|
|
|
| Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry |
This standard is covered in all phases of the
investigation. |
|
Identify questions that can be answered through scientific
investigations
Students should develop the ability to refine and refocus broad and ill-defined
questions. An important aspect of this ability consists of students' ability
to clarify questions and inquiries and direct them toward objects and phenomena
that can be described, explained, or predicted by scientific investigations.
Students should develop the ability to identify their questions with scientific
ideas, concepts, and quantitative relationships that guide investigation. |
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 2. Design (graphics/layout)
Phase 9. Analyze Data
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes |
|
Design and conduct a scientific investigation
Students should develop general abilities, such as systematic observation,
making accurate measurements, and identifying and controlling variables.
They should also develop the ability to clarify their ideas that are influencing
and guiding the inquiry, and to understand how those ideas compare with
current scientific knowledge. Students can learn to formulate questions,
design investigations, execute investigations, interpret data, use evidence
to generate explanations, propose alternative explanations, and critique
explanations and procedures. |
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 2. Design (graphics/layout)
Phase 9. Analyze Data
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes |
|
Use appropriate tools and techniques to gather,
analyze, and interpret data
The use of tools and techniques, including mathematics, will be guided by
the question asked and the investigations students design. The use of computers
for the collection, summary, and display of evidence is part of this standard.
Students should be able to access, gather, store, retrieve, and organize
data, using hardware and software designed for these purposes. |
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 8. Collect Data
Phase 9. Analyze Data
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes |
|
Develop descriptions, explanations, predictions, and models using evidence
Students should base their explanation on what they observed, and
as they develop cognitive skills, they should be able to differentiate
explanation from description — providing causes for effects and
establishing relationships based on evidence and logical argument.
This standard requires a subject matter knowledge base so the
students can effectively conduct investigations, because developing
explanations establishes connections between the content of science
and the contexts within which students develop new knowledge. |
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 9. Analyze Data
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes |
|
Think critically and logically to make the relationships between
evidence and explanations
Thinking critically about evidence includes deciding what evidence should
be used and accounting for anomalous data. Specifically, students should
be able to review data from a simple experiment, summarize the data, and
form a logical argument about the cause-and-effect relationships in the
experiment. Students should begin to state some explanations in terms of
the relationship between two or more variables. |
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 9. Analyze Data
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes |
|
Recognize and analyze alternative explanations and predictions
Students should develop the ability to listen to and respect the
explanations proposed by other students. They should remain open
to and acknowledge different ideas and explanations, be able to
accept the skepticism of others, and consider alternative
explanations.
|
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 9. Analyze Data
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes |
|
Communicate scientific procedures and explanations
With practice, students should become competent at
communicating experimental methods, following instructions,
describing observations, summarizing the results of other groups,
and telling other students about investigations and explanations.
|
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 9. Analyze Data
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes |
|
Use mathematics in all aspects of scientific inquiry
Mathematics is essential to asking and answering questions about
the natural world. Mathematics can be used to ask questions; to
gather, organize, and present data; and to structure convincing
explanations.
|
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 8. Collect Data
Phase 9. Analyze Data
|
|
Understandings about scientific inquiry
- Different kinds of questions suggest different kinds of
scientific investigations. Some investigations involve observing
and describing objects, organisms, or events; some involve
collecting specimens; some involve experiments; some involve
seeking more information; some involve discovery of new
objects and phenomena; and some involve making models.
- Current scientific knowledge and understanding guide
scientific investigations. Different scientific domains employ
different methods, core theories, and standards to advance
scientific knowledge and understanding.
- Mathematics is important in all aspects of scientific inquiry.
- Technology used to gather data enhances accuracy and allows
scientists to analyze and quantify results of investigations.
- Scientific explanations emphasize evidence, have logically
consistent arguments, and use scientific principles, models, and
theories. The scientific community accepts and uses such
explanations until displaced by better scientific ones. When
such displacement occurs, science advances.
- Science advances through legitimate skepticism. Asking questions and
querying other scientists' explanations is part of scientific inquiry.
Scientists evaluate the explanations proposed by other scientists by
examining evidence, comparing evidence, identifying faulty reasoning,
pointing out statements that go beyond the evidence, and suggesting
alternative explanations for the same observations.
- Scientific investigations sometimes result in new ideas and
phenomena for study, generate new methods or procedures for
an investigation, or develop new technologies to improve the
collection of data. All of these results can lead to new
investigations.
|
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 2. Design (graphics/layout)
Phase 3. Design Phase: Go/No Go
Phase 4. Car Construction
Phase 5. Collect Data
Phase 6. Trial Phase: Go/No Go
Phase 7. Trial Races
Phase 8. Collect Data
Phase 9. Analyze Data
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes
Phase 11. Design Modifications and Detail
Phase 12. Race-Ready Phase: Go/No Go |
|
|
Motions and forces
- The motion of an object can be described by its position,
direction of motion, and speed. That motion can be measured
and represented on a graph.
- An object that is not being subjected to a force will continue to
move at a constant speed and in a straight line.
- If more than one force acts on an object along a straight line, then
the forces will reinforce or cancel one another, depending on their
direction and magnitude. Unbalanced forces will cause changes in the
speed or direction of an object's motion.
|
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 8. Collect Data
Phase 9. Analyze Data
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes
Phase 11. Design Modifications and Detail |
|
Transfer of energy
- Energy is a property of many substances and is associated with
heat, light, electricity, mechanical motion, sound, nuclei, and
the nature of a chemical. Energy is transferred in many ways.
- In most chemical and nuclear reactions, energy is transferred
into or out of a system. Heat, light, mechanical motion, or
electricity might all be involved in such transfers.
|
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 8. Collect Data
Phase 9. Analyze Data
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes
Phase 11. Design Modifications and Detail |
|
|
Design a solution or product
Students should make and compare different proposals in the light of the
criteria they have selected. They must consider constraints — such
as cost, time, trade-offs, and materials needed — and communicate
ideas with drawings and simple models. |
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 2. Design (graphics/layout)
Phase 8. Collect Data
Phase 9. Analyze Data
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes
Phase 11. Design Modifications and Detail |
|
Implement a proposed design
Students should organize materials and other resources, plan
their work, make good use of group collaboration where
appropriate, choose suitable tools and techniques, and work
with appropriate measurement methods to ensure adequate
accuracy.
|
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 2. Design (graphics/layout)
Phase 3. Design Phase: Go/No Go
Phase 4. Car Construction
Phase 5. Collect Data
Phase 6. Trial Phase: Go/No Go
Phase 7. Trial Races
Phase 8. Collect Data
Phase 9. Analyze Data
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes
Phase 11. Design Modifications and Detail
Phase 12. Race-Ready Phase: Go/No Go
|
|
Evaluate completed technological designs or products
Students should use criteria relevant to the original purpose or
need, consider a variety of factors that might affect
acceptability and suitability for intended users or beneficiaries,
and develop measures of quality with respect to such criteria
and factors; they should also suggest improvements and, for
their own products, try proposed modifications.
|
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 2. Design (graphics/layout)
Phase 3. Design Phase: Go/No Go
Phase 4. Car Construction
Phase 5. Collect Data
Phase 6. Trial Phase: Go/No Go
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes
Phase 11. Design Modifications and Detail
Phase 12. Race-Ready Phase: Go/No Go |
|
Communicate the process of technological design
Students should review and describe any completed piece of
work and identify the stages of problem identification, solution
design, implementation, and evaluation.
|
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 2. Design (graphics/layout)
Phase 3. Design Phase: Go/No Go
Phase 4. Car Construction
Phase 5. Collect Data
Phase 6. Trial Phase: Go/No Go
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes
Phase 11. Design Modifications and Detail
Phase 12. Race-Ready Phase: Go/No Go |
|
Understandings about science and technology
- Perfectly designed solutions do not exist. All technological
solutions have trade-offs, such as safety, cost, efficiency, and
appearance. Engineers often build in backup systems to provide
safety. Risk is part of living in a highly technological world.
Reducing risk often results in new technology.
- Technological designs have constraints. Some constraints are
unavoidable, for example, properties of materials, or effects of
weather and friction; other constraints limit choices in the
design, for example, environmental protection, human safety,
and aesthetics.
|
Phase 2. Design (graphics/layout)
Phase 3. Design Phase: Go/No Go
Phase 4. Car Construction
Phase 5. Collect Data
Phase 6. Trial Phase: Go/No Go
Phase 7. Trial Races
Phase 8. Collect Data
Phase 9. Analyze Data
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes
Phase 11. Design Modifications and Detail
Phase 12. Race-Ready Phase: Go/No Go
Phase 13. Design and Aesthetic Judging |
|
|
- Scientists formulate and test their explanations of nature using
observation, experiments, and theoretical and mathematical
models. Although all scientific ideas are tentative and subject
to change and improvement in principle, for most major ideas
in science, there is much experimental and observational
confirmation. Those ideas are not likely to change greatly in the
future. Scientists do and have changed their ideas about nature
when they encounter new experimental evidence that does not
match their existing explanations.
- In areas where active research is being pursued and in which
there is not a great deal of experimental or observational
evidence and understanding, it is normal for scientists to differ
with one another about the interpretation of the evidence or
theory being considered. Different scientists might publish
conflicting experimental results or might draw different
conclusions from the same data. Ideally, scientists acknowledge
such conflict and work towards finding evidence that will
resolve their disagreement.
- It is part of scientific inquiry to evaluate the results of scientific
investigations, experiments, observations, theoretical models,
and the explanations proposed by other scientists. Evaluation
includes reviewing the experimental procedures, examining the
evidence, identifying faulty reasoning, pointing out statements
that go beyond the evidence, and suggesting alternative
explanations for the same observations. Although scientists
may disagree about explanations of phenomena, about
interpretations of data, or about the value of rival theories, they
do agree that questioning, response to criticism, and open
communication are integral to the process of science. As
scientific knowledge evolves, major disagreements are
eventually resolved through such interactions between
scientists.
|
Phase 1. Preliminary Activities
Phase 2. Design (graphics/layout)
Phase 3. Design Phase: Go/No Go
Phase 4. Car Construction
Phase 5. Collect Data
Phase 8. Collect Data
Phase 9. Analyze Data
Phase 10. Propose Technical Changes
Phase 11. Design Modifications and Detail
|
|
 |
Printer-friendly Version