Teaching Strategies
Science Notebooks
Students will utilize science notebooks to record their observations and reflections. These tools will contain their notes, and will serve as a repository for their learning activities. Interacting with notebooks provides students with the opportunity to reflect and consider the scientific principles being explored in class. They also function as a means to collaborate with others by serving as a medium for sharing ideas. Science notebooks provide students with flexible opportunities to express their understanding through written language or visual images.
During this unit, students will learn a variety of techniques that will develop their critical thinking and organizational abilities. By utilizing tools such as tables, diagrams, and sentence starters, students can improve their observational skills. They will learn how to gather evidence that is relevant and appropriately detailed to arrive at a conclusion.
Experiential Learning
Through hands-on learning and classroom demonstrations, this unit will immerse students in experiences that will guide their understanding. Engaging students in tangible explorations offers them the opportunity to make real connections with science content. They are able to envision and actively participate in a shared learning environment. Experiential learning also helps students frame their conceptual understanding through a common unit theme.
Students will engage in explorations that inform their understanding of sugar’s chemistry, and will learn how chemical properties influence sugar’s role in cooking. Each activity is sequenced to develop each student’s schema about sugar. The classroom activities have an additional purpose of introducing students to laboratory safety procedures, and how to work collaboratively as a team.
Experimental Design
At various points in this unit, students will be able to thoughtfully engage in the construction of an experiment’s design. Using the same processes applied by engineers and scientists, they will work collectively to construct a functional experiment. Students will gain familiarity with the following components of the design process: developing a research objective, constructing hypotheses, adhering to clear procedures, identifying variables, establishing a control group, collecting data, and analyzing their work. They will use evidence to support the development of a scientific claim, and will consider avenues to improve their work in the future.
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