Note to teachers: Make sure that students have available their
failures of the system.
Investigative Report Forms from the previous two activities. This helps
Others are the result
them recall the progress of their investigation.
of damage by infection
by other organisms.
1. Explain to the class that they will continue their investigation
into the school absences among band members at Truman and
Jackson middle schools. Specifically, they will explore the
activities students were engaged in during the Battle of the
Bands event to see whether they can pinpoint how the students
became ill.
2. Give each student one copy of Master 3.1, Investigative Report
Form. Instruct them to write the testable questions developed at the end of the previous activity in the “Testable Question” space
on their form.
3. Continue with students in the same teams as in the previous
activities. Display a transparency of Master 3.9, Third Memo from
Director. Read the memo aloud to the class.
The memo informs the teams that a nearby community has reported
that its water supply may be contaminated by bacteria that cause a
stomach-related illness.
Tip from the field test: The students’ knowledge
about disease transmission is limited. Make sure that
they understand that food poisoning and illness from
contaminated water are not contagious. However, a
stomach virus can be passed from one person to another.
4. Give each team one copy of Masters 3.10a and b, Activity Tables.
Ask students to review the information and record their findings
on their Investigative Report Form.
The Activity Tables provide information about the activities that
band members from both schools participated in on the day of the
Battle of the Bands event. The tables include information about
activity participation by band members who became ill and those
who did not become ill.
76
5. Give each team one copy of Masters 3.11a and b, Activity Maps.
Ask students to review the information and record their findings
on their Investigative Report Form.
The Activity Maps show the street locations for the various student
Content Standard A:
activities. The maps depict
Recognize and
• students from Truman Middle School who became ill and the
analyze alternative
activities in which they participated,
explanations and
• students from Jackson Middle School who became ill and the
predictions.
activities in which they participated, and
• students from both Truman and Jackson middle schools who
became ill and the activities in which they participated.
Content Standard E:
Science and
6. Instruct the teams to record their conclusions about which
technology are
activities may have exposed the students to disease. They should
reciprocal. Science
be prepared to share their conclusions with the other teams.
helps drive technology.
Technology is essential
Analysis of the activity data suggests that either eating at the Cheep
to science.
Chicken Hut restaurant or swimming in the lake made the band
members ill.
Content Standard A:
7. Acting as team supervisor, facilitate a class discussion to
Communicate
summarize the findings from all the teams. Guide the discussion
scientific procedures
to focus on how the teams think the band members became ill.
and explanations.
Ask the teams to explain their evidence and reasoning.
Students should conclude from their analyses of the activity tables
that two possibilities exist: 1) students got food poisoning at the
Cheep Chicken Hut and 2) students were infected while swimming
in the lake. Without additional information, it is not possible to
eliminate either possibility from suspicion. A third possibility
also exists. Students could have contracted a stomach virus while
attending the planning meeting on May 15. Explain to students
that the process they followed is similar to that used by scientists
conducting an investigation. Investigations do not always reach a
single conclusion. They often raise more questions that need to be
investigated.
8. Ask students to consider what next steps they would take to
reach a firm conclusion about the cause of the student illnesses.
What evidence would they like to collect?
Students’ suggestions may include
• visit the various restaurants and take food samples for testing,
• visit the lake and take water samples for testing,
• have the illnesses of the sick students diagnosed by a doctor,
• investigate activities (such as eating) that took place during the
planning meeting, and
77
Student Lesson 3
Doing Science: The Process of Scientific Inquiry
• survey other people (not students) who ate at the Cheep Chicken
Hut or swam in the lake to see whether they also became sick.
9. Collect from students their three Investigative Report Forms.
Assessment:
These can be used as an assessment tool.
Use the completed
Investigative Report
Activity 4: Reflecting on the Process of
Forms as a summative
Scientific Inquiry
assessment.
Note to teachers: Make sure that students have available their
Investigative Report Forms from the previous three activities. This helps
them recall the progress of their investigation.
1. Explain to the class that they will review the process used
during the community health department investigation from
the previous activity. Ask, “How did your investigation begin?”
Content Standard G:
Student responses will vary. Bring out the idea that the
Science requires
investigation began with a problem that prompted the asking
of a testable question.
different abilities,
depending on such
2. Ask students, “What testable question began your investigation?”
factors as the field
of study and type of
Students will report different questions. Appropriate questions deal
inquiry.
with whether or not the school absences noticed by the principal are
unusually high. Students may have asked a question such as, Is the
number of school absences in the last week more than in previous
weeks?
3. Ask students, “As your investigation went along, did you ask
other testable questions? What were they?” Write their questions
on the board.
Students will report a number of different questions. Try to guide
the discussion so that the questions are brought up in the order that
they appear in the investigation. Examples of questions that students
may report are the following:
• Are more students absent from one class than the others?
• Are there more absences in one school than the others?
• What is the reason for the higher number of absences among
students in band class at Truman and Jackson middle schools?
• Are the absent students suffering from the same illness?
• Have band members from the two schools been in contact with
each other?
• What is the cause of the disease?
• What is the source of the disease-causing organism?
78
4. Next, turn the discussion to the collection and analysis of
evidence. Ask students, “What evidence did you collect and
analyze to answer your questions?”
Students will mention various types of evidence collected.
5. Ask, “Was all of the evidence you analyzed helpful in answering
your questions?”
Student responses will vary. Some will report that all evidence was
helpful in that it helped them answer a question or choose between
alternative explanations. Other students may feel that some evidence
was not helpful because it could not definitively answer their
question.
6. Explain to students that they will now reconsider the evidence
used in their investigation, consider what information the
evidence provided, and explain how that evidence was used to
answer a question or to choose between alternative explanations.
Content Standard A:
7. Give each student one copy of Master 3.12, Analyzing Evidence.
Recognize and
Explain that they have about 15 minutes to
analyze alternative
• consider the evidence used in their investigation,
explanations
• write down the information they learned from it, and
and predictions.
• explain how it helped, or did not help, them to answer a
question or choose between alternative explanations.
Communicate
scientific procedures
While the students are working, circulate among them and guide
and explanations.
their progress. Some students may not understand why some pieces
of evidence were included in the investigation. For example, the
interviews with the parents of the sick students are necessary to
confirm their reasons for absence from school.
8. After students have completed their work on Master 3.12, ask for
volunteers to share their answers with the class.
As students report their answers, guide the discussion to raise the
points made in the following sample answers for Master 3.12.
1. Memos from the director of the community health department
Assessment:
The first memo suggests a possible health problem at a local school.
Assess students’
The second memo provides access to information about the student
absences and student band activities. The third memo raises the
understanding by
possibility that the local water supply is contaminated.
listening to their
explanations and
2. Attendance data for seventh-grade students at four middle
reasoning.
schools
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Student Lesson 3
Doing Science: The Process of Scientific Inquiry
The attendance data reveal that students in band classes at
Truman and Jackson middle schools were absent during the past
week at rates several times higher than normal. This is considered
to be evidence of a possible health problem. It remains possible,
however, that all or some of the absent students were missing
from school for reasons other than illness.
3. Summaries of interviews from parents of absent students
Interviews with parents of the missing students confirmed that the
students were indeed absent from school and supply reasons for their
absences. The parent information summarized in the tables indicates
that all but two of the missing students were ill with a stomach-
related illness. This information rules out the explanation that
students were absent from school because they were truant.
4. Transcripts from interviews with parents of absent students
The interviews with parents provide additional information about
the student absences. For example, one parent states that her
child has the flu while another attributes his child’s illness to food poisoning. These comments are included to suggest possible causes
for the illnesses. These comments are opinions, however, and must
not be treated as necessarily factual.
We also learn from the interviews that it usually takes about five
days to become sick after being exposed to a stomach virus. In
contrast, a person who eats contaminated food usually gets sick
within the next day or two. This information becomes important
when trying to decide which contacts between students from the
two schools might be associated with the illnesses. For example, a
stomach virus may have been contracted from sick students at the
planning meeting or stomach illness may have been spread during an
activity at the band event such as swimming in contaminated water
or eating contaminated food.
5. School
calendars
Since the available evidence suggests that the absent students may
all be suffering from the same illness, it is important to investigate whether the affected students from the two schools were in recent
contact with each other. Such contacts provide opportunities for a
disease-causing organism to pass among the students. Assuming that
eating is involved, such shared experiences are also consistent with
illness resulting from food poisoning.
A comparison of the school calendars reveals that band students
from the two schools came into contact with each other three times
in the past month. The first occasion was the May Day parade on
80
May 5. It is unlikely that the illnesses resulted from this contact
because it occurred so long ago. Further supporting this view is the
fact that the band from Roosevelt Middle School also attended the
parade but its students did not become ill.
Content Standard F:
Students from the two bands were also together for the Battle of the
The potential for
Bands planning meeting held on May 15. It is possible that a student
accidents and the
with a stomach virus spread the illness to others at this meeting.
existence of hazards
Assuming that students would become sick five days later, they
imposes the need for
would be absent from school starting on May 20, which is what was
injury prevention.
observed. Students from the two schools also were together at the
Battle of the Bands event on May 19. It is possible that students ate
Important personal
contaminated food at the event and became sick the next day.
and social decisions
are made based on
6. Student activity tables
perceptions of
benefits and risks.
At this point, the most likely explanation for why the students
became ill is that they either contracted a stomach virus at the
planning meeting or got food poisoning at the Battle of the Bands.
These tables provide information about which students participated
in which activities at the Battle of the Bands. This information may
help identify a source of exposure to a disease-causing organism.
Information from the tables reveals that the majority of students
who became ill ate at the Cheep Chicken Hut restaurant and swam
in the lake. This means that students may have eaten contaminated
food at the restaurant. It also raises the possibility that students
became ill by swimming in contaminated water. Consistent with
this new possibility is information contained in the third memo
from the health department director, which mentions that a nearby
community suspects that its water supply is contaminated with
bacteria that cause a stomach-related illness.
7. Activity
maps
These maps show where the various activities associated with the
Battle of the Bands event took place. The final map depicts the
activities attended by students from both schools who later became
ill. This information suggests that the illnesses were related to eating at the Cheep Chicken Hut restaurant or swimming in the lake.
9. Explain that in the next lesson, students will continue in
their roles as members of the investigative team. They will
take charge of another investigation dealing with a community
health problem.
81
Student Lesson 3
Doing Science: The Process of Scientific Inquiry
Lesson 3 Organizer: Web Version
What the Teacher Does
Procedure Reference
Activity 1: Unusual Absences
Explain to students that they will carry out a scientific investigation.
Page 59
They will be working as members of an investigative team from the
Step 1
local community health department.
Pages 59–60
Give each student one copy of Master 3.1, Investigative Report Form.
Step 2
Divide the class into teams of three and direct them to computers.
Page 60
Have students log onto the Web site and click on “Activity 1— Unusual
Step 3
Absences.”
Instruct teams to read the new message and come up with a testable
Pages 60–61
question about the student absences.
Steps 4 and 5
Instruct teams to click on the link to the school district Web site and
Pages 61–62
•
export the attendance data to the community health
Steps 6–9
department Web site,
•
display the data in graphic form,
•
analyze the graphs and record their findings on Master 3.1, and
•
when finished, log off the Web site.
Page 62
Facilitate a class discussion. Focus on the following questions:
Step 10
•
What is the reason for the higher number of absences among
students in band class at Truman and Jackson middle schools?
•
If these absences are due to an illness, do band members from
the two affected schools share the same symptoms?
•
Have band members from the two schools been in contact
with each other?
Activity 2: What’s the Cause?
Explain that teams will continue their investigations, focusing on the
Page 63
questions asked at the end of the previous activity.
Step 1
Give each student one copy of Master 3.1, Investigative Report Form.
Page 63
Instruct students to write down the testable questions asked during
Step 2
the last activity.
Direct each team to a computer and have them log onto the
Page 63
Web site and click on “Activity 2—What’s the Cause?”
Step 3
= Involves copying a master.
82
Instruct teams to
Pages 63–64
•
read the new message,
Steps 4–6
•
read the results of interviews,
•
read the available portions of the parent interviews, and
•
record their findings on Master 3.1.
Instruct teams to compare the two school calendars and record their
Page 64
findings on Master 3.1.
Steps 7 and 8
•
When finished, teams should log off the Web site.
Page 65
Facilitate a class discussion. Focus on the following questions:
Step 9
•
Is there a common reason for the absences of the band
students at Truman and Jackson middle schools?
•
What are possible causes for the student illnesses?
•
How could students from both bands be exposed to a disease-
causing organism at the same time?
•
Assuming that the students from the two bands are suffering
from the same illness, when were they most likely exposed to
the disease-causing organism?
Activity 3: What’s the Source?
Explain that teams will continue their investigations, focusing on the
Page 65
questions asked at the end of the previous activity.
Step 1
Give each student one copy of Master 3.1, Investigative Report Form.
Page 65
Instruct students to write down the testable ques