Standard #: SC.6.N.1.4


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Discuss, compare, and negotiate methods used, results obtained, and explanations among groups of students conducting the same investigation.


General Information

Subject Area: Science
Grade: 6
Body of Knowledge: Nature of Science
Big Idea: The Practice of Science -

A: Scientific inquiry is a multifaceted activity; The processes of science include the formulation of scientifically investigable questions, construction of investigations into those questions, the collection of appropriate data, the evaluation of the meaning of those data, and the communication of this evaluation.

B: The processes of science frequently do not correspond to the traditional portrayal of "the scientific method."

C: Scientific argumentation is a necessary part of scientific inquiry and plays an important role in the generation and validation of scientific knowledge.

D: Scientific knowledge is based on observation and inference; it is important to recognize that these are very different things. Not only does science require creativity in its methods and processes, but also in its questions and explanations.

Date Adopted or Revised: 02/08
Date of Last Rating: 05/08
Status: State Board Approved
Assessed: Yes

Related Courses

Course Number1111 Course Title222
2002040: M/J Comprehensive Science 1 (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 and beyond (current))
2002050: M/J Comprehensive Science 1, Advanced (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 and beyond (current))
2001010: M/J Earth/Space Science (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 and beyond (current))
2000010: M/J Life Science (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 and beyond (current))
2000020: M/J Life Science, Advanced (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 and beyond (current))
2003010: M/J Physical Science (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 and beyond (current))
7820015: Access M/J Comprehensive Science 1 (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2018, 2018 - 2023, 2023 and beyond (current))
2002055: M/J Comprehensive Science 1 Accelerated Honors (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 and beyond (current))
2003030: M/J STEM Physical Science (Specifically in versions: 2015 - 2022, 2022 and beyond (current))
2002200: M/J STEM Environmental Science (Specifically in versions: 2015 - 2022, 2022 and beyond (current))
2001025: M/J STEM Astronomy and Space Science (Specifically in versions: 2015 - 2022, 2022 and beyond (current))
2000025: M/J STEM Life Science (Specifically in versions: 2015 - 2022, 2022 and beyond (current))
2001100: M/J Coastal Science 1 (Specifically in versions: 2022 and beyond (current))


Related Access Points

Access Point Number Access Point Title
SC.6.N.1.In.3 Identify that scientists can use different kinds of experiments, methods, and explanations to find answers to scientific questions.
SC.6.N.1.Su.3 Recognize that scientists perform experiments, make observations, and gather evidence to answer scientific questions.
SC.6.N.1.Pa.3 Recognize that people conduct activities and share information about science.


Related Resources

Lesson Plans

Name Description
Just Right Goldilocks’ Café: Temperature & Turbidity

This is lesson 3 of 3 in the Goldilocks’ Café Just Right unit. This lesson focuses on systematic investigation on getting a cup of coffee to be the “just right” temperature and turbidity level. Students will use both the temperature probe and turbidity sensor and code using ScratchX during their investigation.

Just Right Goldilocks’ Café: Turbidity

This is lesson 2 of 3 in the Just Right Goldilocks’ Café unit. This lesson focuses on systematic investigation on getting a cup of coffee to be the “just right” level of turbidity. Students will use turbidity sensors and code using ScratchX during their investigation.

Just Right Goldilocks’ Café: Temperature

This is lesson 1 of 3 in the Just Right Goldilocks’ Café unit. This lesson focuses on systematic investigation on getting a cup of coffee to be the “just right” temperature. Students will use temperature probes and code using ScratchX during their investigation.

 

Bottymals @ RobottoysTM

In this Model Eliciting Activity (MEA), students will learn how to use very different pieces of information and data to select the best "Bottymals" for a company that wants to manufacture them and place them on the market. The MEA includes information about animal/insect anatomy (locomotion), manufacturing materials used in robotics, and physical science of the 6th grade level. Extensive information is provided to students, thus pre-requisites are minimal.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. MEAs resemble engineering problems and encourage students to create solutions in the form of mathematical and scientific models. Students work in teams to apply their knowledge of science and mathematics to solve an open-ended problem, while considering constraints and tradeoffs. Students integrate their ELA skills into MEAs as they are asked to clearly document their thought process. MEAs follow a problem-based, student centered approach to learning, where students are encouraged to grapple with the problem while the teacher acts as a facilitator. To learn more about MEA’s visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx

Long Live Periphyton!

In this Model Eliciting Activity (MEA), students will become familiar with the use of scientific names, Linnaeus' binomial nomenclature, and Classification of Living Things. At the same time students will be learning about periphyton in the Everglades, how it forms, its importance, and the factors that affect its development. They will engage in solving a problem situation in which they will have to select the best area to reinsert some fish species that depend on periphyton.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. MEAs resemble engineering problems and encourage students to create solutions in the form of mathematical and scientific models. Students work in teams to apply their knowledge of science and mathematics to solve an open-ended problem, while considering constraints and tradeoffs. Students integrate their ELA skills into MEAs as they are asked to clearly document their thought process. MEAs follow a problem-based, student centered approach to learning, where students are encouraged to grapple with the problem while the teacher acts as a facilitator. To learn more about MEA’s visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx

Robots Get a Job

In this MEA, students will select the robots that are more efficient at doing a certain type of job. They will have to analyze data tables that include force, force units, mass, mass units, and friction.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Measurement and Data Collection

In this interdisciplinary lesson, students will practice the skill of data collection with a variety of tools and by statistically analyzing the class data sets will begin to understand that error is inherent in all data.

This lesson uses the Hip Sciences Sensor Wand and Temperature Probe. Please refer to the corresponding Hip Science Sensor Guide(s) for information on using the sensor.

Cool Special Effects

In this MEA, students will apply the concepts of heat transfer, especially convection. Students will analyze factors such as temperature that affect the behavior of fluids as they form convection currents.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Measurement Data Error

In this interdisciplinary lesson, students will practice the skill of data collection with a variety of tools and by statistically analyzing the class data sets will begin to understand that error is inherent in all data.

Measurement and Data Collection

In this interdisciplinary lesson, students will practice the skill of data collection with a variety of tools and by statistically analyzing the class data sets will begin to understand that error is inherent in all data.

This lesson uses the Hip Sciences Sensor Wand and Temperature Probe. Please refer to the corresponding Hip Science Sensor Guide(s) for information on using the sensor.

Water, Water Everywhere!

This lesson addresses current events regarding flooding in St. Petersburg, Florida. Students will create a water removal device from materials provided then use a 3D scanner to 3D print their devices.

Levitation Engineers: Exploring Forces

Students will explore, observe, and infer about the properties and behaviors of magnets by conducting their own experiments with the magnets and the differences between contact and non-contact forces. Students will plan and design a magnetic levitation device using the engineering design process.

The Penny Lab

Students will design an investigation to collect and analyze data, determine results, write a justification and make a presentation using U.S. pennies.

Paired student teams will determine the mass of 50 U.S. pennies. Students will also collect other data from each penny such as minted year and observable appearance. Students will be expected to organize/represent their data into tables, histograms and other informational structures appropriate for reporting all data for each penny. Students will be expected to consider the data, determine trends, and research information in order to make a claim that explains trends in data from minted U.S. pennies.

Hopefully, student data reports will support the knowledge that the metallic composition of the penny has changed over the years. Different compositions can have significantly different masses. A sufficiently random selection of hundreds of pennies across the class should allow the students to discover trends in the data to suggest the years in which the composition changed.

An Inquiry into Albedo, Land Surface and AirTemperture

This lesson is designed to provide a hands on inquiry on Sphere Interactions by investigating the relationship between Surface Albedo and Atmospheric Temperature. In this activity, students will develop an Argument Driven Inquiry (ADI) with the Guiding question: "What is the relationship between the land surface Albedo and Atmospheric Temperature?"

How do scientists draw the invisible?

A short lesson on ways that scientists develop their understanding of things that they cannot see by developing models based on testing and hypothesis.
Students will collaborate, discuss and develop a way to draw the landscape inside a shoebox that has been sealed using minimal tools. Students will NOT be attempting to say what is in the box but what the layout (landscape) is inside the box.
Students will discover the difficulty that scientists have encountered as they begin the process of answering questions about things that they can not see. Students will learn that not all questions are easily solved and that sometimes only a partial answer is learned until another scientist adds more to the answer.

Exotic Tadpole Explosion!

Inquiry based challenge to develop a plan to investigate a large tadpole population growth in the town of Belle Pole. Students analyze preexisting data and make conclusions about the data. Student groups compare their approaches and conclusions with other student groups. A whole group discussion leads students to conclude that results often varied based on methods used to conduct the same investigation. The lesson ends with students writing a self reflection from their student group and whole group discussions.

Sound Is Not The Only Place You Hear About Volume!

This lesson introduces the idea of finding volume. Volume in sixth grade math is very "rectangular" (cubes, rectangular prisms) and this lesson brings to light that volume is simply a measure of available space, but can take on many shapes or forms (cylinders for example - graduated cylinders and beakers) in science. Students will be left to design their own data collection and organizing the data that they collect. They will apply the skill of finding volume to using fractional parts of a number (decimals) and finding the product using the volume formula.

pH: The Power of Health is in Balance

pH - The Power of Hydrogen Ions implies that the "power of health is in balance" with balanced "Hydrogen Ions." Life exists inside a certain range of pH values. In this activity, students work in collaborative learning groups to classify pH values. Students are faced with a problem of correcting possible affects of contaminating pollution. Scenarios of a problem statement help students apply factors to water resources in real world events. They recognize and explain that a scientific theory is well-supported and widely accepted explanation of nature and not simply a claim posed by an individual. Students may prove their proposal by performing a pH wet lab with common kitchen solutions.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Energy of Water: Erosion

In this lesson, students will investigate the energy of water as it relates to erosion. After guided exploration of an erosion tray, students will devise, carry out, and evaluate a plan to slow down or stop the effects of erosion with as little environmental impact as possible.

Circulatory System Lesson

The lesson will begin with the teacher engaging the students with a presentation of "How the Blood Gets Around the Body" following a think quest presentation that covers the parts and functions of the circulatory system, including the brain, veins and arteries, heart and blood. Students will explore blood vessels by watching a short video clip, conducting a hands-on investigation about blood pressure. Next the teacher will lead a discussion and explain about the human heart and will use a "Map of the Human Heart" to show the class exactly how the heart pumps blood throughout your body and learn facts about the human heart. Students will get a chance to elaborate by creating a color picture of blood flow to, through and from the heart in their notebooks. To evaluate the students, they will watch a short video clip about the circulatory system and take the accompanying quiz.

Uncle Henry's Dilemma

Uncle Henry's Dilemma is a problem solving lesson to determine the global location for the reading of Uncle Henry's will. The students will interpret data sets which include temperature, rainfall, air pollution, travel cost, flight times and health issues to rank five global locations for Uncle Henry's relatives to travel to for the reading of his will. This is an engaging, fun-filled MEA lesson with twists and turns throughout. Students will learn how this procedure of selecting locations can be applied to everyday decisions by the government, a business, a family, or individuals.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

MYSTERY BOXES - Uncertainty & Collaboration Students manipulate sealed "mystery" boxes and attempt to determine the inner structure of the boxes which contain a moving ball and a fixed barrier or two. The nature and sources of uncertainty inherent in the process of problem-solving are experienced. The uncertainty of the conclusions is reduced by student collaboration. The students are asked to relate this activity to how to learn about "mystery boxes" in nature (interior of the earth, the atom, etc).
Potential and Kinetic Energy; "To Move or not to Move".

Students will investigate, through a guided exploration lab, using a tennis ball, the Law of Conservation of Energy to differentiate between Potential and Kinetic Energy, and identify real life situations where potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy and vice versa.

THE GREAT FOSSIL FIND Students are taken on an imaginary fossil hunt. Following a script read by the teacher, students "find" (remove from envelope) paper "fossils" of some unknown creature, only a few at a time. Each time, they attempt to reconstruct the creature, and each time their interpretation tends to change as new pieces are "found".
A Crime Against Plants

Crime scene investigations serve as excellent examples of how science can explain past events by careful observation and analysis of present evidence. This lesson provides a opportunity for students to examine the evidence of a puzzling phenomenon involving a small tree, and with a little research, arrive at a reasonable explanation of what happened.

Falling Water Students drop water from different heights to demonstrate the conversion of water's potential energy to kinetic energy.
Impact Crators In this activity, marbles or other spheres such as steel shot, ball bearings, golf, or wooden balls are used as impactors dropped from a series of heights onto a prepared "lunar surface." Using impactors of different mass dropped from the same height will allow students to study the relationship of mass of the impactor to crater size. Dropping impactors from different heights will allow students to study the relationship of velocity of the impactor to crater size.
Lunar Landers: Exploring Gravity The attached engineering design lesson plan elaborates on the PBS Kids online resource and will probably take from 4-5 class periods. It takes the students through the engineering design process which includes the following components: Identify the Problem, Brainstorm and Design a Solution, Test and Evaluate, Redesign, Reflect and Share the Solution.
Marshmallow Design Challenge This fun design/build exercise teaches some simple but profound lessons in collaboration, innovation, hidden assumptions, and creativity that are central to the engineering process.

Original Student Tutorial

Name Description
Which Science Topic Would You Choose?

Learn how scientific research is done based society's goals and what current group needs as you complete this interactive tutorial.

Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

Name Description
Precision of Measurement

Classroom activities that teach students precision of measurement.

Resource Collection

Name Description
Variables-FOSS Module Some of the most important scientific concepts students learn are the result of their ability to see relationships between objects and events. Relationships always involve interactions, dependencies, and cause and effect. The Variables Module has four investigations that help students discover relationships through controlled experimentation. Students will fling, float, fly, and flip objects as they discover relationships in each investigation.

Teaching Ideas

Name Description
Pump Up the Volume

This activity is a statistical analysis of recorded measurements of a single value - in this case, a partially filled graduated cylinder.

Butterfly Sort

This is a teaching idea where students develop a classification scheme for butterflies and moths based on observable traits. Through the development and discussion of classification schemes, students begin to make inferences about evolutionary relationships.

This activity was used in the BIOSCOPES Diversity and Ecology Institute.

THE GREAT VOLUME EXCHANGER Use of a discrepant event piques curiosity and provides an excellent metaphor for a problem in science that can be addressed in a scientific way. Water is poured into a "magic" box, and out comes a much larger volume of water (or other liquid).
The Marshmallow Launch This simple catapult activity for students in grades 4-8 teaches them how energy is transferred when a plastic spoon is pulled back, then released, rocketing its payload: a single marshmallow.

Student Resources

Original Student Tutorial

Name Description
Which Science Topic Would You Choose?:

Learn how scientific research is done based society's goals and what current group needs as you complete this interactive tutorial.



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