Model Based Inquiry
USING MODELS TO ASSESS STUDENTS’
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND PARTICIPATE IN
SCIENCE PRACTICES
Models and Modeling
 What are scientific models and how do scientists use
them?
 What are some characteristics of “high quality”
models?

Discuss these two questions with the teachers at your
table and write some of the characteristics of high
quality models on the post-it papers at your table to
share.
Examples of Models
 Scale model (toy airplane)
 Analogical model (ball and stick model)
 Symbolic model (Chemical formula)
 Mathematical model (equation)
 Theoretical Model (kinetic molecular theory)
 Maps, diagrams, and tables (periodic table or food
webs)
 Concept-Process Models
 Simulations
High Quality Scientific
Models
Generate a Model
 Why is the sky blue and sunsets red?
At your table, work together as a group to come up with
an initial model that will answer this question. Draw and
explain your model on the large paper on your table. (do
not touch the materials on the table yet!)
 Share these initial models
with the large group.

Evaluate and Modify Model
 Explore with materials on your table:
 Shine the flashlight through the glass container with water and have the
light hit an index card on the other side.


Add a few drops of milk to the water and observe what happens to the
light hitting the index card and the color of the water in the glass.



Record your observations-then add more milk
Explore shining the flashlight through the prism at your table


Make observations in your notebook
Record your observations
Look at different objects through the various colored filters
Shine your flashlight through the filters

Record your observations
 Look back at your initial model and modify it to include your
new observations

Use outside resources if you have them (see color wavelength sheet on
table)
Color Wavelengths
Blue Sky and Red Sunset
 What happens when light goes through a prism?
Blue Sky and Red Sunset
 Light is refracted—light waves travel at different speeds
in different mediums.
 And different frequencies of light slow down different
amounts when they hit a different density medium.

So when white light hits a block of glass (prism) the different colors
spread out.
 Milky water set up?


Different sized molecules tend to absorb and reradiate some
frequencies more than others. Milk molecules are particularly good
at absorbing and reradiating blue light (perpendicular to the light—
out the side of the bowl)
As you add more and more milk, more and more blue light is
scattered to the side, and the liquid looks blue. Since blue light is
scattered and removed from the beam, the spot of the wall gets
redder and redder.
On Earth
 There are small particles in the atmosphere that scatter
the sun’s light and make the sky appear blue to us on
Earth.

At sunset when the sun is low on the horizon, the sunlight passes
through more air and more particles, making only those colors with
the longer wavelengths visible.
 Blue and violet have the shortest wavelengths so the
increase in particles scatters the blue and violet lights
away.
 Then as the sun begins to set further you lose the ability
to see yellow, then orange until finally you’re left with
red, which has the longest wavelength.
Test your model
 Predict what should happen when I spin the color
wheel.


Watch the demonstration at the front of the room
Does your model allow you to predict the result? If not, how
would you have to modify it?
What is Model-Based Learning?
Model-Based Learning is a theoretical framework for science
education that moves students’ conceptual understanding from
preconception or misconception to the attainment of
understanding of the target model or desired knowledge state.
(Clement, 2000)
Model Based Inquiry
Science is a process of
building, testing, and
modifying scientific
models.
When students participate in
all three of these activities,
they not only learn the
content of science but also
about the nature of science
and the process of science.
Generating an Initial Model
 When students generate their own initial models of a
phenomenon before any instruction, teachers can:

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SEE student prior knowledge
SEE student misconceptions
SEE what students still need to learn
SEE what might need to be changed in upcoming lessons
 Knowledge is Power!
 Power to teach only the standards that need to be taught thus
saving time
 Power to differentiate even in a class of thirty+
Learning Progression for Modeling
 Students construct models consistent with prior evidence
and theories to illustrate, explain, or predict phenomena.
 Students use models to illustrate, explain, and predict
phenomena.
 Students compare and evaluate the ability of different
models to accurately represent and account for patterns
in phenomena, and to predict new phenomena.
 Students revise models to increase their explanatory and
predictive power, taking into account additional evidence
or aspects of a phenomenon.