Benchmark 1B The Nature of Science: Scientific Inquiry

Benchmark 1B
The Nature of Science: Scientific Inquiry
Grades 6-8, page 12

What people expect to observe often affects what they actually do observe. Strong beliefs about what should happen in particular circumstances can prevent them from detecting other results. Scientists know about this danger to objectivity and take steps to try and avoid it when designing investigations and examining data. One safeguard is to have different investigators conduct independent studies of the same questions.

NSES Content Standard A
Science as Inquiry: Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry
Grades 5-8, page 145
Design and conduct a scientific investigation. Students should develop general abilities, such as systematic observation, making accurate measurements, and identifying and controlling variables. They should also develop the ability to clarify their ideas that are influencing and guiding the inquiry, and to understand how those ideas compare with current scientific knowledge. Students can learn to formulate questions, design investigations, execute investigations, interpret data, use evidence to generate explanations, propose alternative explanations, and critique explanations and procedures.

NSES Content Standard A
Science as Inquiry: Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry
Grades 5-8, page 145
Think critically and logically to make the relationships between evidence and explanations. Thinking critically about evidence includes deciding what evidence should be used and accounting for anomalous data. Specifically, students should be able to review data from a simple experiment, summarize the data, and form a logical argument about the cause-effect relationships in the experiment. Students should begin to state some explanations in terms of the relationship between two or more variables.

NSES Content Standard A
Science as Inquiry: Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry
Grades 5-8, page 148
Recognize and analyze alternative explanations and predictions. Students should develop the ability to listen to and respect the explanations proposed by other students. They should remain open to and acknowledge different ideas and explanations, be able to accept the skepticism of others and consider alternative explanations.

NSES Content Standard G
History and Nature of Science: Science as a human endeavor
Grades 9-12, page 201
Scientists are influenced by societal, cultural, and personal beliefs and ways of viewing the world. Science is not separate from society but rather science is a part of society.