Unit 1: Anyone Can Be a Scientist
Summary
Students explore what it means to practice science through reading and discussion, practice making observations and interpretations with different data types (e.g., photographs, maps, graphs) through small group and whole class discussions, and explore the NGSS science and engineering practices by mapping them onto examples of scientific work and their own activities. Students then make observations about a place of interest using Google Earth and ask questions about that place; question types are categorized via a class discussion into those that can and cannot be answered by science.
Motivating question:
In what ways do you already think or act like a scientist, and how can you expand your scientific skill set?
Time needed:
The activities in this unit are designed to take place over the course of three 60-75 minute class periods.
Prerequisite Skills Needed:
The activities in this unit do not require any prerequisite skills beyond reading. Google Earth will be introduced as a tool, but no prior experience with Google Earth is needed.
Learning Outcomes
At the end of the unit, students will be able to:
- Describe what science is and the practices that scientists use
- Make observations from data including visuals (photographs, satellite images), maps, and graphs to identify patterns and make interpretations about the behavior of the natural world.
- Ask questions about a place of interest and distinguish between questions that science can answer and questions that science cannot answer
- Reflect on their own use of science and engineering practices
Overview
This unit includes three 60-75 minute lessons that introduce students to the process of science through activities including distinguishing observations from interpretations (Unit 1.1), mapping the activities of scientists from case studies onto the NGSS Science and Engineering Practices (Unit 1.2), and practicing distinguishing and writing questions that can and cannot be answered by science (Unit 1.3).
Unit 1.1: What is science and what do scientists do? (60-75 minutes) Students talk with their peers about what science is and what scientists do and then share ideas during a class discussion. Students practice making observations and interpretations with different types of data (x-y plots, maps, time series data) and try to distinguish observations and interpretations they make in everyday life. For homework, students read an article about the practice of science in preparation for Module 2. This module is easy to shorten so that it could be used during the first day of a course when only a partial class period may be available.
Unit 1.2: Science and engineering practices (75 minutes) As a class, students discuss their thoughts about the homework reading about the practice of science and are then introduced to key ideas about what science is and is not. Students are introduced to the Science and Engineering Practices (SEP) of the NGSS and then participate in a jigsaw activity in which they read an example of science "in practice" using one research method (experimentation, description, comparison, modeling) and map the SEP used onto the SEP web of Nyman & St. Clair (2016). In the second part of the jigsaw, students share their SEP webs and discuss the practices used with respect to linear and non-linear models of the practice of science.
Unit 1.3: Asking questions (75 minutes) As a pre-class assignment, students are asked to think about a place or a natural phenomena that interests them and to write one question that they think can be answered by science and one question that cannot be answered by science. Students discuss the submitted questions as a class, trying to classify them into question types (e.g., broad questions that might be broken into smaller questions, yes/no questions, etc.) Students are introduced to the web-based version of Google Earth and asked to explore a place that interests them and to make observations about the landscape there and ask questions that they think can be answered with science.