An introduction to the Kiwrious Science Learning Experience

We have looked at the research to unpack what students typically understand about how science is developed; what it is; and how it works. We have used research to guide the way we have developed the Kiwrious Science Experience and associated resources. We have modified the Views About Scientific Inquiry (KVASI-M) questionnaire which was developed and used to establish an international baseline of what students thought about scientific inquiry (Lederman et al, 2018) and added that as a tool to our kit.

Please ask your students to complete the KVASI-M questionnaire before they start using the sensors or platform and again after a term of using Kiwrious. We have ethical approval to compare students’ responses before and after using Kiwrious. This will only be anonymous aggregated data which we will correlate with students’ use of the Kiwrious Science Experience. Ideally we hope you can ask another teacher in your school who isn’t using Kiwrious (yet) to give their class access to the questionnaire so that we can compare their responses too.

We have already trialled Kiwrious in classrooms and at home with teachers and students. Their feedback has helped us make modifications and changes. We intend to keep doing this and to keep you informed through a regular newsletter. Your feedback, your students’ responses to the KVASI-M questionnaire and your use of the Kiwrious Science Experience will all contribute to on-going development.

The curriculum document states:

The nature of science strand is the overarching, unifying strand. Through it, students learn what science is and how scientists work. They develop the skills, attitudes, and values to build a foundation for understanding the world. They come to appreciate that while scientific knowledge is durable, it is also constantly re-evaluated in the light of new evidence. They learn how scientists carry out investigations, and they come to see science as a socially valuable knowledge system. They learn how science ideas are communicated and to make links between scientific knowledge and everyday decisions and actions. These outcomes are pursued through the following major contexts in which scientific knowledge has developed and continues to develop.

It frames the nature of science as four sub-strands with the following Achievement Aims:

Investigating in science

Carry out science investigations using a variety of approaches: classifying and identifying, pattern seeking, exploring, investigating models, fair testing, making things, or developing systems. There are many ways that scientists go about building on one another’s knowledge. To do this, they have to give clear details of what they have done and how they have found out their results so others can check and double check.

Communicating in science

Develop knowledge of the vocabulary, numeric and symbol systems, and conventions of science and use this knowledge to communicate about their own and others’ ideas. The Inquiry Editor has prompts to encourage students to write clearly and accurately. They can record three measurements for any one inquiry and write about it or take a photo. Students can ask questions, comment on or like their peers inquiries

Participating and contributing

Bring a scientific perspective to decisions and actions as appropriate. Many of our suggested activities ask students to take a wider perspective and to canvas others before making a recommendation or decision based on their scientific inquiry.

However, we think the following strand, Understanding about science, is the one that generates the most confusion for teachers and students alike!

Understanding about science

Learn about science as a knowledge system: the features of scientific knowledge and the processes by which it is developed; and learn about the ways in which the work of scientists interacts with society. Scientists go about their work and develop understanding in ways that are quite specific to science. We have designed the Kiwrious Science Experience to encourage students to formulate their own questions and devise their own inquiries. We want them to share their ideas with others for feedback and critique. We have built in the ability to repeat someone else’s inquiry (replication) or to remix it. We hope that in this way, your students will appreciate that scientists share their ideas so that others can confirm the results or disagree with them. We hope that the Kiwrious Science Experience helps you to make it clear to your students that scientific knowledge is developed by scientists, like them, asking questions, inquiring, investigating and doing science

The curriculum doesn’t give us concrete examples of this substrand of the nature of science. For example, what are the features of this knowledge system? What are the features of scientific knowledge that we are required to teach? How exactly is scientific knowledge developed? And how do scientists interact with society? TKI has excellent resources https://scienceonline.tki.org.nz/Nature-of-science/What-is-the-Nature-of-Science which you are familiar with but we hope we have designed Kiwrious to help you bring this to life in your classroom.

We have found it useful to consider the nature of science from the perspective of those tenets or underlying beliefs that are held to be true about science. Tenets of the nature of science have been studied by researchers for decades (see for example Lederman, 1992). The following are 5 tenets that we think are most important and useful for teachers to teach about science – what it is, how it is different from other ways of knowing and what scientists do.

Science is tentative

Firstly, scientific knowledge is tentative. Even though it is reliable and durable, scientific knowledge is neither static nor definitive. Scientific knowledge is subject to change in the light of new evidence or re-interpretation of existing evidence. Because of its tentative nature, we cannot claim ‘absolute truth’ in science. The tentative nature of scientific knowledge also means that laws and theories may change. Carl Sagan made the point when he stated:

In Science it often happens that scientists say, “You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,” and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful, but it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

Science is empirical

A second tenet is that science is based on or derived from observations of the world around us from which interpretations are made. This is the empirical nature of science. A scientific explanation must be consistent with empirical evidence. By and large, scientists do experiments, often over and over again, to get more data on which to base their explanations. They detail how they came to their findings so that other scientists can replicate their inquiries. As Albert Einstein said “The case is never closed. Many experiments may prove me right, but it only takes one to prove me wrong.”

Science is creative

A third tenet is that science also requires imagination and creativity. It is not simply the accumulation of observable evidence and the orderly gathering of knowledge. All observations require interpretation and inference by scientists. To do this, scientists require imagination and creativity to make inferential statements about what they see. In fact, imagination and creativity are needed in every aspect of a scientist’s work – making sense of observations, making the creative leap from data to possible explanation, coming up with new ideas, designing investigations and looking at old data in a new light. This challenges the misconception that there is one universal way to do science, commonly referred to as “the scientific method”.

Science is theory and subjective-laden

The fourth tenet is that science is theory and subjective-laden. This explains why different scientists can interpret the same data sets differently. Scientists do strive to be objective, but it is just not possible to make truly objective observations and interpretations without any bias. A scientist’s mind is not a blank slate. Individual scientists have their prior knowledge, theoretical beliefs, experiences, cultural background, training, expectations and biases, each of which will affect their observations and conclusions. Science tries to overcome this lack of pure objectivity through the scientific community, which scrutinises scientific work and helps balance individual scientists’ leanings. Some say that observation is not the starting place for science because all observation is preceded by a theory.

Science is socially and culturally embedded

Finally, scientific knowledge is socially and culturally embedded. All scientific knowledge is produced within a larger society and culture. This means that the social and cultural elements such as politics, economics, power structures, religion and philosophy will affect the science knowledge that is produced and how it is accepted. This also means that the direction and the products of science will be greatly influenced by the society and the culture in which the science is conducted. As societies change, so do scientific priorities.

Tenets as questions

Other researchers (e.g. Clough & Olson, 2008; Clough, 2007) have suggested that rephrasing the tenets as questions can lead to valuable discussion and a better understanding of how science knowledge is contextual. Here are some of the questions they suggest:

• In what sense is scientific knowledge tentative? In what sense is it durable?

• To what extent are scientists and scientific knowledge subjective? To what extent can they be objective? In what sense is scientific knowledge the product of human inference, imagination, and creativity? In what sense is this not the case?

• To what extent is scientific knowledge socially and culturally embedded? In what sense does it transcend society and culture?

• In what sense is scientific knowledge invented? In what sense is it discovered?

• How does the notion of a scientific method distort how science actually works? How does it accurately portray aspects of how science works?

• In what sense are scientific laws and theories different types of knowledge? In what sense are they related?

• How are observations and inferences different? In what sense can they not be differentiated?

• How does private science differ from public science? In what ways are they similar?

An important addition to our resources has been to link to the science capabilities (Hipkins, 2014). The five science capabilities are

• Gather and interpret data - learners make careful observations and differentiate between observation and inference

• Use evidence - they learn to support their ideas with evidence and look for evidence supporting others’ explanations

• Critique evidence - students recognise that not all questions can be answered by science

• Interpret representations students learn that scientists represent their ideas in a variety of ways, including models, graphs, charts, diagrams and written texts.

• Engage with science This capability requires students to use the other capabilities to engage with science in “real life” contexts.

https://scienceonline.tki.org.nz/Science-capabilities-for-citizenship

Clough, M. P. (2007). Teaching the nature of science to secondary and post-secondary students: Questions rather than tenets. The Pantaneto Forum, 25, 31–40.

Clough, M. P., & Olson, J. K. (2008). Teaching and assessing the nature of science: An introduction. Science & Education, 17(2), 143–145.

Hipkins, R. (2014). Unlocking the idea of ‘Capabilities’ in science. New Zealand Science Teacher https://nzscienceteacher.co.nz/index.php/curriculum-literacy/key-competencies-capabilities/unlocking-the-idea-of-capabilities-in-science/#.XznmA5MzbOQ

Lederman, N. G. (1992). Students’ and teachers’ conceptions of the nature of science: A review of the research. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 29(4), 331–359.

Lederman, J. S., & Lederman, N. G. (2005). Nature of science is ... . Science and Children, 43(2), 53–62.

Lederman, N. G., & Lederman, J. S. (2012). Nature of scientific knowledge and scientific inquiry: Building instructional capacity through professional development. In B.J. Fraser, K. G. Tobin, & C. J. McRobbie (Eds.), Second international handbook of science education (pp. 335–359). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.

Lederman, J., Lederman, N. Bartels, S. & Jimenez, J. (2018). An international collaborative investigation of beginning seventh grade students’ understandings of scientific inquiry: Establishing a baseline. Journal of Research on Science Teaching, 56, pp. 486-515. DOI: 10.1002/tea.21512

Martin, K. Davis, L. Sandretto, S. (2020). Engagement with Science across the middle years in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40841-020-00185-x