BioKIDS: A Curricular Approach to Teaching Biodiversity through
Inquiry in Technology-Rich Environments
Anne Huber, Nancy Songer
University of Michigan, School of Education
&
Soo-Young Lee
TERC
Abstract: BioKIDS is a technology-rich curricular program that was designed to
teach upper elementary students about biodiversity through inquiry. An interdisciplinary
team of educators and scientists developed the curriculum. This team first conceived of
content, inquiry, and technology learning goals that would meet the objectives of the
curriculum: be an inquiry based curriculum, accommodate the desired audience, utilize
technology-rich media, reflect national, state, and local science standards, and involve
real world issues. These goals were manifested in an eight-week, four-part curriculum,
with an instructional model following a modified learning cycle (Atkin & Karplus, 1962).
After the first version was developed and tested through empirical research in schools,
the curriculum has faced two additional rounds of research-based iterative design.
Introduction
The BioKIDS (Kids' Inquiry of Diverse Species) program is a technology-rich, inquiryfocused biodiversity curriculum customized to the particular needs of urban lateelementary students. Many studies have provided a research foundation on the issues of
developing inquiry curricula, use of technology, and the ideals of inquiry based learning
(NRC 2000; White & Frederiksen 1998; Krajcik et al. 2000). Research based iterative
refinements of inquiry based curricular programs yield understanding of some of the
complex issues including: fostering inquiry for all students, including those in high
poverty urban environments (Songer, Lee, and McDonald, in press; Songer, Lee, and
Kam, 2002), designing curricula around an authentic science problem (Lee and Songer,
in press), and assessing middle school students inquiry skills (Jeong, Songer, and Lee,
submitted).
BioKIDS is a collaborative effort between the University of Michigan School of
Education, the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, the Detroit Public Schools
(DPS), the Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools (LeTUS), and Michigan’s
Information Technology Central Services. This interdisciplinary team has enabled
BioKIDS to develop a strong inquiry based curriculum with content input from ecology
experts, and offer teacher support through weekend workshops and in class support.
This paper focuses on the initial BioKIDS curriculum development and two subsequent
revisions. When each version of BioKIDS was implemented in a classroom setting, data
were collected such as field notes, teacher feedback, student worksheets and pre- and
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post-tests. Using this information, the curriculum was revised to reach a closer
approximation of learning theory with each version.
Theoretical Framework
Unlike traditional curricula that often focus only on content learning, the design of the
BioKIDS curriculum embeds three important types of learning goals: content, inquiry
and technology. Every activity in this curriculum has been written, evaluated and revised
based on these three kinds of learning goals. The new standards, such as National
Science Education Standards [NSES] (National Research Council [NRC], 1996) and
Benchmarks (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 1993), are
clear about the importance of inquiry in teaching and learning. Moreover, research has
shown that the inquiry-based curriculum can foster rich and robust content learning (e.g.,
Von Secker & Lissitz, 1999; Songer, Lee, & Kam, 2002; Edelson, 2001). Learning
focused technology is another important feature in the BioKIDS curriculum. According
to NRC (2000), one important goal of scientific inquiry is for “technology used to gather
data enhance accuracy and allow scientists to analyze and quantify results of
investigations (p.20).” Furthermore, technology provides unique means of implementing
inquiry theories (Tinker & Krajcik, 2001).
Another important influence was the research-based instructional models proposed by
others to foster inquiry thinking and deep conceptual understandings of science content.
The BioKIDS instructional model became a revised version of an inquiry learning cycle
(Atkin & Karplus, 1962, Bybee et al. 1989): engage, explore, explain, and synthesize, a
learning sequence customized towards scaffolded inquiry knowledge development. The
synthesize step differs from other instructional models with the synthesis of the
information encompassing the application of knowledge to achieve understanding, not
just communicating the findings (Songer, in preparation). Translating learning theories
into practice is a complex process. It is necessary to implement iterative changes over
several versions of the curriculum to achieve the theory in practice. In this inquiry
sequence, students are encouraged to explore ideas through the collection, analysis, and
interpretation of their own data on schoolyard biodiversity.
Curriculum Development Cycle
This paper is a chronicle of the cycle of evolution of the BioKIDS curriculum from
Version 1 through Version 3. This cycle of research driven enactments is an on going
process guided by learning theories and classroom research on student learning of content
and inquiry. Figure 1 shows the five steps in the Research-Driven Curriculum
Development Cycle that have been followed for all three versions. The cycle has been
developed for the convenience of presentation. Within the cycle, development evolved to
adjust and accommodate students’ outcomes, teachers needs, learning goals and
availability of technological resources.
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Step 1: Audience
Understand the
population and system in
which the curriculum will
be implemented.
Step 2: Big Picture
Define the educational
learning goals, global
content, and supporting
technologies.
Research-Driven
Curriculum
Development
Cycle
Step 5: Research Based
Implementation
Gather research data.
Step 3: Learning
Identify key science
content concepts and
inquiry skills through the
analysis of standards and
assessments, and research
results.
Step 4: Systematicity
Develop curricular
activities and define
sequence.
Figure 1: Research-Driven Curriculum Development Cycle
BioKIDS Version One
The BioKIDS team consists of experts in education, zoology, and educational
technology, with some people holding expertise in more than one discipline. A middle
school teacher and an elementary school science coordinator joined the team in the
development of Version 1. This section will discuss how the initial version of the
BioKIDS curriculum was created. The activities of Version 1 were carefully created and
sequenced to reflect what has been learned through previous inquiry research. The goals
of Version 1 research based implementation included obtaining a general idea of student's
inquiry thinking, knowledge in the area of biodiversity, and technology competence.
Version 1, Step 1: Audience
A crucial first step is the understanding of the target audience (both teachers and
students). Previous work with the same urban population led to the understanding that
many students lacked inquiry skills and content knowledge of the domain (Jeong, Songer,
& Lee, submitted). Concerning inquiry, students had difficulty recognizing what kinds of
evidence are relevant to their questions. Students also had difficulty differentiating
explanations from evidence and formulating explanations from data. An important
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outcome of this research was the realization that inquiry-fostering curricula should
specifically guide students in inquiry skills such as explanation formulation. Teachers in
the target schools often do not have science backgrounds and the turn over rate is high
adding additional challenges. A major goal of the new BioKIDS curricula was to work
with 5th graders to build "inquiry readiness” (Songer & Myers, 2000) necessary for
advanced/complex inquiry and scientific concepts in middle school science. The
BioKIDS program will become the initial inquiry program in a four-year inquiry
sequence offered through the LeTUS program.
Version 1, Step 2: Big Picture
The interdisciplinary team worked on three types of big picture ideas: educational
learning goals, science content, and technology to support learning.
Learning Goals: Initial goals were general and included the following:
 Science: Students will develop understanding of biodiversity concepts.
 Inquiry: Promote student inquiry in early years (late elementary) and have students
engage in first-hand data collection, exploration, explanation, and synthesis of ideas.
 Technology: Utilize technology as a tool to foster students’ content and inquiry
understandings.
Science: Young children have a natural interest in nature and animals, leading to a strong
foundation for the development of biodiversity concepts of animal species, habitat,
adaptation and interaction. Previous research has shown that children often lack critical
thinking skills related to the complexities of animals’ lives and their interaction with
surrounding environments. Furthermore, research has shown that children often display
many alternative concepts related to food and energy, and predator/pray relationship,
population size (Leach, Driver, Scott and Wood-Robinson, 1992). While rich curricular
programs exist in the complex domain of biodiversity at the undergraduate or high school
level (e.g., Coleman, Rivkin and Brown, 1997; Passmore and Stewart, 2002; Sandoval
and Reiser, 1998), inquiry-based curricular materials are rare for the late-elementary age
group, despite emphasis in the science standards (NRC, 1996). Many current activities
for elementary students oversimplify concepts, and inquiry is limited to observation or
classification of animals based on physical characteristics (Barrett, K. & Willard, C.,
1998). Activities rarely address relationships between animals and habitats/
environments or guide students in the development of advanced concepts like adaptation
and conservation beyond simple isolated facts of individual animals.
Technology: Often technological tools can play an important role as a scaffolding tool to
aid the learning of complex science (Bransford et al., 1999; Metz, 1997). The BioKIDS
team chose two technological resources for redesign, following design principles and
towards the fostering of complex reasoning with biodiversity concepts (Jones, Parr,
Songer, 2002).
Handheld technology: CyberTracker was developed for African animal trackers
(http://www.cybertracker.org), enabling them to easily record species and habitat
information in the field. The interface was designed to be a simple, icon-based data entry
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tool that runs on a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). Design principles guided the
development of a data entry sequence appropriate for fifth graders and BioKIDS learning
goals.
There were several reasons why handheld technology was considered an appropriate
inquiry-fostering tool for BioKIDS. First, a major learning goal of BioKIDS is the
collection of field data from the schoolyard and analyzing the data to share with others.
Portability of a data collection device between the field and the classroom and the
transferability of data to analyze and share with others were two important
functionalities. In addition, the economic affordability of handheld computers allows a
wider audience to use more technology in a larger set of learning contexts (Tinker &
Krajcik, 2001; Soloway, et al. 1999).
Web-based database: The Animal Diversity Web (ADW)
(http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu) is a database containing information on the
natural history, distribution, classification, and conservation biology of animals. An
essential feature of the ADW project is the authoring of species accounts by and for
undergraduate students. The translation of these accounts into a database suitable for use
by late elementary students proved to be a challenging process requiring many levels of
translation (see Lee and Songer, in press). Translation challenges included translating
concepts in a way that reduces the amount of text presented to basic-level users without
content dilution, using simpler organization of species accounts, enhancing more visual
information, and substituting familiar species names for Latin scientific names. While
many levels of translation were began, the fifth grade-appropriate version of ADW,
which we called the Critter Catalog, was not complete until after Version 1.
Version 1, Step 3: Learning
During this cycle, several sources were consulted to determine content and inquiry goals.
Primary ideas were drawn from learning theory and science education research, including
the work of Brown & DeLoache (1978); Vogotsky (1978); and James Stewart (Passmore
& Stewart, 2002). In addition BioKIDS looked to national, state and district science
education standards (DPS Science Core Curriculum Outcomes, 2000; Michigan
Curriculum Framework Science Benchmarks, 2000; National Science Education
Standards, 1996, 2000) to identify concepts related to biodiversity including physical and
behavioral characteristics of animal body parts, habitat, adaptation, food web,
classification, human interaction, and conservation. Although the target audience was
late-elementary students, standards at various levels were examined to gain a better
understanding of the scope and the sequence of related concepts. Textbooks, published
materials, and Internet resources for 4 –6th graders on this topic of biodiversity were also
reviewed (Barrett, K. & Willard, C., 1998; Fletcher, Lawson, and Rawitsher-Kunkel,
1970).
BioKIDS scientists emphasized that students needed to be able to understand ways to
measure biodiversity, including abundance, species richness, taxonomic group richness,
and evenness. Because biodiversity measurement is not a common inquiry activity for
this age group, simplifying the complexity of this concept became a focus of the first
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research based implementation. For the subsequent versions of BioKIDS, this concept
was simplified and introduced earlier in the curricular sequence. Without collaboration
with scientists, this important concept in biodiversity would not be the primary focus of
inquiry activities.
Identification of key inquiry skills were largely guided by the National Research
Council’s inquiry framework (NRC, 2000). Subsequent revisions mostly focused on
balancing the amount of scaffolding the target students need (e.g., student-directed
learning vs. teacher/curriculum guided learning, scaffolding of support materials),
sequence of the curricula activities that best promote inquiry, and the realities of the
urban classrooms. Like Shavelson, Baxter and Pine (1991), the BioKIDS program was
designed to have a strong relationship between assessment and curriculum development.
Thus, the assessment development became an important goal.
Early development resulted in the realization that the BioKIDS program needed to adapt
certain key parts of scientists’ practice, although it was unclear at the beginning which
parts (Lee and Songer, in press). While testing the usability of the handheld technology
(i.e., CyberTracker), it was found that kids were very excited to take on the role of a real
African Safari Tracker, such as Aren (meaning an eagle) or Faraji (a fire icon). To
support students’ collaboration and interactions in a small group, specific social norms
were introduced to the students. For example, students were encouraged (1) to contribute
to the group’s efforts and help others contribute, (2) to give reasons for group ideas, (3) to
work to understand other’s ideas, and (4) to build on one another’s ideas. BioKIDS
designed four roles for students in teams: Macro Observer, Micro Observer, Mapper, and
Tracker — with a brief job description for each role. These student teams have been
maintained in all versions of the curriculum.
Version 1, Step 4: Systematicity
Once a shell of the BioKIDS curricula was developed, the interdisciplinary team
collaborated on revisions, including a look at the role of technology and activity
sequence. The technology team developed a preliminary version of CyberTracker to
complement the curriculum. The Critter Catalog was still under development, so the
Animal Diversity Web was used for this version.
In the development of content and activity sequence, two concepts became important.
First a set of activities that allowed field-based data collection. Second, the BSCS model
(i.e., engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate; Bybee, et al 1989) was initially
adopted to guide the curriculum sequence design. In later versions this was adapted into
the four steps: engage, explore, explain, and synthesize.
Although it was envisioned that the full BioKIDS program would be an 8-week program
like KGS, Version 1 was a test of only 4-weeks of the program. These 4-weeks of
activities focused on local animals that students would find in their schoolyard towards a
basic understanding of animals, habitat, and interactions between organisms and
environments. The inquiry sequence for the four-week Version 1 is shown below (Table
1).
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Component
Engage
Explore
Explain
Curriculum
Students explore their school yard and collect/observe invertebrates. They also examine
invertebrate photos to look at structure/function and the large variety of species in the
world.
Students use the CyberTracker program to collect data from their schoolyard, including
animal survey data and habitat data. Schoolyard maps are created with the sightings.
Students analyze the data collected and determine which area of the schoolyard has the
highest biodiversity by looking at the richness, abundance, and evenness of animals.
Table 1: Version 1 curricular activities mapped to learning sequence.
The structure of each activity was guided by previous research on the design of the
inquiry-based curricula. Each BioKIDS activity includes learning goals, exploring
questions, content & inquiry standards (both national and state), recommended timeline
and materials, and description of related concepts for teachers. In addition, sample
student responses were included to support teachers learning and practice. This approach
is resonant with the idea of “educative curriculum” that Ball and Cohen (1996) propose
as a means to improve instruction and to use curriculum as a more effective reform agent.
To develop a curriculum that can support teacher’s learning and practice, an educative
curriculum should provide examples of students’ work. This structure has been used in
all versions of BioKIDS.
Version 1, Step 5: Research Based Implementation
Version 1 was implemented in three 5th grade classrooms that were different along
several dimensions including population and location (urban/suburban). The research
team assembled necessary materials in a kit including microscopes, forceps, insect
collection box, and PDAs for each class. Two graduate students were assigned to each
school to aid teachers in implementing the curriculum and to collect field data for
research. In addition, science team members also visited the school. Besides providing
indicative evidence for teachers and administrators about their students’ achievement, pre
and post-program assessment provided the development team with information about
which part of the curriculum led to strong learning outcomes. Along with written
assessment data, classroom observation data and sample students’ notebooks were
collected to gain a better understanding of curriculum implementation.
The goals of the Version 1 research based implementation were: to find out whether the
content of the curriculum was age appropriate, the activities were too complex, and
whether inquiry was fostered. Analysis of the materials gathered during this research
based implementation gave the team great insight into how to proceed with the
curriculum revision process. Although Version 1 was designed to be implemented in a
four-week period, it actually ran eight weeks. Regarding content, results indicated that
next versions should limit the number of new concepts introduced in order to encourage
inquiry outcomes. With respect to technology, the Animal Diversity Web was too
complex for this age group and needed to be replaced with an appropriate version of the
on line animal database. The CyberTracker program also needed to be simplified and
focused to encourage inquiry.
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Evolution of the Curriculum from Version One to Version Two
A curriculum revision team consisting of five educational researchers and one technology
liaison interfaced regularly with a larger team of 15 education and zoology experts. The
larger meetings were used to facilitate the development of both the content flow of the
curriculum, and inquiry, content, and technology learning goals. Version 1 research
concerning simplification of content was critical in this revision. In addition, the
improvement in learning (Step 3) including focusing on fewer concepts to allow for
students to gain a deeper understanding of the material, and systematicity (Step 4), or
moving closer to following the inquiry model, were central to this revision. Following
the development of Version 2, the research based implementation focused on testing
content, sequence, and technology suitability for this age group.
Version 2, Step 1: Audience
Version 1 research showed that it would be necessary to simplify both the content and
technology for the urban fifth graders. Content improvements are discussed under the
Big Picture step below. Regarding technology, the completion of the age appropriate
animal database, the Critter Catalog, allowed for a variety of curriculum additions and
improvements. Secondly, the CyberTracker sequence was both simplified and realigned
with the curriculum (Parr, Jones & Songer, 2002).
Version 2, Step 2: Big Picture
The education and science teams spent many hours discussing which content areas were
of greatest importance, and were assessable for a fifth grade audience through the inquiry
approach. Research on Version 1 gave the team a better view of what amount of material
could be covered in an eight week time period in order to foster deep understanding. A
theme of biodiversity remained the focus with students acquiring knowledge in the areas
of animal grouping or classification, unique animal features, habitat, animal interactions,
and food webs to gain a full appreciation of the concepts. A student team experiment
replaced the original plan of students looking at global biodiversity data, following
schoolyard data collection. The education team used this information to develop content,
inquiry, and technology learning goals for each activity in the curriculum. Table 2 shows
an example of these for one activity. This interdisciplinary product was the cornerstone
on which Versions 2 and 3 of the curriculum were built.
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Content
Inquiry
Technology
• Students will learn about the concepts of
abundance, richness and biodiversity.
• Students will identify and describe various
habitats in the schoolyard.
• Understand the role of microhabitat in
supporting different species.
• Students will be able to use their
observations and data to describe the
abundance and richness of different species in
their schoolyard.
• Students will examine the concept of
biodiversity in the schoolyard using the data
they have collected.
• Students engage in a
question provided by the
teacher, materials, or other
source.
• Students directed to collect
certain data.
• Students guided in the
process of formulating
explanations from evidence.
• Students coached in
development of
communication.
• Students use PDAs for
efficient and effective data
collection.
Table 2: Example of learning goals.
The new synthesis activity, the team experiment, would encompass the concepts of
biodiversity, use of technology, and knowledge about animal groups that students learned
throughout the curriculum. The development of answerable questions is an important
inquiry skill (N.R.C. 2000), however, upper elementary students do not yet have the
experience to take on this challenging task, and so experimental questions were provided.
In addition to the experiment, an observation skill building activity was added as the
curriculum engage activity to increase students awareness and interest in the life of their
schoolyard, and introduce them to field research tools (binoculars, magnifying glasses,
collection tools). Building on the students individual reports, two additional activities
were added to examine concepts such as predator/prey, competition, and reproduction,
energy flow, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, producers, consumers, decomposers,
generalists, specialists, and reintroduced species. First, the curriculum guided student
pairs in making comparisons between their animals’ needs, followed by the creation of a
class food web using the animals researched by the students.
Version 2, Step 3: Learning
Many iterations are necessary so that the curriculum will meet the content knowledge
level and inquiry readiness level of the students. Version 1 introduced four measures of
biodiversity including abundance, species richness, taxonomic group richness, and
evenness, requiring students to be fluent in both animal species and animal groups in a
complex way. Version 1 research with this age group suggested that simplification was
necessary, so the measures of biodiversity were reduced to only abundance and richness.
The development of the Critter Catalog allowed for additional scaffolding to be
introduced with respect to individual student animal reports. During the implementation
of Version 1, the report scaffolding was limited to a few suggestions written on the
blackboard. In Version 2, this was expanded to a worksheet addressing several
categories of information about each animal including what they look like, where they
live, what do they eat, what eats them, how do they behave and communicate, how do
they reproduce, and how they interact with humans. This additional guidance was used
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to introduce the late elementary students to research skills that would be valuable
throughout life.
Version 2, Step 4: Systematicity
In Version 2 and 3 of BioKIDS, a modified version of the Atkin & Karplus/BSCS inquiry
sequence was adopted: engage, explore, explain, and synthesize. Table 3 shows how the
content from this version fits this sequence.
Component
Engage
Explore
Examine
Synthesize
Curriculum
Students go outside to look at their schoolyard as a place for animals to live. They are
also introduced to both CyberTracker and the Critter Catalog.
Students collect and observe invertebrates. They also collect animal survey and habitat
data on each zone of the schoolyard.
Students look at the data collected and determine which area of the schoolyard has the
highest biodiversity with respect to both richness and abundance.
Students use the knowledge that they learned about biodiversity, invertebrates and data
collection and apply it to their own experiments.
Table 3: Version 2 curricular activities mapped to learning sequence.
In Version 1, the concept of biodiversity was introduced and applied during the data
analysis of the schoolyard animal survey data. This one time exposure to a difficult
concept was not sufficient to build a fluid understanding of the terms, so that students
could apply them to other situations. In Version 2 of the curriculum, the terms were
introduced using photos and drawings provided by BioKIDS prior to students collecting
their animal data. The concepts were then used in the scaffolded data analysis of both the
students’ schoolyard data and the team experiment data. This repetition allows students
to see how abundance, richness, and biodiversity are applied to different situations to
create a deeper understanding of the terms.
Version 2, Step 5: Research Based Implementation
Version 2 was implemented in six urban classrooms. In all classes, it was necessary to
skip most of the content related to individual animal investigations and food webs in
order to complete the program in the eight weeks. In addition, no classes were able to
collect their team experiment data due to time and urban classroom constraints. Despite
these issues, research showed significant gains on open ended and performance tests, but
not on the multiple-choice test, which showed a ceiling effect (Songer, in preparation).
Additional findings included that students were adept at using the technology to collect
data, but needed additional scaffolding to formulate explanations using this data. In
addition, reevaluation of the curricular sequence and several key activities was necessary
to accommodate the urban classrooms.
Evolution of the Curriculum from Version Two to Version Three
The multidisciplinary team working on Version 3 included three people from the
education team, one from the science team, one from the technology team, and two
teachers who had implemented Version 2. This team had regular meetings with the
larger group of science and education researchers. Version 3 builds upon most of the
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learning goals from Version 2. Therefore, improvements focused on both
accommodating the audience and inquiry fostering.
Version 3, Step 1: Audience
Due to the nature of the BioKIDS program, many of the activities take place outside in
the schoolyard. Urban teachers are often unable to take students outside without
significant preparations due to administration and discipline. In addition, several of the
fifth and sixth graders were going to different teachers for each subject, limiting the time
spent on science to a specific 45 to 50 minutes each day.
The engage activity, has been modified with each subsequent version as a balance was
struck between the inquiry ideal and realities of the urban classroom. For Version 2 of
the curriculum, students went outside on the first day of the program to explore their
schoolyard and hone their observation skills using the tools provided, such as binoculars
and magnifying glasses. This did not work out as an effective engage activity because,
many teachers choose to skip this activity due to time, perceived lack of focus of the
activity, and limited ability to take students outside. In Version 3, several qualitative
tasks were moved to the first day to accommodate these shortcomings. Students were
guided in collecting information about the habitat of their zone as a more structured and
focused way of learning observation skills. In addition, a schoolyard map was created the
first day so that each student team was assigned to their own part of the schoolyard or
zone from the beginning, providing ownership and enhancing student involvement.
During Version 2 implementation, research showed that all of the experiments were
functional for student preparation and set-up, but due to the constraints of the urban
classroom did not allow for students to collect meaningful data. The experiments
included the observation of birdseed trays, artificial flowers with nectar, and examination
of invertebrate populations under controlled wooden boards. For Version 3, these were
modified to limit the need for real time data collection. In addition to changing the data
collection phase of the experiments, changes were also made to the experimental
questions. In Version 2, each team chose between several experimental questions that
focused on either the richness or abundance of animals and either tracked the changes
over time or compared two different set-ups. These were modified to look at changes in
biodiversity between two set-ups.
Version 3, Step 2: Big Picture
During this cycle, utilizing the content, inquiry and technology learning goals established
for Version 2 was critical. Although some small changes were made as the activities
were optimized for inquiry learning and content tweaking, the overall learning goals
remained unchanged along with the BioKIDS content. Regarding technology, the Critter
Catalog became one resource in a larger age appropriate website for BioKIDS students
and teachers (www.biokids.umich.edu). In addition, the process by which CyberTracker
data could be uploaded to a printable table and the display of this data were also made
more use friendly and aligned with the inquiry fostering curriculum.
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Version 3, Step 3: Learning
Research on student notebooks showed that students would benefit from additional
scaffolding when analyzing their data and building explanations from the evidence.
Many students left questions blank and those that attempted to answer the questions
clearly did not understand the intent. A study of varying scaffolding by Lee (H. –S. Lee,
in preparation), showed that students benefit from strong scaffolding with respect to
building explanations from evidence, and that students need support throughout the
curriculum.
The following example illustrates BioKIDS efforts to guide students’ abilities to build
explanations from their own data. In the curriculum, students go out to their schoolyard
and collect animal survey data for different zones of the schoolyard. Both richness and
abundance data are graphed by the students. In Version 2, students were then asked to
take this information and answer the following question:
Zone _____________has the highest Biodiversity.
Describe what data lead you to this answer.
Most students correctly identified the zone, but were unable to explain their choice and
back it up with evidence. Therefore in the subsequent curriculum, additional scaffolding
was added as follows:
Question: Which schoolyard zone has the highest biodiversity?
Claim
I think zone ______________
has the
highest biodiversity.
Data or Evidence
• How many animals and different kinds
of animals were found in this zone
compared to other zones?
because…[list relevant data or information]
• Where were animals found in this zone?
• How does this zone support both high
abundance and high richness of animals?
In Version 3, this claim/evidence scaffolding was placed in nine locations. In three
places, this scaffolding replaced an identical question from the previous version of the
curriculum. This enabled empirical research comparisons to be conducted between the
quality of student answers with and without the intervention. In the section entitled
Version 3, Step 5: Research Based Implementation some of these results are discussed.
An additional inquiry modification in Version 3 used animal drawings to encourage
students to group animals prior to seeing how scientists grouped them in the Critter
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Catalog. Student pairs were given 19 animal drawings that have animals with distinct
physical features. They were asked to both group these animals, and give a reason for
their grouping. There was no “correct” answer. For example, students often place the
bat (a mammal) with the birds. As long as their reason is that both have wings and fly,
this is not incorrect for their unique animal groups. This change promotes inquiry by not
having students worry about “getting an answer” but “using evidence and strategies for
developing or revising an explanation” as outlined in the NRC Inquiry book (NRC 2000).
Version 2 offered strong inquiry scaffolding for individual student reports. The
information that students collected from the database was then used in the subsequent
activity to answer questions that probe a deeper understanding of the information that
they collected. Unfortunately, many teachers chose to skip that page of the curriculum,
meaning that students just read and reiterated what was written on the web site without
any original thought. This was below the skill level of the upper elementary school
students, did not encourage original thought, and did not allow students to investigate
what was interesting to them. Scaffolding for Version 3 was more open ended and
included questions to encourage original thought embedded into the animal research
questions. It also gave options of different areas to research (such as look at how your
animals interacts with humans or what type of behaviors does your animal have or
describe the reproductive cycle of your animal). This format gave the students more
control over what they researched, moving towards a more inquiry based activity on the
NRC Table 2-6 (NRC, 2000, pg. 29), from “Learner directed to collect certain data” to
“Learner determines what constitutes evidence and collects it.”
Version 3, Step 4: Systematicity
No new activities were added, in the evolution from Version 2 to Version 3 of the
BioKIDS curriculum. Due to the length of the curriculum, some activities, or portions of
activities were moved to “optional”. These decisions arose as a result of reflection on
content standards, and a re-emphasis of focal concepts.
It is the intent that the learning cycle of engage, explore, synthesize run through both the
curriculum as a whole and within each of the four curricular parts. Each revision of the
curriculum brings it closer to this ideal. Table 4 shows how the activities were sequenced
to optimize learning over the whole curriculum. Sequence changes from Version 2
included moving more concrete data collection to the engage portion of the curriculum,
delaying the introduction to CyberTracker, and moving the invertebrate
collection/observation activity to directly before the team experiments which are all
related to invertebrates.
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Component
Engage
Explore
Examine
Synthesize
Curriculum
Students go outside to look at their schoolyard as a place for animals to live. They
collect habitat information and map the schoolyard.
Students learn about the tools of a field researcher. Students do a class experiment where
they collect animal sighting data on each zone of the schoolyard.
Students look at the data collected and determine which area of the schoolyard has the
highest biodiversity with respect to both richness and abundance.
Students investigate invertebrates by collection/observation. Students use the knowledge
that they learned about biodiversity, invertebrates and data collection and apply it to their
own experiments.
Table 4: Version 3 curricular activities mapped to learning sequence.
A final curricular change in this version was to implement an experimental format
(experimental question, hypothesis, data collection, data analysis, conclusion) for both
the Class Experiment and the Team Experiment. This allowed students to walk through
the steps as a class prior to seeing it again as a team.
Version 3, Step 5: Research Based Implementation
Version 3 of the BioKIDS curriculum was implemented in eight urban classrooms.
Analyses of the data have shown that there are three important areas of change for the
next version. These include improving the claim/evidence scaffolding that was added in
Version 3, implementing a stronger synthesis activity, and making sequencing changes to
enhance inquiry learning.
Empirical data on the three claim-evidence questions that were common between the
Version 2 and 3 are presented here. In Version 2, the questions appeared as just one of
the questions on the worksheet. Version 3 placed the question into a claim-evidence
scaffolding to enhance the students understanding of how to use their data to support their
claim (see example of the question format under Version 3, Step 3: Learning of this
section).
Six classes were examined from the Version 2 implementation, and eight in the Version 3
implementation making 48 possible pairs. Comparison of multiple choice pre-test scores
(pairs of classes, one from Version 2 and one from Version 3 who had a p>0.05
difference between their test scores) narrowed the selection of classes to fourteen possible
pairs. The comparison was further narrowed, due to some classes only implementing
certain questions of the curriculum, to four pairs. Student notebooks were coded for each
of the questions that were completed by both classes. The claim was coded separately
from the evidence. Statistical significance of the differences was calculated using SPSS.
Figure 2 shows the results for one of the Version 2/Version 3 class pairs.
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Figure 2: Comparison of Version 2 and Version 3 student responses to questions using
data to support claims.
In both question one and two there was no statistically significant difference in the
students' ability to make the correct claim about their data (p>0.05). However, in both
cases the additional scaffolding provided students enough support to show a statistically
significant improvement (p<0.05) in their ability to use the evidence that they had
collected to support this claim. This improvement in the ability to choose supporting
evidence to their claim was seen in 7 of 8 of the questions examined in the Version
2/Version 3-school pairs.
Conclusions
Future versions of the BioKIDS curriculum will build upon these three research-based
implementations. Over the past year, behind the scenes work has been occurring to add
animal mapping to the curriculum. This mapping would involve students using
sophisticated technology to map their animal sightings and the ability to examine data
generated by different schools. In addition, further improvements to the claim/evidence
scaffolding, and inquiry sequence are planned.
The development of the BioKIDS curriculum is an iterative, research-driven cycle of
improvements. With each revision, the development team is coming closer to a curricular
sequence that achieves the goal of fostering inquiry while being practical for the urban
school environment. Adhering to the learning goals that were developed and the inquiry
learning sequence, while making changes based upon empirical research results, will lead
to greater understanding of the supports necessary to guide students towards productive
inquiry understandings.
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Simultaneous transformation of science content, inquiry learning, and technology
resources has been critical in the iterative revision process. The development of three
types of learning goals provided a foundation for the curriculum development. Within an
activity, as the content, inquiry or technology was altered; it was necessary to then
reevaluate the other two areas as well. For example, the introduction of the concept of
biodiversity was reduced from four measures to just richness and abundance between
versions 1 and 2. This lead to both a change in how this content was introduced through
inquiry techniques, such as sequencing, and a change in how the CyberTracker data was
collected and presented to foster inquiry. These types of simultaneous transformation of
the curriculum are critical to the development of a technology supported inquiry based
product.
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