Arguing From Evidence in Middle School Science
24 Activities for Productive Talk and Deeper Learning
- Jonathan Osborne - Stanford University, USA
- Brian M. Donovan - Biological Sciences Curriculum Study
- J. Bryan Henderson - Arizona State University, USA
- Anna C. MacPherson - American Museum of Natural History, USA
- Andrew Wild - Stanford University (Student)
Science Methods
Teaching your students to think like scientists starts here!
If you’ve ever struggled to help students make scientific arguments from evidence, this practical, easy-to-use activity book is for you! Give your students the critical scientific practice today's science standards require. You’ll discover strategies and activities to effectively engage students in arguments about competing data sets, opposing scientific ideas, applying evidence to support specific claims, and more.
24 ready-to-implement activities drawn from the physical sciences, life sciences, and earth and space sciences help teachers to:
- Align lessons to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
- Engage students in the 8 NGSS science and engineering practices
- Establish rich, productive classroom discourse
- Facilitate reading and writing strategies that align to the Common Core State Standards
- Extend and employ argumentation and modeling strategies
- Clarify the difference between argumentation and explanation
Includes assessment guidance and extension activities. Learn to teach the rational side of science the fun way with this simple and straightforward guide!
“Arguing from Evidence in Middle School Science is filled with easy, fun ideas for incorporating many of the Next Generation Science Standards into any science class. Every step—from establishing class norms to evaluating completed student work—is covered in detail and will help teachers set their room up as a place of thoughtful and constructive questioning and argumentation.”
“This research-based resource includes activities that make it easy for teachers to incorporate argumentation into their science classrooms. It will get your students actively engaged in meaningful discussions—and help them develop the skills they need to truly engage in the practice of argumentation in science.”
“This book provides both the background and ‘baby steps’ needed to integrate argumentation into the science classroom, and it provides clear lessons to engage students in critical thinking. Each lesson is presented with consistency, scaffolding the student experience from beginning suggestions, to getting students to make claims, to having them provide evidence to support their claims.”
As the book was published in the USA, the curriculum links in the book are to the Next Generation Science Standards,and several activities from the life sciences section are based on US case studies.However, UK teachers should find it simple to ‘translate’appropriately for their context.I recommend this book to any secondary science teacher who is interested in developing pupils’ scientific thinking and understanding of science concepts.
Sample Materials & Chapters
Chapter 1_What is Argumentation and Why Does It Matter
Chapter 3_How Can I Make Argumentation