If you had to guess, what do you think elementary students think of when they hear the word "argument"?
I bet most would think about angry disagreements, maybe with yelling, crying - the works. Those kind of arguments are unpleasant experiences that usually don't resolve anything.
It often surprises students to hear that scientists create "arguments" all the time - but it's not the kind they might think! We can help them understand the difference and the benefits of scientific arguments.
Here are some activities your can use to get your students on the path of productive, evidence-based science arguments:
💬 Agree or Disagree: this is a solid first step at helping students evaluate claims. A logical statement might not always be accurate or true - it's all about the evidence to back it up.
You can get started by using "Agree or disagree" questions to introduce a new concept. For example, if you watch salt dissolve in water: did the salt truly disappear?
It also makes a great questioning technique as a review. For example: do you agree with a student's claim that air does not have mass?
The important follow-up question here, of course, is "Why?" This will bring them back to supporting evidence.
💬 Collecting Evidence: the next time your students work on an investigation or lab, try presenting it as an evidence-gathering opportunity.
For example, if you're rolling marbles down ramps made of different surfaces (ex: sand paper, felt, Saran wrap), have the students make a claim at the beginning of the investigation. One claim might be, "the surface of the ramp will not change the rate that the marble moves."
This gives students purpose as they collect information! Then, when they're done, students can revisit their claim. Does it stand up in the face of the evidence?
They can start with a prompt like, "My original claim was/was not accurate because..." This is excellent practice for more advanced Claim-Evidence-Response (CER) tasks that students will encounter in middle school.
💬 Not All Facts are Created Equal: One way to build the critical thinking students need to make good arguments is by having them evaluate evidence.
At first, this might look like asking students to distinguish between fact and opinion.
You can feed learners several statements that they must categorize as fact or opinion. Is the statement "plants are easy for a person to grow in the garden" a fact?
The next step is to show them that, in an argument, their facts need to support the claim they're making. If the claim is, "Plants support life on Earth," and the fact is, "Gardening saves money," does that fact support the claim? Hint: this thought exercise is also great for ELA skills because it helps students write better paragraphs!
💬 Being (Respectfully) Critical: Once students get good at making claims and collecting evidence, bring on the peer interactions! But be ready; young students need a lot of structure to get this right.
For example, let's say groups of students collect information about the rolling marbles from the earlier example. Next, you would split the groups up to meet with members from other groups. Each student then shares their "best fact" from their own experiment.
After the student shares their best fact, the group members can follow prompts like, "Does this fact support the claim we made?" or "What is something else I want to know about the experiment?" Tell them they'll be talking like real scientists!
Hope some of these ideas get your students on the path to building strong arguments. It will really help them become critical thinkers later on!