Teaching activity - Magnet investigation
This resource for level 1–2 students illustrates how to critique evidence using a magnet investigation.
About this resource
This resource illustrates how an item (Magnet investigation) from the Assessment Resource Bank can be adapted to provide opportunities for students to strengthen their science capability by critiquing evidence.
Teaching activity: Magnet investigation
Learning focus
Students ask questions to evaluate the trustworthiness of data.
Learning activity
This item from the Assessment Resource Bank requires students to transfer data from a chart to a bar graph and answer the question, “Which magnet is the strongest?” In its current form, this item assesses students’ ability to create a bar graph and read it to answer a question. It could be easily adapted to provide an opportunity for students to strengthen their capability to critique evidence.
Ask the students what questions they would want answered if they had to decide whether or not they could trust the data they have been given and why these questions are important. For example:
- How did Jay design her investigation? (This is important because we need to know something about how data is gathered to know whether we can trust it.)
- How many times did Jay test each magnet? (This is important because multiple trials give more reliable data.)
- Did she test each one in the same way? (It is important to control all the variables except the one being tested.)
- Were the paper clips all the same sort? (This is also about controlling variables.)
To evaluate the trustworthiness of the data, students need to know quite a lot about the qualities of scientific tests, so they know what questions to ask. It is not enough just to know how to do a “fair test”; students need to know why protocols such as repeated trials, controlling variables, accurate measurements, etc. are important.
Developing an appreciation of how evidence in science is generated supports students becoming 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?
Do students understand that how the data is gathered affects the trustworthiness of the data?
Do they know what questions to ask?
Are they developing a “sceptical disposition” towards evidence? (Do they question knowledge claims rather than simply accepting them as true?)
This adaptation could be used in any context where a knowledge claim is being made. Science fairs would provide a rich context.
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