OpenSciEd Unit 8.3 · Lesson 03 · 3.A
Look for: If the energy moves through the air, then we…
From Teacher Edition
Facilitation guidance from the lesson plan — what to notice in student thinking and how to respond while teaching.
Building towards
3.A Develop and test a set of hypotheses to produce evidence that energy can transfer between magnets without transferring through matter, causing the magnets to move.
What to look / listen for
Students may not yet be using the word hypothesis, but this is what they are building in Framing Hypotheses. Look for students who are mixing up what goes in each of the columns, such as these examples:
- If the energy moves through the air, then we will observe the air moving.
- If I see the air moving, then we will observe the flag wave.
If I see the flag waving, then we will observe that the energy moves through the air…
What to do
These are logical ways to state a hypothesis, but they do not fit the structure of the scaffold as the class has been using it. In addition, use if/then statements to describe the cause-effect relationship, rather than the mechanistic explanation indicated by the cause-effect statement could set students up for difficulty understanding the distinction between a hypothesis and a prediction (see the Lesson 1 teacher reference, Using Cause-Effect Scaffolds to Support Science and Engineering Practices). Use probing questions to clarify the purpose of the scaffold. Ask these students, Is this a change you can actually make to the system? If not, does it belong in this column? Is this an effect that we can actually observe or an effect that is maybe invisible?
Display slide E. Have students turn to a new page in their notebooks and write the question on the slide: What cause-effect relationship(s) do we predict we will observe if this explanation is true? Under the question, they should paste Framing Hypotheses. Give students another five minutes to work with a partner to come up with two cause-effect statements before moving everyone into a Scientists Circle.✱
Supporting emergent multilinguals
It can be very helpful for all students, and particularly emergent multilinguals, to break down compound words like electromagnet. Ask students to reason about the first part of the word by asking, What does “electro” sound like? What other words have you heard that sound like that? Students will probably say "electricity." Encourage students to consider and suggest cognate words in other languages as well, such as electricidad (Spanish), électricité (French), elektrichestvo (Russian transliteration), or Elektrizität (German). Then summarize the idea of putting both words together, "electricity" and "magnet", to make a single compound word that indicates that this is a different kind of magnet than a permanent magnet in that it needs electricity in order to become a magnet (cause and effect).