Claims & Evidence

This science unit introduces the notion of making a plausible scientific claim and conducting experiments to produce supporting evidence for such claims.

Activities

Scene: Safety at the Skateboard Park

Gabriella, Jamal, and Hector discuss claims, evidence, and patterns of safety at the skateboard park.

Duration: Approximately 50 minutes

Lesson: Examining and Supporting Claims

Students examine and support claims; distinguish plausible, evidence-based claims from false claims and opinions; use statistics to prove or disprove a claim.

Duration: Approximately 40 minutes

Lesson: The Theory of Theory

Inspect these cartoon scenes and ponder possible explanations.

Duration: Approximately 40 minutes

Lab: Ramping Up the Claim

In the lab for this unit, students will conduct an experiment that tests whether or not steepness of a ramp affects impact of a collision. They will also practice making a claim based on their evidence.

Duration: Approximately 75 minutes

Reading: Skaters in the Suburbs and the City

This passage gives students another view on the world of skateboarding and brings up different kinds of claims and evidence.

Duration: Approximately 25 minutes

Writing: Letter to the Park Committee

The writing activity provides an opportunity for students to apply the idea of claims and evidence to a new situation.

Duration: Approximately 35 minutes

Teacher Tune-ups

• In science, what do we mean by claim, theory and law?
• What are good (and bad) practices in representing data visually?

Student View of Visuals and Activities

Some teachers prefer to have students view the slides and other visual assets in this unit directly instead of projecting them in class. Below is a web page to share with students with links to the same items within in the teacher lesson plans, but without the explanatory text for the teacher.

 

• Student Links to Unit T3 Slides and Other Visuals

Original SciGen Unit

This unit has been adapted from "6.3 Can you really claim that?" in the Word Generation program led by Catherine Snow (Harvard University) through a SERP collaboration with the Boston Public Schools and other districts in Massachusetts and Maryland.

PDFs of that earlier unit's teacher and student editions are available at the Science Generation Download Center.

claim

noun – a statement that needs to be supported by evidence

verb – to state something that needs proof

Jay-Z claims in many of his songs that he’s “the greatest rapper alive.” Do you agree with his claim?

evidence

noun – facts or proof that something is true

In science, evidence is the data collected from experiments.

Evidence from scientific experiments shows that smoking can cause cancer.

plausible

adjective – believable, likely to be true

Yang’s story that she broke her arm climbing over a fence seemed plausible.

result

noun – something that happens because it was caused by something else

verb – to happen because of something else

In science, a result is the outcome of an experiment.

Michael studied hard for the test; as a result, he got a 97%!

pattern

noun – something that happens repeatedly in the same way

In science, a pattern is when you get results that follow the same rule each time you do a test.

The ice cream store owner noticed a pattern: the hotter the weather, the higher his sales.

interpret

verb – to draw a conclusion based on what you see

In science, we interpret the results, or data.

The doctors interpreted the test results from the patient and decided that she was well enough to go home from the hospital.