D and T Activity

We just completed the D&T activity in class and it was fun to see the kids work together and come up with their final hypotheses. To summarize this activity: Students took turns taking words out of an envelope and had to create a story using only those words. They had to work together as a team, brainstorm, and agree on one hypothesis for each section of the activity.

Left Side Activity:

I broke the classes into groups of 4-5 students and each group represented a different country, symbolizing how scientists all over the world work in groups and share their findings with each other. We then discussed the process and how even though we all had the same information, each group processed that information differently. We also discussed how scientists are always getting new information and have to make sense of it. With new information, theories are either updated or thrown out and therefore new theories are made. We also discussed the new findings on a predecessor to T-Rex that was only about 9ft long and had tiny forearms, making scientists rethink their theories about the evolution of T-Rex.

Below are the hypotheses that my groups came up with:

USA
A big fat white dog walked into the little house on the prairie and ate his bone carrying the bowl of red turnips.

France

The big fat dog carrying his white bone walked into the little house on the prairie and ate a bowl of red turnips.

Australia

The fat dog ate the red and white turnips and the big bone walked carrying his house into a bowl on little of prairie.

South Africa
The white fat dog carrying his little bowl of the turnips into a big red prairie house ate the bone and walked on.

Brazil
A big fat dog ate the red turnips carrying his bowl of the white bone and walked on into the little prairie house.

India

The little dog walked into his big house carrying the white bone and ate a bowl of fat red turnips on the prairie.

Germany

His big fat red white prairie dog walked into a house  carrying the little bowl of the turnips and ate on the bone.

Russia

The big red dog ate fat turnips on a little white house and his bone walked into the prairie of the carrying bowl.

China
A dog on the little prairie ate his white bone and walked into the big house carrying the bowl of fat red turnips.

Right Side Activity:

Students had to write a 3-5 sentence conclusion/reflection about this activity and then draw a scene from their story on page 13 of their notebooks.

If you complete this activity, please let me know what your groups came up with!

Mystery Footprints

My 5′s completed the Mystery Footprint Activity (ppt) and it went really well! We talked about what an observation is, what an inference is, and how they really have to be careful- they often wanted their inferences to be their observations!

After a brief introduction/ discussion, we filled in their notes. Then I had them close their eyes and I slowly read the three sample observations: I hear people screaming, I see a lot of people around, and I smell cotton candy, popcorn, and hamburgers. When they opened their eyes they wrote down where they pictured themselves-which is their inference. I had students raise their hands to tell me where they were – these are some of their responses:

• a circus
• a fair
• a carnival
• a theme park
• on the boardwalk or at the beach
• at a sporting event

I asked them, “Did we all have the same observations?” And most said no. Then I repeated the observations – people screaming, a lot of people around, smelling cotton candy. Yes, we all had the same observations, BUT our inferences were different. We used our individual experiences to process the information and formed our own conclusions. Ohhhhhh!

I then showed the slides for the Mystery Footprints. Frame 1: One student’s observation was, “I see an animal running”. I said, “I don’t see an animal running, I see tracks that start off close together then become farther apart.” I then explain that I can infer that the animal was running, but I didn’t see it happen, I just see the tracks that are left behind. Some observations are that the background is yellow, there are two sets of prints, the tracks are coming from 2 different directions, the red tracks are close together, etc…

We viewed each frame and discussed our observations and then shared our inferences. When I showed the 3rd frame, a lot of the students gasped, they were so into it and when they saw the red prints missing, they were quickly writing down their observations and inferences!

Some great inferences the kids came up with:

• the animals were fighting and one ate the other (most common answer)
• one animal bit the other animal and carried it away to eat it somewhere else
• the animals were eating food off the ground, one walked away while one stayed behind to eat more
• the animals fought over the food, and the loser walked away
• the tracks were made at different times and ate the same food that was on the ground
• one animal flew away
• one animal jumped onto the back of the other animal
• the animals were dancing until one walked away

We went over the homework assignment and I really stressed the difference between observations and inferences. Observations are pieces of information we obtain by using our senses, and inferences are like a “story” that we can make up based on our observations.

Mystery Footprints – Observation vs. Inference

This is another start of the year activity I am going to use to stress the importance between observation and inference. I have a ppt & worksheet for class (left side) and a homework assignment (right side) for this lesson.

I’ll start with the power point and have the students write down their observations and inferences as I show one frame at a time. There is a lot of room for interpretation and I look forward to what they come up with!

• This is the power point I modified for my class: Mystery Footprints
• UPDATED 9.16.09 – (I had a few typos towards the end, so the corrected version is posted. My 5′s are so helpful in pointing this out!) This is the booklet of notes and where they write down their observations and inferences: Footprints pdf. To make the booklet, copy two sided, fold in half, and glue the 4th page into the notebook. (I found this lesson last year but can’t find the link I downloaded it from. I reformatted it, but other than that there are only minor changes)
• And this is the practice assignment for homework and review: Practice pdf

D and T Activity

What do the D and T stand for? The “D” stands for dog and the “T” stands for turnips. What do dogs and turnips have in common besides a Russian tale? And what does it have to do with science? Read on…

This is a lesson I first heard about last fall from the middle school science group . This is a very good group activity, it makes the students think like scientists, use their problem solving skills, and show a bit of their creative side. (I usually have groups with 3-4 students per group.)

Left Hand Side:

Each group is given the same exact 23 cards, each card has one word on it (such as dog, turnip, white, bone, bowl, etc… ). All the cards are face down, and they turn over any 5 cards. Using those 5 words, they have to guess what the story is about and make some kind of sentence out of it. After they write it down, they turn over 5 more cards and either try to continue their story, or make a new story now that they have new information. Once again, after they write down their new hypothesis, they chose another 5 cards and either add to their hypothesis, or make a new one.

Once everyone has uncovered 15 cards and made their 3rd hypothesis, I have each group share it with the class. Even though each group starts out with the same 23 cards, no two groups have uncovered the same 15 words (what is the probability of that happening…). Each group has their own hypothesis and we compare what is similar, what’s different, if there were any common themes, etc…

Now that we have all shared our stories, we turn over the rest of the cards. They have to use all 23 words to make the final version of their story. This is not as easy as it may sound. By this point, they may have a story they really like and want it to work out, or they may not agree on a final hypothesis, or they may get stuck because they have narrowed down which words belong together, ie. red dog, red bowl, or red house? Big dog, little dog, fat dog, big red fat dog?

We now share our final hypothesis, or story, with the class and we discuss what we came up with. I then ask them, “If we all have the same 23 words, why don’t we all have the same story?” The kids come up with some great reasons as to why. We talk about what challenges they encountered when trying to come up with a story, if there was disagreement in the group, if their stories even made sense, etc…

I then tie it into how scientists may have the same exact information or data, but come up with different hypotheses and disagree just like they did in this activity. I then bring up the topic of who has the “correct” hypothesis? How do I know what is “correct”? Scientists are always getting new information (just like they got more words to work with) all the time and have to either make it fit, or come up with a totally new hypothesis and start from scratch, throwing all their previous ideas out the window. You can then tie in real examples of that like how people thought the world was flat, sun went around the Earth, etc..

After all my classes have done this activity, I then reveal what the “correct” story was, and it usually is not even close to the stories they came up with! Then they always say that their story was better! =)

Right Side:

For the right side, I will have the students write a half page reflection about what they learned or experienced by doing this activity, and then a half page drawing showing a scene from their unique story.

When we do this activity in Sept, I will post what they came up with as well as some of their drawings. I can then keep a log for each year, will be fun to compare then with each new group of students.

Links:

ISN Version: http://www.middleschoolscience.com/turnips-isn.pdf
Lab Journal Version (includes the 23 words, print out and laminate): http://www.middleschoolscience.com/turnips.pdf

Original Website with the Lesson Plan I made the lab sheets from: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/dynamic/session4/sess4_act1.htm