Scientists make arguments and test arguments. They evaluate, analyze, and critique data. Scientists question. They learn from their mistakes. For student scientists, learning how to make and support evidence-based arguments is a critical to their future success.

The Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI) instructional model focuses on using authentic lab activities that provide students with opportunities to ask questions, define problems, develop models, and analyze and interpret data. Through ADI, students also learn how to give and accept feedback and refine their practices.

Our top-selling series of ADI books in biology, life science, and chemistry walk teachers through the process of using this instructional method to challenge students in grades 6–12. NSTA Press has just released three new lab manuals to accompany the series.

Student Lab Manual for Argument-Driven Inquiry in Chemistry, Lab Investigations for Grades 9–12

Authors Victor Sampson, Peter Carafano, Patrick Enderle, Steve Fannin, Jonathon Grooms, Sherry A. Southerland, Carol Stallworth, and Kiesha Williams have included 30 field-tested labs in this manual that cover a range of topics related to chemical reactions and matter’s structure and properties. The investigations offer authentic scientific experiences and provide opportunities for students to think critically, collect and analyze data, generate arguments, and present their findings.

• Check out a sample lab: “Characteristics of Acids and Bases: How Can the Chemical Properties of an Aqueous Solution Be Used to Identify It as an Acid or a Base?”
• Accompanies Argument-Driven Inquiry in Chemistry: Lab Investigations for Grades 9–12

Student Lab Manual for Argument-Driven Inquiry in Biology, Lab Investigations for Grades 9–12

Written by Victor Sampson, Patrick Enderle, Leeanne Gleim, Jonathon Grooms, Melanie Hester, Sherry Southerland, and Kristin Wilson, this manual provides 27 labs that require students to work together as a team to plan and carry out an investigation. These field-tested labs cover molecules and organisms, ecosystems, heredity, and biological evolution for grades 9–12.

• Check out a sample lab: Explanations for Animal Behavior: Why Do Great White Sharks Travel Over Long Distances?
• Accompanies Argument-Driven Inquiry in Biology: Lab Investigations for Grades 9–12

Student Lab Manual for Argument-Driven Inquiry in Life Science, Lab Investigations for Grades 6-8

Authors Patrick J. Enderle, Ruth Bickel, Leeanne K. Gleim, Ellen Granger, Jonathon Grooms, Melanie Hester, Ashley Murphy, Victor Sampson, and Sherry A. Southerland developed 20 labs that cover molecules and organisms, ecosystems, biological evolution, and heredity for grades 6–8.

• Accompanies Argument-Driven Inquiry in Life Science: Lab Investigations for Grades 6–8

 To learn more, visit the Argument-Driven Inquiry Series page.

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In the March 2016 Rocking and Rolling column in Young Children, “Sharing the Wonder Science With Infants and Toddlers,” Emily J. Adams and Rebecca Parlakian write, “For infants and toddlers, [science] is a process of exploration and discovery.” The column discusses how, through scientifc inquiry, children can develop skills across all domains of development and provides many guidelines for building a culture of science and exploration in your environment.

The NSTA position statement on early childhood science education addresses the preschool years. It affirms that “At an early age, all children have the capacity and propensity to observe, explore, and discover the world around them.” And goes on to say that these basic abilities for science learning “…can and should be encouraged and supported among children in the earliest years of their lives.”

I had the pleasure of hearing just how deep preschooler’s questions can be while observing a teacher reading pages from What Makes a Shadow? by Clyde Robert Bulla with illustrations by June Otani. During the small group reading of the book the teacher asked, “How are the children’s shadows made?” The group responded, “The sunshine!” The children noticed that the children’s shadows did not have eyes or have the other details present in the children’s faces and clothes. Then a child asked, “Could the sun have a shadow?” I think this shows the child understands the sun is an object, not just light, and is thinking about the spatial relationship with the Earth.

The teacher and I looked at each other and she said, “I don’t know. We will have to look that up!”

Question of the Week on the Middle Level List Serve

“I’d really like to encourage my middle school (6-8) students to read more science literature for more robust discussions. In class, I have provided articles and short reading passages from various resources but 40 minutes a class isn’t enough, especially with lectures and labs. I’d like to have them read a science novel, fiction or nonfiction, outside science class.  I know that our ELA teacher requires students to complete a certain number of hours for outside reading, and figured I could tag team with him. He’s on board with the idea of adding more science literature to the ELA book list for school and summer reading hours. I would add the titles so that at each grade would have 1 book per semester that we could focus on for science analysis and discussion. One of my limitations is that we don’t have a school library (don’t ask) so I would need titles that students can easily borrow from the public library, or titles that I can obtain in bulk and start a science class library without costing me my first born child. I’m reaching out for title suggestions for middle school (6-8) earth science, life science, and physical science. Right now I only have The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for my life science and Regents Living Environment!”

—Cheska Robinson, @MissCheska, Middle school science teacher in New York
(question shared here with her permission)

Top Answers from NSTA Members

• For environmental science, I suggest Carl Hiaasen’s young adult books: Hoot, Flush, and Scat. They are high interest reading, appropriate for middle school, and well written. It would be especially nice to relate the environmental concerns back to your local issues.
• I enjoyed The Martian by Andy Weir (there’s a language modified school edition that takes out the f-bombs). That has a lot of physics and engineering problem solving (some of it seems plausible to a non-expect reader, but turns out to be fanciful). 
• I like The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. You can check out William Kamkwamba’s true story in three versions – elementary, middle school, and adult versions. He has two or three TED talks. It is wonderful!
• If you think you would get books to use year after year, try a donor’s choose grant to start.
• All of these books would be for life science.
  Stiff: Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach (Very humor-filled; She discusses the uses of cadavers and it’s really interesting)
  Survival of the Sickest by Dr. Sharon Moalem (Explains the reason why there are certain genetic diseases still in existence in our gene pool and also possibly how they even came about from an evolutionary standpoint.)
  Spillover by David Quammen (Discusses all the various types of zoonotic diseases that have spilled over into the human population.)
  The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat: The Story of the Penicillin Miracle by Eric Lax
• I would add to the list:
  Something out of Nothing, the Marie Curie Story.
  The Secret of the Yellow Death (the story of the cause/cure for Yellow Fever)
  Out of the Dust (adolescent story of surviving the dust bowl)
  The Great Storm (adolescent story of surviving the Galveston Hurricane of 1900)
  There’s a Hair in My Dirt (fun, short book by Gary Larson for environmental education)
• I would add Life as We Knew It and House of the Scorpion.  The first looks at the changes that occur when the moon is pushed closer to Earth and the second deals indirectly with the ethics of cloning.

What are some of your favorite science-focused books for middle school students? Please share your comments with us.

Get more involved with NSTA!

Join today and receive Science Scope, the peer-reviewed journal just for middle school teachers; connect on the middle level science teaching list (members can sign up on the list server); or consider joining your peers for Meet Me in the Middle Day (MMITM) at the National Conference on Science Education in Los Angeles in the spring of 2017.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

Future NSTA Conferences

5th Annual STEM Forum & Expo, hosted by NSTA

• Denver, Colorado: July 27–29

2017 Area Conferences

• Baltimore, Maryland: October 5–7
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin: November 9–11
• New Orleans, Louisiana: November 30–December 2

National Conferences

• Los Angeles, California: March 30–April 2, 2017
• Atlanta, Georgia: March 15–18, 2018
• St. Louis, Missouri: April 11–14, 2019
• Boston, Massachusetts: March 26–29, 2020
• Chicago, Illinois: April 8–11, 2021

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Student use of evidence can sometimes be disconnected from the conclusions students draw from scientific inquiry. As we said last month (see editor’s note, below) when addressing a different practice, the formatting tools found in any word processor can help. Have students underline their scientific claims and boldface their evidence when writing their conclusions. This makes it obvious when claims lack support. Also have students share their evidence-based work in Google Docs (https://docs.google.com), where classmates can add comments and corrections. The student can review the changes that his peers made at the click of a button (https://goo.gl/JaFKBo).

[youtube]https://youtu.be/gbQ7hmwsOL0[/youtube]

As students design and conduct experiments, they will move beyond the procedural steps to focus on how to analyze their findings. We’ve often recommended using graphic organizers to manage the calculations, graphs, and perhaps other forms of evidence. To support this process, teachers can create templates that have color-coded sections for students to document the procedure, analysis, and expected evidence. An open-source tool that offers a platform to help students work through experiments is the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) (https://wise.berkeley.edu/). It has tools for drawing, graphing, and concept mapping and offers online discussions with peers and feedback from the teacher.

Culminating the analysis of evidence should be a valid explanation for the observed phenomenon. Students should review each other’s explanations and decide which reaches the most sound conclusion. You can facilitate this with an online gallery walk using Voicethread (http://voicethread.com/). It allows the teacher to upload student work in almost any format—videos, PowerPoint, PDFs, and so on. Students can then review classmates’ work, commenting via text, voice, or video. Another option is to use a voting tool such as StickyMoose (www.stickymoose.com) to help students determine the best explanations.

Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

Some argue that communication is the most important skill among the science practices. Students should know how to incorporate graphs, tables, images, text, and equations into a presentation. While PowerPoint or Google Slides remain useful, a more powerful tool, as mentioned last month, is Prezi (https://prezi.com/). It allows the viewer to zoom in and out of different grouping areas, letting students cluster thoughts or main ideas.

Another way for students to present the “story” of their findings is by creating infographics (see example, at right) with such tools as Easel.ly (www.easel.ly/) or Piktochart (http://piktochart.com). These provide templates to represent patterns, relationships, and evidence in visual ways, stretching students’ thinking by asking them to create a visual display of their quantitative findings.

Another non-traditional communication tool to show understanding is PowToon (www.powtoon.com). Students can create animated videos featuring embedded graphics or custom student artwork that explains the connections between their evidence and their conclusions. PowToon really taps into the power of audience engagement.

Common to these tools is the ability to communicate findings in non-traditional ways. Students should select the tool themselves, because choosing requires students to evaluate the media elements, presentation style, and mode of communication that best fits the message they want to convey. This is a lifelong skill.

Conclusion

As students learn the vital skills included in the science and engineering practices, we hope teachers will encourage them to take advantage of the tech tools that can enhance their abilities—and their understanding.

Ben Smith (ben@edtechinnovators.com) is a physics teacher in Red Lion, Pennsylvania; and Jared Mader (jared@edtechinnovators.com) is the director of technology for the Lincoln Intermediate Unit in New Oxford, Pennsylvania. They conduct teacher workshops on technology in the classroom nationwide.

Editor’s Note

This is part three in a series of articles focused on using technology to help students master the science practices described in the Next Generation Science Standards. This article focuses on the practice of engaging in argument from evidence and was originally published in April/May 2016 issue of The Science Teacher journal, from the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).

Get Involved With NSTA!

Join NSTA today and receive The Science Teacher, the peer-reviewed journal just for high school teachers; to write for the journal, see our Author Guidelines and Call for Papers; connect on the high school level science teaching list (members can sign up on the list server); or consider joining your peers at future NSTA conferences.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

Future NSTA Conferences

5th Annual STEM Forum & Expo, hosted by NSTA

• Denver, Colorado: July 27–29

2017 Area Conferences

• Baltimore, Maryland: October 5–7
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin: November 9–11
• New Orleans, Louisiana: November 30–December 2

National Conferences

• Los Angeles, California: March 30–April 2, 2017
• Atlanta, Georgia: March 15–18, 2018
• St. Louis, Missouri: April 11–14, 2019
• Boston, Massachusetts: March 26–29, 2020
• Chicago, Illinois: Apr
  il 8–11, 2021

Follow NSTA