Our teacher, Kim, taught in a suburban public school. She had a split 4th/5th grade classroom. While her fifth graders had science elsewhere, Kim's fourth graders explored electric circuits. Kim's fourth graders had a passionate discussion about batteries and why there were positive and negative terminals. In the process they were spontaneously engaged in real scientific practice: reasoning, arguing, and bringing evidence to bear as they tried to understand the battery.

Although the video on this page does not showcase students coming to the same understanding of a circuit that scientists have, the principles illustrated in this case study are applicable to contexts in which students have access to information/data/observations that will allow a teacher and her class to engage in similar scientific practices toward an understanding of disciplinary core ideas. A comprehensive discussion of scientific practice is available in Chapter 3 of the NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education.

As you watch the first video, look for students' ideas and reasoning.

Video 1: Students discuss batteries.

Examining Video 1. What is Ashton's rationale for why the bulb has two places that must be connected into the circuit? What are the arguments that the students have on whether positive and negative energies mix in the battery? What does Kalos suggest to move their quandary forward?

A few days later, Kim's students shared diagrams of circuits they had constructed, and provided explanations for how they worked. Snippets of this are shown in Video 2.

Video 2: Students discuss batteries.

Examining Video 2. What scientific practices are the students engaged in? What ideas are the students proposing and grappling with as they engage in these practices?

In both videos, what are some examples of how Kim is responsive to students' ideas and facilitates the discussion to keep it moving forward in a scientific way?

Delving deeper. Click here to delve deeper into these discussions.