Investigating in Science
Developing and Communicating Scientific Understanding
Tidal Patterns
Science in the New Zealand Curriculum
Achievement objectives
Level 5: Making Sense of Planet Earth and Beyond
Students can investigate and describe processes which change the Earth's surface over time at local and global.
Levels 5 and 6: Developing Investigative Skills and Attitudes Processing and interpreting: Students can identify trends, relationships and patterns, in recorded data by analysing data using statistical and graphing procedures as appropriate.
Level 5: Making Sense of the Nature of Science and its Relationship to Technology
Students can use their knowledge of a scientific idea to identify and describe examples of technology in which that idea is applied.
The teacher's intended outcomes were for the students to:
demonstrate an understanding of patterns and relationships between astronomical movement of Earth, Sun, and Moon, and the Earth's tidal patterns
present a table of data in graphic form and identify and explain the evident relationships.
The intended outcomes were aligned to the following "big ideas":
The relative positions of the Earth, Sun, and Moon determine the apparent change in the shape of the Moon and the environmental pattern of the tides.
Scientists process data-seeking patterns and trends that can be used to explain relationships.
The teacher determined the students' existing ideas about tidal patterns through mind pictures and concept cartoons. She used ideas from using from Moons, Building Science Concepts, Book 8 and
Making Sense of Planet Earth and Beyond for exploratory activities. They visited the observatory and constructed graphs from data tables. Finally the students wrote an explanation of the tidal patterns and the correlation between the phases of the Moon and tidal movement.
The students used the graphical display to develop self-assessment criteria and determine the effectiveness of their own and their group's graphing attempts. Processing the data for display helped them understanding the explanations and communicate them.
Teacher-student conversation
Teacher:
What differences do you notice between the ideas you had at the beginning and the ones you have now?
Georgia:
The data displayed as a graph, graphing the height of the tides against the day of the month. I used the figures from the data table to determine the height of each bar, for the high tide, and where to shade it for the low tide.
Teacher:
How did you decide where to position the lunar phase?
Georgia:
They relate to the days of the month. I'm putting them at the top of each bar so they're easier to see and also, because the height of the bar changes with the high tide level, they go up and down and that gives you an idea of the sort of wave pattern of the tides.
To move Georgia towards the next learning step the teacher could help her focus on:
convincing others to use her displayed data to reach a shared understanding of the Moon tide patterns (developing and communicating scientific understanding)
sharing the processes she followed in displaying her data to students in subsequent science units (investigating in science).
The teacher could:
provide Georgia and the class with an opportunity to use models and other aids to communicate their spatial understandings of the relationship between the Earth, Sun, and Moon (developing and communicating scientific understanding).
encourage Georgia and the class to suggest and explore the merits of a variety of ways the data (and similar data) could be displayed and analysed (investigating in science).
References
Ministry of Education (1993). Science in the New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.
Ministry of Education (1999). Making Better Sense of Planet Earth and Beyond. Wellington: Learning Media.
Ministry of Education (2001). Moon: Orbits, Appearances and Effects. Building Science Concepts, Book 8. Wellington: Learning Media.
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