Description
Teaching your students to think like scientists starts here!
Use this straightforward, easy-to-follow guide to give your students the scientific practice of critical thinking today's science standards require. Ready-to-implement strategies and activities help you effortlessly engage students in arguments about competing data sets, opposing scientific ideas, applying evidence to support specific claims, and more. Use these 24 activities drawn from the physical sciences, life sciences, and earth and space sciences to:
- Engage students in 8 NGSS science and engineering practices
- Establish rich, productive classroom discourse
- Extend and employ argumentation and modeling strategies
- Clarify the difference between argumentation and explanation
Stanford University professor, Jonathan Osborne, co-author of The National Resource Council’s A Framework for K-12 Science Education—the basis for the Next Generation Science Standards—brings together a prominent author team that includes Brian M. Donovan (Biological Sciences Curriculum Study), J. Bryan Henderson (Arizona State University, Tempe), Anna C. MacPherson (American Museum of Natural History) and Andrew Wild (Stanford University Student) in this new, accessible book to help you teach your middle school students to think and argue like scientists!
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
PART 1- UNDERSTANDING AND TEACHING FOR ARGUMENTATION
Chapter 1- What Is Argumentation and Why Does It Matter in the Teaching of Science?
Chapter 2- How Can I Support Scientific Argumentation in My Classroom?
Chapter 3- How Can I Make Argumentation in the Classroom Productive and Support Deeper Learning?
PART 2- CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES FOR SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENTATION
Chapter 4- Earth and Space Sciences
1. What’s the Difference Between One Rock and Another?
2. Were the Continents Once One?
3. What Has Caused Global Warming?
4. Why Does the Moon Appear to Change Shape?
5. Can the Sun or Moon Disappear?
6. Why Is It Warmer in Summer and Cooler in Winter?
7. How Big and Far Away Are the Planets?
8. Why Do Planets Orbit the Sun?
Chapter 5- Life Sciences
9. Why Are Do Leaves Have Different Shapes?
10. What Is Happening to Pteropods?
11. What Factors Affect the Number of Moose on Isle Royale?
12. Should We Reintroduce the Wolf to Isle Royale?
13. Is Rotifer Reproduction Sexual or Asexual?
14. Why Don’t Lions Have Stripes?
15. How Do You Design a Test of Evolutionary Theory?
16. What Is Killing the Cats in Warner County?
Chapter 6- Physical Sciences
17. How Do Forces Affect the Way an Object Moves?
18. Is There Gravity Beyond the Earth?
19. What Has Energy Got to Do With Movement?
20. If You Fall From a Plane, Will You Go Faster and Faster?
21. Two Models to Explain the Behavior of Matter—Which Is the Best?
22. What Particle Model for Boiling Water Fits Best With the Evidence?
23. Is Matter Always Conserved?
24. Where Oh Where Have the Atoms Gone?
References and Further Resources
Index
About the Authors
