Students in our project spontaneously offered rich models of causes and effects. Sometimes teachers would ask questions that prompted models, but often students' modeling seemed motivated by their own desire to figure out how phenomena occur.

Sometimes a model was picked up by the class, discussed, modified, kept, or discarded. At other times, a model was not picked up by the class. There were a variety of reasons why this might happen, including classroom distractions, greater interest in some other idea or aspect of the science session, or because the teacher directed the conversation towards another path.

During the exploration of the water cycle, students naturally offered many models for evaporation. Some examples are presented here.

In Kerri's 5^th grade class, students quickly responded to "What happened to the puddle?" with responses along the lines of "Evaporation from the sun!" Kerri pressed the students to do more thinking by asking them to consider what happens when the sun shines on a single tiny drop of water.

The video below shows responses from two students. It's interesting to note that without specific prompting the students easily responded in an explanatory way that included cause, effect, and reasoning. You might want to view the transcripts or print them for note taking and reference.

Video 1
 

Twelve days later Angel offered another model for evaporation. This time he used the behavior of old people and young children as analogies to help him express his ideas.

Video 2

Examining the video. Before moving on, spend some time examining the video and transcripts for student ideas. What are the boys' models? In what ways are the models scientific or not scientific? What are some next moves Kerri could make to be responsive to the boys? After some initial examination, click here to delve deeper.