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Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about natural selection. The probe is designed to find out how students interpret the commonly used phrase “survival of the fittest.” ...
By Page Keeley
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about an Earth material, rocks. The probe is designed to determine whether students can distinguish between humanmade, “rocklike” materials and geologically formed rock materials...
By Page Keeley
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the particle model of matter. The probe is designed to find out if students recognize that air is made up of particles that are widely spaced with empty space between the parti...
By Page Keeley and Susan Cooper
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about global warming. The probe is designed to find out what students think contributes to global warming. ...
By Page Keeley and Joyce Tugel
Lesson Plan
What’s Inside Our Solar System?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the solar system. The probe is designed to find out if students can distinguish between objects in the solar system and objects outside of the solar system and recognize that t...
By Page Keeley and Cary Sneider
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the greenhouse effect. The probe is designed to reveal whether students confuse the greenhouse effect with other environmental concerns or lump the concerns together. ...
By Page Keeley and Laura Tucker
Lesson Plan
Where Do You Find Earth’s Plates?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about Earth’s plates. The probe is designed to find out where students think tectonic plates are located. ...
By Page Keeley and Laura Tucker
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the formation of the Grand Canyon. The probe is designed to find out if students recognize the role of rivers and flowing water and connect them to the processes of weathering ...
By Page Keeley and Laura Tucker
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about why the constellations change with the seasons. The probe is designed to find out how students use the Earth’s spin and orbit to explain why different constellations are visi...
By Page Keeley and Cary Sneider
Lesson Plan
What Do You Know About Volcanoes and Earthquakes?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about plate tectonic features and events. The probe is designed to uncover commonly held misconceptions about volcanoes and earthquakes. ...
By Page Keeley and Laura Tucker
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about Earth’s natural resources. The probe is designed to find out if students can distinguish between renewable and nonrenewable natural resources. ...
By Page Keeley and Laura Tucker
Lesson Plan
Are They Talking About Climate or Weather?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about climate. The probe is designed to find out whether students distinguish between weather and climate. ...
By Page Keeley and Laura Tucker
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the Sun and stars. The probe is designed to uncover students’ ideas about the nature of stars and their recognition that the Sun is an average star, but much closer to us tha...
By Page Keeley and Cary Sneider
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about weather versus climate. The probe is designed to find out if students distinguish between a one-time weather-related change and a change in climate. ...
By Page Keeley and Laura Tucker
Lesson Plan
What Happens When You Bring a Balloon Near Wall
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about electrical interactions. The probe is designed to find out how students visually represent electrical interactions. ...
By Page Keeley and Rand Harrington
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about density. The probe is designed to find out whether students have commonly held ideas about mass, volume, shape, and other properties that interfere with their conceptual unders...
By Page Keeley and Susan Cooper
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to comprehensively elicit students’ ideas about the relationship between force and motion. The list of possible answers includes several distracters that are based on learning research; thus the probe will te...
By Page Keeley and Rand Harrington
Lesson Plan
This probe is designed to elicit students’ ideas about changing the direction of motion in the absence of air. Many students will have seen movies or television shows in which spaceships turn by banking or using wing flaps. In outer space, where th...
By Page Keeley and Rand Harrington
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about sound. The probe is designed to reveal whether students recognize that sound is produced by vibrating matter. ...
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about force related to the interaction between inanimate objects. The probe is designed to determine which forces students think act on an object at rest when it is inside a fast-mov...
By Page Keeley and Rand Harrington
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit beginning ideas about types of forces. The probe is designed to reveal whether students recognize that forces can act both in direct contact with an object and at a distance. ...
By Page Keeley and Rand Harrington
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit beginning ideas about forces. The probe is designed to reveal whether students generally identify forces as pushes and pulls. ...
By Page Keeley and Rand Harrington
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about chemical change. The probe is designed to find out how students determine whether a new substance with a different chemical makeup is formed when matter undergoes a change. ...
By Page Keeley and Susan Cooper
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about pairs of forces that fit Newton’s third law. The probe is specifically designed to reveal whether students can identify third law force pairs as involving different objects. ...
By Page Keeley and Rand Harrington
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about transfer of energy. The probe is designed to determine whether students recognize that heat flows from warmer objects or areas to cooler ones. ...
By Page Keeley
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit children’s ideas about how light interacts with an object to form a shadow. The probe is designed to reveal children’s ideas about the size of a shadow in relation to the distance from a light sou...
By Page Keeley
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about food, transformation of matter, growth and development, conservation of mass, and systems. The concepts underlying this probe are complex. It is not important that students kno...
By Page Keeley and Joyce Tugel
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about decay and decomposers. The probe can be used to determine whether students recognize the need for a biological agent to break down once-living material as it uses it for energy...
By Page Keeley, Francis Eberle and Chad Dorsey
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the digestive system. The probe is designed to find out whether students realize a main function of the digestive system is to break food down into molecules that can be used b...
By Page Keeley and Joyce Tugel
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about mountain formation. The probe is designed to determine whether students recognize that some mountains are formed from the uplift of Earth’s crust over a long period of time a...
By Page Keeley
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about biological adaptation. The probe is designed to find out if students think animals intentionally adapt to a change in their environment. ...
By Page Keeley and Joyce Tugel
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the transfer of matter and energy in ecosystems. The probe is designed to reveal whether students recognize that only matter is cycled through an ecosystem. ...
By Page Keeley
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about adaptation. The probe is designed to reveal whether students think individuals intentionally change their physical characteristics or behaviors in response to an environmental ...
By Page Keeley
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit children’s developing ideas about structure in living systems. The probe is designed to find out if students recognize that living things are made up of parts. ...
By Page Keeley
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about plant growth. The probe is designed to find out whether students recognize that plants use their stored food to grow in the absence of light. ...
By Page Keeley
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about seeds. The probe is designed to find out what students think most seeds need to germinate. ...
By Page Keeley
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ initial response to an ill-defined problematic situation. The probe is designed to reveal whether students recognize that in a problem situation, there is sometimes a more important proble...
By Page Keeley, Cary Snider, and Mihir Ravel
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about how to approach a problem. The probe is designed to gain insight into how students think about an engineering design process (EDP) and the kinds of problems that it can be used...
By Page Keeley, Cary Snider, and Mihir Ravel
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about researching a problem. The probe is designed to determine the extent to which students are aware of the need to learn as much as possible about how others have solved a problem...
By Page Keeley, Cary Snider, and Mihir Ravel
Lesson Plan
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about brainstorming. The probe is designed to determine the extent to which students understand the norms of good teamwork during the brainstorming process. ...
By Page Keeley, Cary Snider, and Mihir Ravel