Science in the New Zealand Curriculum
Achievement objectives
Level 3: Making Sense of the Material World
Students can investigate and report on temporary and more permanent changes that familiar materials undergo.
Science in the New Zealand Curriculum, page 94
http://www.tki.org.nz/r/science/curriculum/p94_95_e.php
Levels 3 and 4: Developing Scientific Skills and Attitudes
Focusing and planning: Students can ask questions of themselves, their group, and resource people and identify questions suitable for scientific investigation.
Science in the New Zealand Curriculum, page 44
http://www.tki.org.nz/r/science/curriculum/p44_51_e.php
Information gathering: Students can make observations and simple measurements.
Science in the New Zealand Curriculum, page 45
http://www.tki.org.nz/r/science/curriculum/p44_51_e.php
Processing and interpreting: Students can identify trends and relationships in recorded observations and measurements by making links within organised data.
Science in the New Zealand Curriculum, page 46
http://www.tki.org.nz/r/science/curriculum/p44_51_e.php
Reporting: Students can present what they did and what they found out in their investigations in ways and forms appropriate to their peer group.
Science in the New Zealand Curriculum, page 47
http://www.tki.org.nz/r/science/curriculum/p44_51_e.php
Level 3: Making Sense of the Nature of Science and its Relationship to Technology
Students can recognise when simple investigations can be classified as a "fair test" and make decisions about the worth of the results.
Science in the New Zealand Curriculum, page 30
http://www.tki.org.nz/r/science/curriculum/p30_31_e.php
The teacher's intended outcomes were for the students to:
- plan an investigation to answer a question using a "fair test" approach
- understand that scientists use a fair test approach to try and eliminate competing explanations for changes observed.
The intended outcomes were aligned to the following "big ideas":
- Using systematic and creative processes of investigation, scientists produce a constantly evolving body of knowledge.
- Changing measurable variables such as the temperature of the solvent, the amount of stirring, or the surface area of the solute can alter the rate at which a substance dissolves.
The class began the study with exploratory activities from Making Better Sense of the Material World and an extended exploration of making crystals. The teacher modelled a number of investigations using their ideas. He introduced the term "variable" and the students identified all the variables that could be involved especially in the making of crystals. The statement "When I change...what will happen to..." was introduced and revisited a number of times as the students planned their investigations.
In their investigation the students decided what they would change, what they would measure and identified the question they were going to investigate. At the end of their investigation they completed a report.
Teacher-student conversation
| Teacher: |
What are some of the variables in your experiment? |
| Kiri: |
The temperature of the water, how much I use. Also how much sugar; the type of sugar and how much it got stirred.
|
| Teacher: |
Which variables might you be able to control, and how? |
| Kiri: |
I can measure the amount of water. I can keep the amount of sugar – and the type of sugar – the same. I can make the temperature of the water the same every time and I could stir for the same time too. |
To move Kiri towards the next learning step the teacher could help her focus on:
- finding a solution to the scaffold prompt, "Would the times you measured be the same if you repeated the tests?" (investigating in science)
- finding out where the sugar goes when she stirs the warm water (developing and communicating scientific understanding).
The teacher could ask Kiri:
- if a graph of her data would help her interpret her results – scientists construct graphs of their data to identify trends and patterns (investigating in science)
- if "Solubility of Sugar in Water" is an appropriate title for the report on this investigation (developing and communicating scientific understanding).
References
Ministry of Education (1993). Science in the New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.
Ministry of Education (1998). Making Better Sense of the Material World: Levels 1 to 4. Wellington: Learning Media.
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