Lessons and Activities
Resources here include lessons and activities that enable students’ conceptual understanding of the nature of science as well as practice in science proficiency. Any science learning activity can be an opportunity to reinforce these topics. Some of the activities are content specific, serving multiple pedagogical purposes as pathways to science content knowledge.
This lesson demonstrates that scientific knowledge is stable, but also prone to change. Students will understand how those changes can happen in the context of the history of spontaneous generation. This lesson from the American Association for the Advancement of Science aligns with Benchmarks 1 and 10, Nature of Science and History of Science. It can be done as a class or as independent study. Part of the lesson involves students' accessing related information on the Internet. Thorough teacher background information and pedagogically sound, structured discussion questions are provided.
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This article from Science Scope is free to members of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) or 99 cents for nonmembers. Asking questions is a vital component in any classroom, but it is absolutely essential in a science classroom. As science teachers, we know that questioning plays a major role in the inquiry process and has a positive impact on students' learning. This article discusses the importance of questioning skills and current research on questioning techniques. In addition, the article presents a series of lessons that were implemented by the author to improve the questioning abilities of middle school students.
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This article from Science Scope is free to NSTA members or 99 cents for nonmembers. The Pick-a-Number activity, a variation of the game 20 Questions, provides a way to address challenges at the beginning of the school year, in a standards-based way. It also helps students develop the essential skill of asking questions as part of the scientific inquiry process. Some rules of the game simulate or make analogous the idea that not all questions are good questions; for example, lending themselves to scientific inquiry. Another rule says students are required to listen to others’ questions and are not allowed to ask a second question until all other students have asked their first question. This is analogous to having to conduct research to find out what others know before embarking on a scientific investigation.
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This article from Science Scope is free to NSTA members or 99 cents for nonmembers. Are you feeling frustrated with the quality of your students' writing? If so, head straight for the peanut butter and jelly. Students will respond to this fun-filled activity as they learn the importance of writing clear procedures in science. Communicating in science is a process skill students are expected to develop.
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This activity introduces basic procedures involved in inquiry and concepts describing the nature of science. In the first part of the activity the teacher uses a numbered cube to involve students in asking a question — What is on the bottom? — and the students propose an explanation based on their observations. Then the teacher presents the students with a second cube and asks them to use the available evidence to propose an explanation for what is on the bottom of this cube. Finally, students design a cube that they exchange and use for an evaluation. This activity provides students with opportunities to learn the abilities and understandings aligned with science as inquiry and the nature of science as described in the National Science Education Standards.
This article from Science Scope is free to NSTA members or 99 cents for nonmembers. Of the many possible technologies available to highlight the uses of science in everyday activities, few are more ubiquitous or more humble than the toilet. However, this much-used and much-overlooked appliance incorporates a number of interesting science principles that can capture the interest of students. The activities described in this article serve as effective tasks to help students better understand the integration of science, technology, and society.
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This article from The Science Teacher is free for NSTA members or 99 cents for nonmembers. Although this article describes a zoo field trip in which high school students developed acquisitive and organizational skills while exploring rain forest habitat, it can be adapted for middle school students. A well-designed and -executed field trip experience serves not only to enrich and supplement course content, but also creates opportunities to build basic science process skills. Specifies are provided regarding the activities, their objectives, and how they were assessed so you can adapt them to your own context.
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Copyright
June 2008 — The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work
supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0424671. Any
opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this
material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of
the National Science Foundation.
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This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.
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