Does the material include activities that provide firsthand experiences with phenomena when practical or provide students with a vicarious sense of the phenomena when not practical?

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Explanation. Scientists construct and use scientific knowledge to describe, explain, predict, and design real-world objects, systems, or events. Therefore, scientific ideas need to be connected to pieces of the real world. Students can learn more readily about things that are tangible and accessible to their senses. Thus students, especially younger students, will benefit most from firsthand experiences with the objects, systems, or events to which the scientific knowledge refers.

Providing students with some firsthand experiences (hands-on activities or demonstrations) is important, provided that such experiences are practical. However, it is neither necessary nor optimal that all experiences provided be firsthand. For example, once students have had some firsthand experience with designing a system that turned out to have side effects, providing them with examples of other systems that turned out to have side effects via pictures, videos, or text would probably be adequate. If all experiences provided to students were firsthand, it would limit the number of examples that could be provided. Moreover, students should not be asked to reason only about phenomena they see firsthand, when in real life they will also encounter phenomena indirectly.

When firsthand experiences are not practical (for example, providing firsthand experiences with the eruption of volcanoes), students can encounter phenomena indirectly, through the use of videos or photographs. However, these indirect experiences do need to provide students with a vicarious sense of the phenomena.

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Indicators of meeting the criterion

1. Each firsthand experience is efficient (when compared to other firsthand experiences) and, if several firsthand experiences target the same idea, the set of firsthand experiences is efficient. (The efficiency of an experience equals the cost of the experience [in time and money] in relation to its value.)
2. The experiences that are not firsthand (e.g., text, pictures, video) provide students with a vicarious sense of the phenomena. (Please note that if the material provides only firsthand experiences, this indicator is not applicable.)
3. The set of firsthand and vicarious experiences is sufficient.

Rating Scheme
Excellent: The material meets all indicators or just indicators 1 and 3 or indicators 2 and 3, if firsthand experiences are not possible.
Satisfactory: The material includes some efficient firsthand experiences and, if several firsthand experiences target the same idea, the set of firsthand experiences is sufficient. When firsthand experiences are not practical, the material provides students with a vicarious sense of the phenomena for some of the experiences that are not firsthand.
Poor: The material includes at best only one efficient firsthand experience or provides students with a vicarious sense of one phenomenon that is not firsthand.

Reviewers should proceed as follows:

1. Identify the key ideas for which there is a content match.
2. Score the treatment of each idea that results from step a. The overall score for this criterion will be the average of the scores for each idea.

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