Lynn Putnam

PEI
March 16, 2016
Scientific Inquiry
This morning in PEI, Dr. Wall spoke to our block about inquiry in
elementary school. His main focus was on scientific argumentation.
There are three steps to this process: claim, evidence, and justification.
A claim is a simple statement based off a question. The example Dr.
Wall gave us is all leaves change color. Then with this question, the
students will investigate and collect evidence to either agree or
disagree with the claim. This is explained in the justification portion.
The student must back up his or her decision based on the evidence.
We then walked through this process of scientific argumentation
with the question of why do boats float? This question can be asked
to the class as a formative assessment and students can begin to
make claims. This can also be a way to understand student
misconceptions. The teacher can choose one of the claims for the class
to investigate, or the teacher could allow the students to choose their
own claim to investigate. This could be a beneficial way for students to
investigate a misconceived claim and then be able to research and
justify why the claim was wrong. Investigation could be either research
or engineering based.
We had the opportunity to look up science standards and
determine ways to use the scientific argumentation format. As a group
we were able to discuss standards and possible claims and ways to

collect evidence based on those claims. For example, we discussed

light and how and investigation would look different depending on the
grade level. I must understand the capabilities of my students when
planning investigations and even when choosing claims.
This presentation was very helpful and a great resource. I have
been questioning and wondering how to plan and write a purposeful
science lesson plan. My main focus in science is to teach critical
thinking. I will use this scientific argumentation format in my future
classroom to assist my students in learning critical thinking, research,
investigation, and justification skills.