Language of scientific arguing....
Do you let your students "argue"???? Real scientists argue quite often...but not a drop down fight, more like a sharing of ideas.
One of my favorite books for introducing this concept is Why do Scientist Disagree? This book ties in nicely to my space unit because it is a tale of two stories. On the left side is a story about Galileo and his argumentation with scientists about light from the moon and the other side is a modern story of scientists diagreeing.
I try to set up these discussions based on misconceptions I hear in the classroom. For example, I have heard "the moon causes day and night" quite often in my fourth grade class. Rather than saying, no - that is not correct, I set up the situation with the kids and say...."What do you think? and Why do you think that?"
I set it up by introducing these question frames to guide the discussions:
Of course, I needed to make them a little cuter too!
To get your copy of these sentence frames on a sheet, click here.
One of my favorite books for introducing this concept is Why do Scientist Disagree? This book ties in nicely to my space unit because it is a tale of two stories. On the left side is a story about Galileo and his argumentation with scientists about light from the moon and the other side is a modern story of scientists diagreeing. I try to set up these discussions based on misconceptions I hear in the classroom. For example, I have heard "the moon causes day and night" quite often in my fourth grade class. Rather than saying, no - that is not correct, I set up the situation with the kids and say...."What do you think? and Why do you think that?"
I set it up by introducing these question frames to guide the discussions:
- What do you think?
- What is your claim?
- Why do you think that?
- What is your evidence?
- Do you agree? Why?
- Do you disagree? Why?
- How sure are we?
- How could we be more sure?
I think....
I claim....
My evidence is....
I agree with ....because
I disagree with ....because
I am sure....because
I think we could be more sure if we....
Of course, I needed to make them a little cuter too!
To get your copy of these sentence frames on a sheet, click here.
