Are you looking for some innovative ways for teaching the nature of science to your middle school science students? Not only can you bring the WOW Factor to your classroom when teaching a science topic, you can bring it when teaching the nature of science!
Science is much more than just facts and figures. It’s a complex process that helps us learn more about our world (and beyond).
What is the nature of science, and why is the nature of science important? Well, it’s a method of understanding the natural world, and it’s subject to change with new evidence. It’s essential for critical thinking for your middle school science students!
In this post, I share some activities to really get your students hooked into learning the process of science. Then, I dive into some lessons that will help your students get a handle on some terminology. Finally, I share some experiments that you can choose from to help your students put these concepts into practice!
Let’s get started creating your nature of science lesson plan!
WONDER Strategies Before Diving into Teaching the Nature of Science
WONDER strategies are those “engage” activities and hooks that allow your students to get excited about a topic. Teaching the nature of science is one of those things that I would teach at the beginning of the year before diving deep into science content. Before students learn science, they must learn how that science concepts are discovered.
As with all of the lessons that bring the WOW Factor, you want to engage your students to get them excited about learning! You must do this even when teaching the nature of science!
Here are two WONDER strategies for you to try!
“What is a Scientist?” Activity
Before learning about the nature of science and how scientists learn new things, it’s great to work on students’ perspective of what a scientist is and what they look like.
Things seem to be on a positive pathway of change in this regard, but many students still think about Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and another guy with crazy hair putting potions together!
So, let’s change that.
There are several options here:
- Start by asking students what they think a scientist looks like. Allow them to share their thoughts and ideas. You can have them write their answers on post-it notes and bring them up to the board, do a think-pair-share, just have them raise their hands and share out their ideas, or something else. You can begin drawing a collective image on the board of their ideas. Then, discuss!
- You can ask the question, “What does a scientist look like?”, but have them keep their answers to themselves. Provide them with drawing paper and art supplies and have them draw a picture. Remind them that there is no right or wrong answer! This is all about their perspectives. After, discuss with the class!
Here are some questions to guide your class discussion:
- Why did you draw the scientist in this way?
- What tools or equipment did you include in your drawing, if any?
- Does your scientist work in a lab or somewhere else?
- What do all of your drawings have in common? Are there differences?
- Do you think all scientists look alike? Why or why not?
After your discussion, pull up images from real scientists from different backgrounds!
I’ll share some of my favorites!
Kelly Gerardi: I’ve been following Kellie on Instagram, and she is an amazing example of a scientist to inspire young girls!
Albert Einstein: I mean, you have to include him.
Mary Jackson: One of the loved hidden figures!
George Washington Carver: He was wonderful chemist and inventor that helped transform a stagnant agricultural economy.
I could go on, but you may know a few of your own!
Reinforce the idea that anyone can be a scientist, and they (your students) are potential scientists themselves!
Also, I love this similar activity by Maniacs in the Middle if you want to check it out!
Real World Problem or News
You can do this activity along with the previous WONDER strategy, or it can stand on its own!
To help students learn about what scientists do and the nature of science, introduce them to a news story or a real-world problem that scientists are trying to solve!
Real-World Problems
- Some of the hot topics in science that is a problem that scientists are trying to solve include climate change, finding the cure for cancer, exploring the Moon and Mars, innovating things for renewable energy sources, artificial intelligence, antibiotic resistance, GMOs in food, and more! Figure out what most interests your students and go with that!
- You can put your students into groups and have them explore these real-world problems. Which scientists are studying these problems? How are they trying to solve these problems? What processes are being used? What are they challenged with?
News Stories
Looking for another hook? What are scientists currently studying and how are they going about it?
Here are some sites to check out some current events!
Overcome Overwhelm with Interactive Lessons
The second part of the WOW Factor is overcoming overwhelm. This is helping students to overcome the overwhelm of all of the information they need to learn.
When students learn too much at one time, they don’t learn anything at all. Their working memory will be overloaded.
Luckily, the process of science and the nature of science is something that students may have learned in previous grade levels, but I’m always surprised out how much they don’t know or things they’ve missed out on. Because of this, I make sure to hit it at this at the beginning of the year to make sure.
Throughout the year, I of course, hit this more in our content lab and activities!
So, what should you cover at the beginning?
The Process of Science
You want to touch on the process of science. In this Process of Science Interactive Lesson, students are introduced to what the scientific method is in addition to why some professionals have considered it a myth! It’s a great discussion starter.
The lesson dives into science, inductive and deductive reasoning, the complexity of the scientific method, and more! This gets students really thinking about how discoveries are made and goes over a lot of the key vocabulary they need to know when doing any science activity throughout the school year.
Experimental Design
After they learn about the complexity of science and how it works, students can dive into the Experimental Design Lesson to learn the details of designing a controlled experiment. They will learn more about creating hypotheses and designing an experiment with variables, constants, and a control group. These are terms that students can get confused on, so even if they’ve learned them before, it’s a great review!
WIDEN Student Knowledge on the Nature of Science
Do an Experiment!
Throughout the school year, you should consistently allow your students to practice with the process of science whether it be a simple lab, a project, or citizen science!
For the purpose of reviewing and teaching the nature of science, you can choose a simple way to demonstrate these concepts. Then, throughout the school year, continue to hit these concepts.
So, what are some simple experiments you can allow your students to do to address these concepts at the beginning of the year?
First and foremost, you can have them try to design their own simple experiment to perform, or you can model using one of the following below. I love these ideas!
- Have students hypothesize how many times they can fold paper in half. It can be a post-it, a piece of computer paper, or any other size. Then, they can experiment! Don’t forget the variables, constants, and controls.
- You can do the Great Banana experiment. I did something like this in my classroom!
- You can do a candy lab like this Skittles lab. However, you can add to it. What if you set up one with water, but others with orange juice or other liquids. How might other liquids impact the Skittles?
There are so many simple experiments to model the process of science in your classroom. Choose your favorite and try it this year!
Bonus: Look at Real Scientific Methods
Science Journal for Kids is an awesome resources that provides research that is easy to understand by students. You can sort it by grade level, and once you click on an article you are interested in, you can check out the methods they used to conduct the research.
This is a great way to show students real science in action! Ask students how this compares to what they are learning about the process and nature of science in their classroom!
Teaching the nature of science soon? What will you add to your lesson plan?
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