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Developing Interest and Relating Scientific Learning to the Wider World
Thinking in Scientific Ways
Developing and Communicating Scientific Understanding

What Makes the Wind Blow?

 Teachers' notes
Progress indicators
What the work shows Curriculum links The learning context Where to next

What the work shows

The teacher focused on developing the students' abilities to "think in scientific ways" by creating a classroom version of a scientific debate. She used the students' responses to this teaching task to adjust her teaching.

Samantha's response to questions about her theory

Samantha's response to questions about her theory

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Samantha's response is particularly interesting to assess as it is difficult to decide whether her work best fits level 2 or level 3 indicators on several of the progressions.

In a subsequent self-assessment exercise, Samantha recorded that she felt she was good at trying to explain things and connecting up ideas to improve an explanation: "Yes. I modified Jayden's theory to make air come down."

During the class discussion, four students suggested theories on "What makes the wind blow?" The teacher recorded their theories on the whiteboard, as follows.

  1. Jo's theory: "People breathing."
  2. Jayden's theory: "The hot air rises, but it cools down and comes down again and smacks into the cold air underneath. The air that squishes out is wind."
  3. Scott's theory: "The trees giving out oxygen makes the wind."
  4. Samantha's theory: "Warm air rises, but it cools down and comes down in a different place. It blows back to where it came from. That's wind."

Samantha gave a written response to the questions "In your view, is this a good theory?" and "Why do you think that?"

Progress Indicators

Developing Interest and Relating Scientific Learning to the Wider World

Experiencing and showing awe, wonder, and interest
Samantha thinks about explanations for her experiences. The later conversation with the teacher seems to show that she displays curiosity about the world around her and pursues scientific interests, without prompting, outside the formal learning environment.

Thinking in Scientific Ways

Suggesting explanations
Samantha is able to suggest explanations supported by some evidence (L3).

Comparing and evaluating explanations
Samantha prefers one explanation and uses evidence to refute an explanation. She can favour an explanation, while she may have difficulty justifying it. Samantha can use simple models to explain her ideas. She shares her ideas and considers those of others in a purposeful effort to reach an understanding (L2).

The interview reveals that she can change her ideas after considering the evidence. In that instance, she was also able to justify what she thought (L3).

Developing and Communicating Scientific Understanding

Using scientific ideas in constructing explanations
Samantha attempts to construct a plausible explanation for her experiences using some scientific ideas. She links the ideas that hot air rises and cold air descends (L3).

Using scientific vocabulary
Samantha's responses show she experiments with vocabulary to describe scientific experiences (L2).

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