How to apply findings
Scientists take findings from the investigation and use those to develop explanations, often of a more complex process than that tested. This can involve imagining combinations of factors, connecting the results of multiple investigations, and considering what other resources are needed.
A closer look at uncertainty in the classroom
As second graders move from investigating how materials (ice, butter, chocolate chips, an egg) change when heated to explaining how a cake batter changes into a cake, they have to think about how each finding applies to the phenomenon and put them together in an explanation.
Children wrestle with questions like:
What happened to the chocolate chips in the cake?
What made the cake dry and solid?
What’s the role of materials they couldn’t test?
What happened to the chocolate chips in the cake?
Did they melt from the heat but keep their shape because of the batter around them?
Did they not melt because the heat didn’t get all the way through the batter to them?
What made the cake dry and solid?
Bruna: Where did the oil went and the eggs?
Sara: I know the egg, when you cook it, it's solid. And so that's why the cake can be solid.
Luis: Alice asked where did the water go, so I think... I think the water melted because the ice can melt and the water can melt.
Juan: No. The water cannot melt because it was already melted. Because the ice-because the water is made up of ice.
Diana: Do you think it already melted, so Jostin, so they're saying the water already melted, so do you want to add something to what you were thinking? … What do you think happened to the water?
Luis: Ummm... I think...
Diana: You're not quite sure. Okay... But I think you were on... you had an idea... You think something happened to it. Maybe it wasn't melting, but something happened to the water.
Luis: When I ate the cake then I didn't feel any water.
What’s the role of materials they couldn’t test?
While children get to test what happens when they apply heat to some of the cake ingredients like the eggs and water, they are unable to test other materials, like the cake mix, separately on the heating plate. So what were these untested materials doing when the cake was heating up?
Instructional moves to support this form of uncertainty
Provide support for children to apply each finding separately, “Could your seed travel by wind?” “Let’s imagine the egg in the cake- what do you think is happening to it?”
Keep findings visible as children develop explanations.
Co-develop and use gotta-have it checklists for pen-and-paper models.
Ask if there is anything they still wonder, “Is there anything else we haven’t investigated that could be important? Is there anything you still feel curious about or feels like it doesn’t fit?”
