Virtual Galápagos
Unit 1 Lesson 1: Observations, Claims, Evidence, and Reasoning and Tortoise 101
Tortoise Curriculum Lesson Plan
Unit 1: Tortoise 101 Unit Plan
1.2 Tortoise Diets Lesson Plan
LEARNING GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:
  • Goal 1: Students will be able to make evidence based claims given a specific, real world scenario.
STANDARDS
Next Generation Science Standards
  • 2-PS1-1: Plan and conduct an investigation to describe and classify different kinds of materials by their observable properties.

KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS
  • Observation: things we safely notice using our five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. When you start, you don’t need to worry about the importance of what you observe, just focus on the first things that come to mind.

  • Claim: a statement that summarizes our ideas. In other words, a claim explains an idea we have about how or why something is the way it is. When we make a claim, we need to back up, or support, our claim by gathering evidence from observations that we make or from other reliable sources.  

  • Evidence: the information, or clues, that will either prove or disprove our claim. You can think of evidence as puzzle pieces that reveal one big picture when we put the pieces together. To gather evidence, we make observations and record them carefully, and we can also collect more evidence from other trustworthy sources. 

  • Reasoning: how we connect our evidence to our claim. If we think about evidence as puzzle pieces and the claim as the final picture we originally thought of, reasoning is like fitting the puzzle pieces together. When we reason, we connect our pieces of evidence to see if they match our original claim.

  • Revision/Revise: what we do after reasoning if some part of our claim does not match our evidence. Sometimes, pieces of our evidence don’t make sense with our claim. If this happens, we have to revise, or change, our claim a little bit until it matches the evidence we gathered. When we revise, we can look for more evidence to make sure that our claim is true.

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS
  • Students should have the basics of argumentation and how to evaluate the appropriateness of evidence.

ADVANCE PREP FOR TEACHER KNOWLEDGE
Humans engage in processes of knowledge exploration and understanding. Claims, Evidence, Reasoning (CER) is a framework that helps us to separate and conceptualize the different parts of these processes. First, we make observations about what is happening around us. From our observations, we can ask a question about what we are experiencing. From there, we make a claim about how or why something is occurring. Then, we collect evidence to see if our claim is true. After collecting evidence, we use reasoning to determine if our evidence supports our claim about what we observed. Initial claims are oftentimes revised after learning new evidence. 
MATERIALS AND SETUP
  • Virtual Galápagos Tortoise 101 module interactive website access
Virtual Galápagos Game
  • Virtual Galápagos Fieldbook access for all worksheets and activities
  • If you want to model the example from the CER video, have a ball and a poster board to make a CER chart, including observations, question, claim, evidence, reasoning, and revise. 
  • If you want to model CER through the “Where am I” game, choose a location that you can act out, such as a track meet or a grocery store.
Download the Unit 1 Worksheets
LESSON SEQUENCE
ENGAGE
  • Game instructions: 
  • To begin, come up with a place that you feel comfortable describing by acting. Some examples include the grocery store, the gym, a track meet, the movie theater, etc. Instruct the students to remain quiet during the game.
  • In front of the students, pantomime the place you have chosen, using only actions and no words.
  • Once a student thinks they know the place you selected, they are allowed to join in the game, adding to the pantomimed scene in the place they believe has been chosen.
  • Once most students, or all students have joined in the game, then you can stop acting and bring students back to the classroom.
  • Using the whiteboard or a poster board, create a chart, similar to page one in the Virtual Galápagos Fieldbook. Start by asking students their observations.
  • Then, ask what questions they have, the main question being “where are you?” Fill in the chart as you go.
  • After gathering the students’ questions, ask them their claims. Their claims should be similar to “I claim you are at a ______.”
  • Once claims are gathered, move on to the evidence portion. Evidence will be similar to their observations.
  • If the place you are acting out is the grocery store, evidence would be like “pushing a cart,” “grabbing items off a shelf,” “scanning items in the checkout line.”
  • Students then add their reasoning as to why their evidence supports their claim.
  • If students’ claim was not the place you were acting out, go over the evidence and reasoning and have students revise their original claim based on the new evidence.
EXPLORE
  • Introduce the Islands Investigation Chart activity
  • Students collect observations when they compare the terrain of Fernandina (the youngest Galápagos Island) and Santa Cruz (one of the older islands) Galápagos islands to start to figure out more about how they are formed.
  • Students use the investigation chart to record their observations about a set of Galápagos terrain images.
  • Worksheet title: Islands Investigation Chart
  • Students watch a video asking questions about the Islands Investigation Chart
  • Students watch a video to transition to thinking about island ages and how that helps explain more about how they formed.
EXPLAIN
  • Students fill out the CER worksheet based on their experiences playing the “Where am I” game or using the example in the CER video (link above). 
ELABORATE
  • Teacher discusses with students how they understood the worksheet:
  • Also, the teacher should ask students to explain their thinking.
  • Teachers should break down each of the new terms in the chart with the students, to assess the students’ comprehension.
  • At this point, the teacher may need to guide students to help them organize their thoughts systematically into the CER framework (see the differentiation section below for ideas).
EVALUATE
  • Apply the CER framework to the tortoise shell mystery, posed in the following introductory video:
  • Students can then explore photos of both domed and saddleback tortoises:
  • Finally, instruct students to make a claim that could potentially explain or partially explain our shell shape mystery. Students can record their claims in their scientific field notes page:
DIFFERENTIATION
  • This lesson is intended to be done as a collaborative group effort. However, whether it is done in small groups, as a class, or individually is up to the discretion of the teacher(s). 
  • If done in small groups, one student from each group could be given a place to act out. Additionally, teachers can provide students with printed or electronic versions of the pre-made CER chart for guided support in their documentation throughout the lesson. 
  • Teachers may also elect to create a larger version of the CER chart on a poster board or on a large whiteboard, for example, to record and work through the lesson as a larger group. 
  • The teacher can write down student thoughts or students can place sticky notes on the poster board in their intended spaces. Another idea would be to provide students with pre-made cut outs of text and instruct students to place them in their intended places on the CER chart.
  • Finally, teachers can opt to provide students with images or ask students to draw images that can represent the CER process and again can be recorded in the chart. 
  • Grouping for all activities is flexible and up to the teacher’s discretion. 
  • Students can complete activities by drawing pictures to represent their thinking rather than writing. 
  • All Fieldbook activities can be accessed electronically or the teacher can print copies for students. 
  • Additionally, Fieldbook worksheets can be edited by teachers and students for increased accessibility.
ASSESSMENT
  • While moving through the Virtual Galápagos Tortoise modules, teachers can assess their students’ grasp on using the CER framework by collecting and evaluating each student’s field notes page that accompanies each module (throughout and/or at the end of each module).

This unit was designed by Ashley Vescio and Shannon Jedreicich, and edited by Ava Wojtaszek and Sarah Jekel.

You can download the lesson plan here:
Observations, CER, and Tortoise 101 Lesson Plan

Virtual Galápagos
virtualgalapagos.colgate.edu
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