Examples
Initial Publication Date: February 17, 2009
This assignment is done by pairs of students in class after a short introductory lecture on divergent boundaries. Students work through the worksheet as it guides them towards more conceptually-difficult questions based on a map of the ocean crust ages of the Atlantic Ocean. Students confront their misconceptions and come away with a more scientifically-correct understanding of the pattern of ages of the ocean crust.
Students work in pairs on this worksheet in class after a short introductory lecture on how water reaches streams. Questions begin by addressing infiltration and the effect of surface runoff vs. groundwater flow on flooding. They then progress to examine how humans change the amount of infiltration, and students must determine how the severity of floods change as a result.
Students work in pairs on this worksheet and strengthen their background knowledge by identifying different features in photographs of Earth's surface. Then to build on this base, the students determine the key processes that form each of the features. To address a common misconception, students read a debate between two hypothetical students and determine which student is stating the scientifically correct idea. The activity is summarized by a question posed about the features on a hypothetical planet.
Students work in pairs to complete this short worksheet strengthening their background knowledge of rock formation. After a brief set of questions about the rock types, students are given the geologic conditions found on different planets. Students must then predict the presence of the three different rock types on each planet.
This short assignment is designed for students to work in pairs after a brief lecture introducing the general topics of dinosaurs or hypotheses, or the more specific topic of
Stegosaurus. Using the example of
Stegosaurus plates, students learn how scientists make hypotheses about the functions of features on extinct life forms. The Lecture Tutorial can also be used in a general sense to help students understand the use of evidence in forming and evaluating hypotheses. They use the observations given to determine which hypothesis is most likely.
