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Students will demonstrate their understanding of the importance of curiosity, honesty, open-mindedness, and skepticism in their own efforts to understand how and why universal phenomena exist and occur. |
a. Ask questions about the world around them and exhibit willingness to seek answers to selected questions by carefully observing, experimenting, and predicting the outcome of an investigation.
a. Keep records of investigations and observations and not alter the records.
b. Distinguish observations from ideas and speculations and predications about observations.
c. Offer reasons for findings and also consider reasons suggested by others.
d. Support statements with facts found in books, articles, and other resources.
e. Identify when comparisons might not be accurate or appropriate because some conditions are different.
f. Question scientific claims based on vague attributions (such as "Leading doctors say...") or on statements made by people outside the area of their particular expertise.
a. Keep scientific records of investigations which reflect the importance of reporting honestly, clearly, and accurately.
b. Question the value of arguments based on very small samples of scientific data, biased samples, or samples for which there was no control sample.
c. Identify the flaws of arguments based on the faulty, incomplete, or misleading use of numbers, such as instances in which (1) average results are reported, but not the amount of variation around the average, and (2) a percentage or fraction is given, but not the total sample size (as in "9 out of 10 dentists recommend...").
d. Suggest alternative ways of explaining scientific data and criticize arguments in which data, explanations, or conclusions are represented as the only ones worth consideration, with no mention of other possibilities.
e. Recognize that there may be more than one reasonable way to interpret a given set of scientific findings.
f. Draw independent conclusions based on data, using critical reasoning to construct models, rationally defend conclusions, and recognize the validity of other positions.
g. Understand that hypotheses are valuable if they lead to fruitful investigations, even if the hypotheses turn out not to be true.
a. Exhibit traits that show an understanding of how honesty, curiosity, transparency, and skepticism affect the progress of scientific inquiry.
b. Offer different explanations for the same scientific evidence, and explain why it is not always possible to tell which explanation is best supported.
c. Know that scientists do not have models that explain all phenomena, and that current models range from the proven - the Earth is round - to the speculative - cancers are viral.
d. Critically analyze and evaluate experimental designs for accuracy, including variables, controls, adequate data sampling, and logical conclusions and suggest design improvements when appropriate.
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Students will communicate scientific ideas and activities clearly. |
a. Know how to describe and compare things in terms of number, shape, texture, size, weight, color, and motion.
b. Know how to draw pictures that correctly portray features of an object being observed or described.
c. Know how to explain numerical problems as part of scientific activity.
a. Know how to write instructions that others can follow in carrying out a scientific procedure.
b. Know how to use numerical data in describing and comparing objects and events.
c. Know how to make sketches or models to aid in explaining scientific procedures or ideas.
a. Know how to write clear, step-by-step instructions for conducting scientific investigations, operating equipment, or following a procedure.
b. Understand and produce writing for scientific purposes that incorporates circle charts, bar and line graphs, two-way data tables, diagrams, and symbols.
d. Analyze and evaluate scientific data to draw a valid conclusion.
e. Write and describe coherent accounts of scientific activities and alternative interpretations of the results.
f. Understand the importance of verbal accuracy and explicit statement of critical assumptions when stating a position.
a. Choose appropriate summary statistics to describe group differences, always indicating the spread of the data as well as the scientific data's central tendencies.
b. Make and use tables, charts, graphs, and scale drawings to make scientific arguments and claims in oral and written presentations.
c. Participate in group discussions on scientific topics by restating or summarizing accurately what others have said, asking for clarification or elaboration, and expressing alternative positions.
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Students will be familiar with the character of scientific knowledge and inquiry and how it is achieved. |
a. When a science investigation is repeated, the results should be consistent.
b. Explain why accurate descriptions are important in science.
c. Explain why, in doing science, it is often helpful to work with a team and to share findings with others.
d. Know that tools such as thermometers, hand lenses, and rulers aid inquiry by gaining more information.
a. Describe some of the many different forms of scientific investigation.
b. Offer justifiable explanations when similar scientific investigations do not produce exactly the same results.
c. Explain why clear and active communication is an essential part of doing science, including informing others about scientific work and exposing ideas to criticism.
d. Explain why scientists use technology in investigations, including to increase their power of observation and to measure and compare accurately.
e. Offer some examples of old scientific knowledge that is still applicable today, and explain that new scientific knowledge is still being discovered.
a. Describe why (such as to explore new phenomena, check previous results, compare theories) and how (by collecting evidence, reasoning, devising hypotheses, and creating explanations) scientists conduct investigations.
b. Explain why and how (for example, by repeatedly and independently replicating experiments) scientists determine if experimental results are reliable.
c. Understand that if more than one variable changes at the same time in an experiment, the outcome may not be clearly attributable to any one variable, and that sometimes scientists can design research to account for this.
d. Explain how scientists try to prevent their experiments from bias in what is observed, missed, and concluded in investigations (for example, through independent studies).
e. Understand and follow scientific ethical norms in conducting research with animals and humans who are unable to make fully informed choices (such as very young children).
a. Exhibit understanding that a change in the scientific view of how the world works is occasionally major, but is more often a small modification of prior knowledge, and that these new ideas often encounter vigorous criticism.
b. Use hypotheses to guide choices of what data to pay attention to, what additional data to seek, and how to interpret both new and previously available data.
c. Understand that progress in scientific under-standing often manifests itself in more reliable explanations and more accurate predictions, and is achieved by testing, revising, and sometimes rejecting, old and new theories.
d. Explain why scientists often control conditions in experiments, and what they do when controlled conditions are not possible.
e. Explain how and why scientific teams seek out the possible sources of bias in their investigations' hypotheses, observations, data analyses, and interpretations, and follow this model in the student's own work.
f. Explain why science uses practices such as peer review and publication.
g. Describe how and why new ideas in science can be limited and influenced, including cultural and historical context, and how history in turn has been shaped by science.
h. Explain how choices for scientific research can be influenced by funding, which can come from sources such as federal government agencies, industry, private foundations, the World Bank, the International Development Bank, non-governmental organizations, and the European Union.
i. Explain how and why ethical considerations can limit scientific research.
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Students will be able to select and use tools and instruments to conduct scientific activities. |
a. Use ordinary hand tools and instruments to construct, measure, and look at objects.
b. Know how to assemble, describe, take apart, and reassemble constructions.
c. Make a model, invention, or tool that can actually be used to perform a task.
a. Use technology, including cameras, tape recorders, and computers, to store and retrieve verbal and graphic information and data.
b. Use a variety of scientific tools to collect data.
a. Know how to disassemble, and reassemble mechanical devices and describe the function of the various parts.
b. Know how to use sophisticated tools and instruments when measuring length, volume, weight, elapsed time, rates, and temperature.
a. Develop and use systematic procedures for recording and organizing information.
b. Understand the applications and basic functioning of complex pieces of scientific equipment (for example, PCR, cathode ray tube) and be capable of basic troubleshooting.
c. Select the most appropriate tool for a specific, direct measurement and choose appropriate units for reporting various magnitudes.
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Students will understand and demonstrate the ideas of system, model, change, and scale in exploring scientific and technological matters. |
a. Know that systems are made of parts that work together to function.
b. Use a model - such as a toy or a picture - to describe the features of an object or system.
c. Describe changes in the size, weight, color, or movement of objects, and note which of their other qualities remain the same.
d. Understand the range of sizes, weights, ages, and speeds of both man-made and natural things.
a. Understand how parts influence one another in systems with many parts.
b. Identify patterns of change, such as steady, repetitive, or irregular change, using records, tables, or graphs of measurements where appropriate.
c. Identify the least and greatest possible values of certain events or conditions.
a. Explain how parts are related to other parts in systems (such as cars, computers, and creatures), including how the output from one part of a system (in the form of material, energy, or information) can become the input to other parts.
b. Estimate the effect of making a change in one part of a system on the system as a whole.
c. Know how to identify, and discuss, the advantages and disadvantages of several different models could be used to represent the same object.
d. Understand how change in a system can be counterbalanced to maintain equilibrium.
a. Apply the concept of a system to the analysis of how things work and the design of solutions to problems, specifying the system's boundaries and subsystems, its relation to other systems, and its input and output.
b. Explain how systems in equilibrium may return to the same state of equilibrium when the disturbances are small and how large disturbances may destroy a system's equilibrium and eventually result in a different state of equilibrium.
c. Understand how large changes in scale typically change the way things work in physical, biological, or social systems (that is, microcosm versus macrocosm) because the changes in scale affect various properties of those systems in different degrees.
d. Demonstrate an understanding of physical and temporal scale, based on both mathematics and experience.
e. Describe and explain ways that systems' properties that depend on volume, such as capacity and weight, change out of proportion to properties that depend on area, such as strength or surface processes.
Go to Physical Setting: Questions 6-14
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