The Science and Engineering Practice 1: Asking Questions and Defining Problems applies to the Place Project. The Grades K - 2 practice states that students should “ask questions based on observations to find more information about the natural world.” The Place Project has students observing the terrain of the area and what is living in it, and changes over time. Students are then asked to “wonder” about things they are seeing. The Grades 3 - 5 practice states that students should “identify testable and non-testable questions, and use prior knowledge to describe problems that can be solved.” These can come out of students’ wonderings about the place.
The S & E Practice 2: Developing and Using Models comes into play when you have a class create maps of the place. Then they are “using and developing models that represent concrete events”.
Practice 3: Planning and Carrying Out Investigations comes out of the students’ testable questions after observations of their place. An example could be, “How much rain does our place get in the fall?” They evaluate appropriate methods/tools for collecting data (ex. placing a rain catcher at the site for a period of time to measure rainfall), and make predictions about what would happen if a variable changes (ex. predicting which tree will lose its leaves first once the weather turns cold).
For Practice 4: Analyzing and Interpreting Data, students will be recording information (observations, thoughts, and ideas), using and sharing pictures, drawings, and/or writings of observations made while at the site, and comparing their predictions to what occurred. For “compare and contrast data collected by different groups in order to discuss similarities and differences in findings”, students could collect leaves which could then be sorted by shape, size, and color.
For Practice 5: Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking, students can use the data collected from the site in graphs and/or charts to address scientific questions.
The Practice 6: Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions is done through “using evidence gathered at the site to construct or support an explanation or design a solution to a problem.” An example could be collecting rain water from underneath the copper beech trees and from a location unsheltered by trees as a control, and comparing the data to explain why very little grows underneath the copper beech trees.
And Practice 7: Engaging in Argument from Evidence is achieved by having the students “construct an argument with evidence to support a claim”, “using data and/or a model”. Students can use data collected at the site for this.
Practice 8: Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information can be met by reading nature guides for scientific information about plants and animals found at the site.
