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Grade 5 Quarter 1 Topic 5: Thinking Like a Scientist

Big Idea 1: The Practice of ScienceBig Idea 2: The Characteristics of Scientific Knowledge

Investigating Evidence

Curriculum overview

Getting kids outside is a great way to inspire curiosity and questions!

This curriculum will help you turn these observations into investigations and encourage kids to draw their own evidence-based conclusions.

Investigating Evidence is part of the BirdSleuth curriculum

developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

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What do you observe?

Pine Rocklands

What do you wonder?

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How could scientists find the answer to this question?

Problem: Vultures eat smelly dead things and scientists wondered how do they find their food–smell or sight?

Let’s read “Vultures: See or Smell?” to find out which process scientists used and want they learned.

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What did the scientists learn?

1. What caused John James Audubon to wonder how vultures find their food?

2. How did he answer his question?

3. Was Audubon’s method experimental or descriptive?

4. How did others test Audubon’s conclusion?

5. Could Audubon have used reference material to answer his question? Why or why not?

6. Could he have used existing data to answer his question? Why or why not?

7. Why is it important that Audubon shared the results of his inquiry?

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Think about a Scientist at Work

Discuss in your group. Be ready to share out.

1. Do you know people who use science in their work?

2. Who are they and what do they do?

3. Start a list in your notebook.

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Meet a Scientist(Investigating Evidence Lesson 2)

Directions: Read your group’s assigned scientist. Discuss it with your group and answer the questions. Draw a picture of what your scientist does.

Group 1: Meet a Scientist – Mike Booth

Group 2: Meet a Scientist – Susan Cook-Patton

Group 3: Meet a Scientist – Marita Davison

Group 4: Meet a Scientist – Anna Savage

Group 5: Meet a Scientist – Taza Schaming

Group 6: Meet a Scientist – Nate Senner

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Meet a Scientist

1. Did the scientist observe something that led him/her to ask a question? If so, what did he or she observe?

2. What did the scientist wonder?

3. What kind of information or data did the scientist collect? How did they collect it?

4. What did this scientist learn as a result of his/her research?

* Draw a picture of what your scientist does.

What did you learn?

1. What types of activities are common to all scientists?

2. What steps are sometimes, but not always, necessary in conducting

scientific research?

– look at reference materials and resource– develop a hypothesis– design an investigation– collect and analyze data

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Think about science labs you’ve done. You can use your lab notes in your notebook. You can use this illustration.

Then draw a concept map of the scientific process.

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Sample

Additional Resource Pages

• Annalisa’s Report pp. 10–11• Hypothesis Help pp.12–13• Variables in Your Experiment pp. 14–15 (“Control” & “Constants” T. G. p. 24)

• Will a Fake Cat Scare Birds? pp. 16–17• Answering Your Scientific Questions pp. 18–23• Graphs of Bird Data p. 24• Graphing My Data pp. 25–29• Sharing My Report pp. 30–32

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