Tools to Support Model-Based Claims, Evidence, and Reasoning

Jan 30, 2024

See how a second-grade classroom flexibly uses scaffolds to support the co-development of students’ scientific arguments and models. Scaffolds include zoom-in models and a variety of sentence stems that prompt for integration of evidence, reasoning, and/or causal thinking.

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Equity

Scaffolds can promote students’ full participation in scientific activity, like the young students generating and supporting claims rooted inside of developing explanatory models here. This is part of dismantling barriers and gatekeepers that limit who participates in science and how.

Research

Read more about the CER framework (claims, evidence, reasoning) and a fifth-grade example here: McNeill, K. L., & Martin, D. M. (2011). Claims, evidence, and reasoning: Demystifying data during a unit on simple machines. Science and Children, 48(8), 52-56.

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