The beginning of the school year is a great time to emphasize the nature of science. Everyone has their favorite discrepant event or demo to get those brains thinking about how science works. The Data Dilemma© provides an added bonus as it can be used at other times throughout the year and provides connections to literacy skills when used with science articles.
Your students experience what scientists face when new data calls for a revision of their current model or explanation. Using foam tangram pieces, students change their working model to accommodate new data you provide in the form of a new shape. Students uncover more than one answer while puzzling out their solutions providing the class a chance to discuss how to resolve multiple explanations or models.
Once students experience what it is like to shift their successful model to accommodate new information, apply this thinking to consider issues in science that have undergone similar revisions such as nutrition, sunscreen, impacts of smoking, or structure of molecules like DNA. You could also ask students to read a science article or transcript from a short video and highlight when the researchers changed their method or model when new data became available. This way, students discover that the practice of science is an ongoing process that includes collaboration and revision.
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