry out investigations.
	Last month we learned about a strategy called Inquiry Boards. Click here for more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RuXjrGrggY With Inquiry Boards, students brainstorm the variables, using a big question and lab materials as their starting point. They determine the variables they will investigate, and turn those into a question they can develop an experiment to answer. But is that enough to require before giving 30 kids baking soda, vinegar and beakers? Probably not. There is much more planning left to do. This brings us to this month’s tool. Last year, Dr. Harri spoke about something called Argument Driven Inquiry and it changed my classroom. (Thank you, Dr. Harri!) I would certainly recommend any science teacher puts at least one of the ADI books on their Amazon wishlist. Here is one for your viewing pleasure:  https://www.amazon.com/Argument-Driven-Inquiry-Biology-Investigations-PB349X1/dp/1938946200 Using the Laboratory Proposal tool, students learn to design the specifics of their investigations. We discuss how they will change and measure their independent variable, how they will measure their dependent variable and how they will maintain control over their control variables. We decide their procedures, discuss safety concerns specific to the lab, how they will analyze their data and create a rough draft of their data table. In order to get lab materials, each group member must have this filled out and have a neat data table copied into their notebooks. Students are then released to collect their data. And this is exactly what they do. Most groups now collect data in about 20 minutes! If you would like to see this in action, please set up a Spotlight visit! I would love to share it with you! Stay Curious, Sara Yeh