At this stage in the unit, students will complete the inquiry and application sequences for ethanol burning—they go both up and down the triangle. This means that they will go through the Predictions Phase, the Observations Phase, the Evidence-Based Arguments Phase, and the Explanations Phase in one lesson. The tables below show specific talk and writing goals for these phases of the unit.
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Talk and Writing Goals for the Predictions Phase |
Teacher Talk Strategies That Support This Goal |
Curriculum Components That Support This Goal |
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Treat this as elicitation and brainstorming (like the Expressing Ideas and Questions Phase), but with more directed questioning. |
Now that we have set up the investigation, we want to predict what we think will happen to matter and energy. |
Three Questions Handout Predictions and Planning Tool |
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Elicit a range of student ideas. Press for details. Encourage students to examine, compare, and contrast their ideas with the ideas of other students. |
Who can add to that? What do you mean by _____? Say more. So I think you said _____. Is that right? Who has a different idea? How are those ideas similar/different? Who can rephrase ________’s idea? |
Investigation Video (first half) |
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Encourage students to provide evidence that supports their predictions. . |
How do you know that? What have you seen in the world that makes you think that? |
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Have students document their ideas to revisit later. |
Let’s record our ideas so we can come back to them and see how our ideas change. |
Predictions and Planning Tool |
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Talk and Writing Goals for the Observations Phase |
Teacher Talk Strategies That Support This Goal |
Curriculum Components That Support This Goal |
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Help students discuss data and identify patterns. |
What patterns do we see in our data? How do you know that is a pattern? What about ______ data. What does this mean? |
Class Results Poster Class Results Spreadsheet |
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Encourage students to compare their own conclusions about the data and evidence with other groups and other classes. |
What about this number? What does this tell us? How is group A’s evidence different from Group B’s data? How do our class’s data differ from other classes’ data? |
Class Results Spreadsheet Class Results Poster Investigation Video (second half). |
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Make connections between the observations and the data/evidence. |
It says here that our BTB turned colors. What does that mean? You recorded that your ethanol lost weight. What does that mean? |
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Have students consider how their predictions and results compare. |
Let’s revisit our predictions. Who can explain the difference between our class predictions and our results? Who had predictions that were similar to our results? Has your explanation changed? How? |
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Talk and Writing Goals for the Evidence-Based Arguments Phase |
Teacher Talk Strategies That Support This Goal |
Curriculum Components That Support This Goal |
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Press for details. Encourage students to examine, compare, and contrast their ideas with the ideas of other students. |
Who can add to that argument? What do you mean by _____? Say more. So I think you said _____. Is that right? Who has a different argument? How are those arguments similar/different? Who can rephrase ________’s argument? |
Investigation Video (second half) |
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Students provide evidence from the investigation (not just experiences in the world) to develop arguments. |
Does your argument include evidence from the investigation? What evidence is most important here?
What does this evidence tell us about what happened? How do you know that? |
Evidence-Based Arguments Tool Class Results Poster Class Results Spreadsheets Investigation Video (second half) Data from other classes |
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Focus on how matter and energy were transformed at different scales. |
What does this evidence tell us about how matter is changing? What does this evidence tell us about how energy is changing? |
Three Questions Handout Evidence-Based Arguments Tool
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Revisit predictions and examine change in thinking. |
Let’s revisit our Predictions and see how our thinking changed now that we know what happened. |
Evidence-Based Arguments Tool Predictions and Planning Tool |
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Encourage students to consider the questions they don’t have answers to. |
This investigation told us many things about what happen to matter and energy during ____. But what questions do we still have? |
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Talk and Writing Goals for the Explanations Phase |
Teacher Talk Strategies That Support This Goal |
Curriculum Components That Support This Goal |
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Examine student ideas and correct them when there are problems. It’s ok to give the answers away during this phase! Help students practice using precise language to describe matter and energy. |
Let’s think about what you just said: Air molecules. What are air molecules? Are you talking about matter or energy? Remember: atoms can’t be created. So that matter must have come from somewhere. Where did it come from? Let’s look at the molecule poster again… is carbon an atom or a molecule? |
Molecule Poster Three Questions Poster
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Focus on making sure that explanations include multiple scales. |
The investigation gave us evidence for what was happening to matter and energy at a macroscopic sale. But what is happening at an atomic-molecular scale? What is happening to molecules and atoms? How does energy interact with atoms and molecules during chemical change? Why doesn’t the macroscopic investigation tell us the whole story? Let’s revisit our scale poster… what is happening to matter at the molecular scale? |
Molecular Models Molecular Modeling Worksheets Explanations Tool PPT Animation of chemical change Powers of Ten Poster |
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Encourage students to recall the investigation. |
When did this chemical change happen during our investigation? How do we know that? What is our evidence? What were the macroscopic indicators that this chemical change took place? |
Evidence-Based Arguments Tool Investigation Video |
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Elicit a range of student explanations. Press for details. Encourage students to examine, compare, and contrast their explanations with others’. |
Who can add to that explanation? What do you mean by _____? Say more. So I think you said _____. Is that right? Who has a different explanation? How are those explanations similar/different? Who can rephrase ________’s explanation? |
Explanations Tool |