Teaching activity – Rolling marbles
This resource for level 1–2 students illustrates how to gather and interpret data using rolling marbles.
About this resource
This resource illustrates how an Assessment Resource Bank item (Marbles II) can be adapted to provide opportunities for students to strengthen their science capability by gathering and interpreting data.
Teaching activity - Rolling marbles
Curriculum Links
Level 1 and 2
Nature of Science: Investigating in science
Students will:
- extend their experiences and personal explanations of the natural world through exploration, play, asking questions, and discussing simple models.
Level 1 and 2
Physical World: Physical enquiry and physics concepts
Students will:
- explore everyday examples of physical phenomena such as movement, forces, electricity, magnetism, light, sound, waves, and heat.
Learning focus
Students develop the science capability, gather and interpret data by closely observing patterns in data and making inferences based on their observations.
Learning activity
The Assessment Resource Bank item: Rolling marbles II supports students ability to notice patterns in data collected from their own investigation. As part of the investigation, they roll marbles down a ramp onto two different surfaces, one smooth and the other rough. They mark the stopping point for each run with a coloured sticker. This provides a visual picture of the pattern of the data.
The Assessment Resource Bank item: Rolling marbles II focuses students’ attention on both observation and inference, but asking the questions orally in a group situation is likely to elicit a broader range of responses than a written response.
Question a) asks students to describe what they notice about the pattern. In this initial activity, discourage students from making inferences; just ask them to describe what they can see. To encourage students to just talk about what they see, ask them to:
- start their descriptions with, "On the rough surface…" and/or "On the smooth surface …"
- describe the whole pattern as well as individual points
- compare the patterns of dots on the different surfaces.
Before going on to questions b) and c) ask students what they think could be the reasons for the patterns they have described. To do this, they will need to make inferences based on the data they have collected. Students will be making meaning based on their observations of the patterns (interpreting the data). Focus on how the students justify their ideas.
The Teacher's Guide provides examples of the sorts of responses that students make and suggestions for next learning steps.
Scientific evidence includes systematic observations (direct and indirect) of the natural physical world. Scientists put effort into ensuring they have robust data and that their observations are accurate and reliable. This often involves measuring something and doing so multiple times.
Organising observational data so the patterns are easier to see (for example, in graphs and tables) is an important part of scientific investigations and contributes to the science capability to interpret representations.
Developing an appreciation of what counts as evidence in science supports students efforts to become scientifically literate, that is, to participate as critical, informed, and responsible citizens in a society in which science plays a significant role. This is the purpose of science in The 2007 New Zealand Curriculum.
What are we looking for?
When you ask, "What do you see?"
- Do students limit their answers to things that are observable?
- How much detail do they include?
- Do they describe the overall pattern as well as the individual measurements?
When you ask, "What do you think?"
- Do students support their ideas with their observations?
- Do they draw on a number of observations to support their ideas?
- Do their explanations relate to the overall pattern?
- Do they recognise that the data may include irrelevant outliers?
Activities that involve students measuring how far an object will travel under different conditions could be adapted to use this measurement strategy, providing further opportunities for students to learn to identify patterns in the data they collect. For example, students can investigate the effect of the angle of a slope on how fast a marble travels or compare marbles with other balls, like metal ball bearings.
Students could also investigate other games that incorporate forces (in the marble run, gravity and friction are involved).
The Assessment Resource Banks item, Light in my eyes, is an investigation of the pattern of light bouncing off mirrors.
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