Elementary Science Methods: A Constructivist Approach
Chapter 3: The Processes of Science
 It is far more important for children to master process skills than to learn
facts; and that children should do science the way scientists do.
 In a quality elementary science program, children ask their own questions,
devise their own ways to explore their questions, and develop their own
answers to their questions.
 The Basic Processes:
o Observing
 Because children do not have the wealth of experience that
older children and adults have, it is important for them to begin
obtaining this experiential base. The more observation activities
they perform, the more experiences they will add to their long
term memory stores, thus becoming better able to make
connections with new things they observe.
 The essence of all science is observation. It determines the
procedure and the outcome of any scientific inquiry.
 Observation may be qualitative or quantitative.
o Classifying
 Classifying objects by considering relationships that are
subordinate to a larger group as a whole is called class
inclusion, and this skill is learned during the early concrete
operational stage of cognitive development.
 It is important to note that the ability to sort (or classify) does
not come spontaneously to children; they must be exposed to
the phenomenon. They must be encouraged to do many sorting
activities using many different kinds of things to gain experience
in the skill of classification.
 It is a skill children need to put facts together to form concepts,
and it is essential in identifying variables as children form
hypotheses and design experimental procedures.
o Communicating
 Communication can be defined as any and all was people let
others know their thoughts.
 Communication includes verbal as well as nonverbal behavior,
people communicate by speaking, writing, gesturing, sharing,
drawing, building websites, blogging, telling stories, giving oral
presentations, playacting, pantomiming, singing, puppeteering,
and so on.

Graphs, charts, concept maps, graphic organizers, diagrams,
posters, symbols, maps, and mathematical equations are ways
to communicate data gathered during an investigation.
o Measuring
 Elementary school children measure five basic entities in
science: (1) length, (2) volume, (3) weight or mass, (4)
temperature, and (5) time.
 Length is defined as the distance between two points.
 Volume is the space occupied by a given object.
 Weight is the pull of gravity on something, and mass is the
amount of material in that something.
 The US is one of very few countries that still use the
conventional system. The world of science uses the metric
system.
o Predicting
 A great deal of scientific inquiry begins with predicting the result
of an investigation and then testing to see if the predicted result
occurs.
 Prediction is an individual’s best guess as to what will happen
next in a given situation—what would happen if you did
something.
o Inferring
 Very often, we form conclusions based on inferring, and in
science, inferential reasoning is used extensively.
 Inference is a person’s best guess as to why something
happened.
 In inference we have to guess what caused something to
happen.
 The Integrated Processes
o They are interdependent and almost never taught in isolation.
o They require deeper levels of thought than do the basic skills.
o Many children in early elementary grades are not capable of the
thinking associated with true comprehension of variable identification,
variable isolation, hypothesis formulation and testing, operational
definition, experiment planning and execution, data interpretation, and
model development.
o Identifying and Controlling Variables
 In any scientific investigation, the system we are investigating
will have many variables.
 In many scientific inquiries, we investigate to find out what
causes something to happen—to pinpoint the cause, we must
o
o
o
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keep all the variables constant except the one with which we are
experimenting.
Formulating and Testing Hypotheses
 Hypotheses are formulated about what would happen if you
varied each of several factors.
 A hypotheses is a statement of your best guess as to the
relationship between two variables.
 Hypotheses formulation is different from prediction. In
prediction, we simply ask what would happen if we did
something.
 In hypotheses formulation, we ask what would happen to one
variable if we change an interacting variable.
 When we test hypotheses, we assure ourselves that we have
identified all the variables that we can, have taken steps to
control all except the one we are experimenting with, have
planned what we are going to do to test our hypothesis, and
have identified the information we need to obtain so that we
can make conclusions about our hypothesis.
Interpreting Data
 One of the best ways to organize data for interpretation is to put
the data in visual form, such as a graph, chart, or histogram.
 Interpreting data is not difficult once you have decided what
kind of data you need. However, suppose you don’t know what
kind of data to collect. In that case, you simply tinker with the
activity to get an idea of what is happening, then decide what
you need to find out to be able to answer the question.
 In many life science activities, qualitative data is the only kind
available.
Defining Operationally
 Accurate communication is of paramount importance in
science. It is often necessary to define things in terms of
something that everyone will understand.
 Defining a variable that cannot be measured or seen easily in
terms that everyone understands in the same way is called
defining operationally. This involves finding equivalent ways of
measuring something indirectly that cannot be conveniently
measured directly.
Experimenting
 Experimenting is the scientific process in which the investigator
explores the effect that a change in one variable has on the
change in a different, interacting variable.

Experimenting is different from formulating hypotheses. A
hypothesis is a guess about what might happen if you were to
do something. One variable is identified, and its effect on a
different interacting variable is hypothesized. No methodical
attempt is made to examine the effect of changing one variable
on a possible change in the other variable.
 An experimental plan is developed that includes the procedure,
the nature of the observations needed, and the data to be
collected. The experiment is carried out, and the data is
obtained.
o Constructing Models
 Models are concrete representations of things or phenomena
that we cannot readily see; models focus on key features in
order to explain and predict scientific phenomena.
 One of the difficulties involved in building models is that the
actual spatial relationships often are of such gigantic
proportions that it becomes necessary to compress the
dimensions into something manageable for the model. As a
result, models often are distorted to fit into the space available.
 Models are extremely powerful tools. They present concrete and
visual representations that make lasting impressions. Therefore,
it is vitally important to present models that correctly represent
what they are portraying. It is far more difficult to replace an
erroneous model with the correct one than it is to provide the
correct one in the first place.