This is the new updated edition of the first book in the bestselling Uncovering Student Ideas in Science series. Like the first edition of volume 1, this book helps pinpoint what your students know (or think they know) so you can monitor their learning and adjust your teaching accordingly. Loaded with classroom-friendly features you can use immediately, the book includes 25 “probes”—brief, easily administered formative assessments designed to understand your students’ thinking about 60 core science concepts.

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The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the nature of science. The probe is designed to find out if students distinguish scientific theories from the common use of the word theory and if they understand how theories differ from laws.

Justified List

hypothesis, nature of science, scientific law, theory

The statements that best describe scientific theories are A, D, G, and I. Scientific theories are evidence-based explanations based on related observations of phenomena or events. A scientific theory is based on a solid body of supporting evidence that has been tested and supported with multiple lines of evidence. Theories are widely accepted in the scientific community and can be used to make predictions. Theories in science are not kept in doubt, although because of the dynamic nature of science, they can change if new evidence becomes available. Such new evidence may be made possible through new technological tools, techniques of analysis, new theoretical advances, or shifts in research emphasis that lead the scientific community to reconsider an existing explanation and revise it to fit new evidence that is available and accepted. Theories can also change when scientists view the same evidence differently, such as the example of Darwinian evolution and punctuate evolution in which the same evidence was looked at from a different perspective.

Examples of scientific theories include the germ theory of disease, the theory of biological evolution, plate tectonics theory, string theory, big bang theory, and kinetic molecular theory. Each of these theories provide an explanation accepted by the scientific community for observed phenomena. For example, plate tectonics explains the observed evidence for large-scale motions of the Earth’s lithosphere.

Students and nonscientist adults often have definitions for the word theory that are quite different from the scientific meaning of the word. To nonscientists, the word theory often means a hunch, opinion, or a guess. In common usage it is not unusual to hear someone say, “I have a theory about….” A theory in the nonscientific sense of the word does not require firm evidence to support it nor does it require the consensus of others.

Sometimes the words hypothesis, theory, and law are inaccurately portrayed in science textbooks as an “evolution” of a scientific idea. There isn’t a definite sequence or hierarchy for the development of scientific ideas—such as a hypothesis leads to a theory, which eventually becomes a law—because they represent different types of knowledge. For example, it is possible to develop a law (observed behavior of nature) and not have the explanation (theory) for it, such as when Isaac Newton helped develop the law of gravity, but at the time he did not have an explanation for it.

Law and theory are two different key elements of the nature of scientific knowledge. Laws are generalizations, principles, or patterns in nature derived from scientific facts that often describe how the natural world behaves under certain conditions. Laws describe relationships among observable phenomena. Some laws are expressed mathematically. Examples of scientific laws include Newton’s laws of motion, universal law of gravitation, Boyle’s law, and Mendel’s laws. A law describes a phenomenon or event but it does not explain it, like a theory does. A theory is not a “law in waiting.” Theories do not mature into laws (Lederman and Lederman 2004). A theory is a well-established explanation. Laws describe what, and theories explain why.

Elementary Students

From their very first day in school, young students should be actively engaged in learning to view the world scientifically. They should be encouraged to ask questions about nature and to seek answers, collect things, count and measure things, make qualitative observations, organize collections and observations, discuss findings, and so on. These skills and activities are precursors to understanding how science relies on evidence. Getting into the spirit of science and enjoying science are important at this age. Students can learn some things about the nature of scientific inquiry and significant people from history, which will provide a foundation for the development of sophisticated ideas related to the history and nature of science that will be developed in later years (NRC 1996).

Middle School Students

In middle school, students begin to deal with the changing nature of scientific knowledge. Both incremental changes and more radical changes in scientific knowledge should be taken up (AAAS 1993). At this grade level, students should be introduced to the scientific meaning of the word theory and become familiar with scientific theories (and their historical development) that are appropriately connected to the content they are learning (e.g., germ theory).

High School Students

Students at this level should be able to distinguish between facts, hypotheses, theories, and laws. Their formal understanding of what a scientific theory is should be developed both through historical episodes in science and by reflecting on developments in current science. This is a time when it is important to precede the teaching of important theories that are central to the different disciplines of science, such as the centrality of the theory of evolution in biology, with explicit teaching of the nature of science. For example, biological evolution is one of the strongest, most important, and useful scientific theories we have in science (NRC 1996). By helping students understand what a theory is in science before teaching about major theories such as biological evolution, teachers are also helping students to better understand why a theory is accepted by the scientific community and how personal beliefs and religious views that are not based on scientific evidence are not part of learning science.

This probe is best used at the middle school and high school levels. It can be used as a paper- pencil assessment to gather students’ ideas for later analysis as well as a stimulus for provoking discussion about the nature of science. It can also be administered as a card sort with small groups of students sorting each statement into two groups, “applies to scientific theories” or “does not apply to scientific theories,” while defending their reasons for placing each card.

• Students of all ages find it difficult to distinguish between a theory and the evidence for it, or between description of evidence and interpretation of evidence (AAAS 1993).
• Young students often state that a theory involves knowing something about the situation, but they offer no further elaboration (Driver et al. 1996).
• Students often use theory to describe a prediction, as in “I have a theory about how that works,” that is based on a guess rather than evidence (Driver et al. 1996).
• Middle school students have difficulty understanding the development of scientific knowledge through the interaction of theory and observation (AAAS 1993).
• Younger students tend to characterize testing as a simple process of observation with the outcomes being obvious, while older students seem to be more aware that testing may involve finding out about mechanisms or testing theories (Driver et al. 1996).
• Studies have indicated that students’ understanding of evolution is related to their understanding of the nature of science, including understanding what constitutes a theory and their general reasoning abilities (AAAS 1993).
• Over the past two decades, there has been a considerable awareness and acceptance of the importance of developing an understanding of the nature of science among students and among teachers. Research shows that a deep, conceptual understanding of the nature of science has not been attained (Lederman et al. 2002), despite attempts to improve both students’ and teachers’ views of the nature of science.

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 1993. Benchmarks for science literacy. New York: Oxford University Press.

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 2007. Atlas of science literacy. Vol. 2. Washington, DC: AAAS.

BSCS. 2005. The nature of science and the study of biological evolution. Colorado Springs, CO: BSCS.

Byoung-Sug, K., and M. McKinney. 2007. Teaching the nature of science through the concept of living. Science Scope 31 (3): 20–25.

Crowther, D., N. Lederman, and J. Lederman. 2005. Understanding the true meaning of nature of science. Science and Children (Oct.): 50–54.

Keeley, P. 2005. Science curriculum topic study: Bridging the gap between standards and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Lederman, N., and J. Lederman. 2004. Revising instruction to teach nature of science. The Science Teacher 71 (9): 36–39.

Lederman, N., F. Abd-El-Khalick, and R. Bell. 2000. If we want to talk the talk we must also walk the walk: The nature of science, professional development, and educational reform. In Issues in science education: Professional development planning and design, eds. J. Rhoton and P. S. Bowers. Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.

National Research Council (NRC). 1996. National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

National Research Council (NRC). 1998. Teaching about evolution and the nature of science. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). 2004. History and nature of science. The Science Teacher (Nov.), theme issue.

Schwartz, R. 2007. What’s in a word? How word choice can develop (mis)conceptions about the nature of science. Science Scope 31 (2): 42–47.

Sweeney-Lederman, J., and N. Lederman. 2005. Science shorts: Nature of science is... Science and Children (Oct.): 53–54.

• Teaching about the nature of science can get lost if it is embedded within regular science instruction (Crowther, Lederman, and Lederman 2005). Nature of science can be embedded within traditional content but should be explicitly and formally taught and assessed as a subject matter topic in much the same way that curricular topics such as life cycles, chemical reactions, or phases of the Moon are taught (Abd-El- Khalick, Bell, and Lederman 1998).
• Almost any science activity can be modified to explicitly teach some aspect of nature of science. An NSTA article by Lederman and Lederman (2004) provides an example of how a typical science activity, such as observing the stages of mitosis, can embed lessons on the nature of science.
• Use historical events to help middle and high school students develop an understanding of the nature of science and development of theories. Atlas of Science Literacy, Volume 2 (AAAS 2007), makes key curricular connections between the nature of science and the development of historical ideas, such as Copernican theory, theory of plate tectonics, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and more.
• Make teaching the nature of science, including understanding what a theory is, an integral component of the middle school and high school science curriculum and a conscious, deliberate part of teaching. Do not assume students pick up these formal understandings of science automatically by engaging in inquiry-based activities. They should be explicitly taught and formally included in the science curriculum throughout the year, not just as the typical introductory chapter in a textbook.
• Today’s students are tomorrow’s teachers, parents, politicians, and world leaders. It is essential that today’s students be explicitly guided to develop the skills and knowledge to distinguish scientific knowledge from religious, cultural, philosophical, or other beliefs that are not grounded in scientific evidence and can impact the way people address important questions and make informed decisions that affect their lives, society, and the natural world. Teachers should pay careful attention to developing the knowledge students need to hone their ability to distinguish science-based information from that which is not grounded in scientific thinking so that they can make informed decisions about matters that often end up in the public arena.
• A technique to help students maintain a consistent image of the nature of science throughout the year by paying more careful attention to the words they use is to create a “caution words” poster or bulletin board (Schwartz 2007). Important words that have specific meanings in science but are often used inappropriately in the science classroom and through everyday language can be posted in the room as a reminder to pay careful attention to how students are using these words. For example, words like hypothesis, theory, and law can be included on the list.
• Activities with pattern cubes provide students with a common experience to develop an understanding of the nature of science and the appropriate language used to describe how science is conducted. Pattern cubes and a description of the activity are available online at www.nap.edu/ readingroom/books/evolution98/evol6-a.html.
• Take the time during lessons to have discussions with students about the nature of science and encourage reflection on the way they view scientists, scientific knowledge, and scientific practices.
• There are several excellent, diagnostic questionnaires developed by Lederman et al. (2002) that can be used to find out students’ views about the nature of science. An internet search can help you locate a source of these questionnaires.