EXPLANATION BY CLAIM-EVIDENCE-REASONING

AGNES TARUC CASTRO

Everyone who loves science is driven by raw curiosity, and driven by their desire to explain how the world works.

When we are talking about “matter” in class, students have the chance to observe solids and liquids. By just talking about it, we have helped them define matter as something that has mass or weight and takes up space. What about air, then? Is it matter?

We can then ask our students what data they need to answer the question, how they can collect data, or how they can investigate. They will need to determine if air has mass and/ or takes up space.

Once students conduct the investigation and have data, they can create an explanation. A good explanation has a claim that answers the question; has evidence from students’data; and has reasoning that involves a “rule” or scientific principle that describes why the evidence supports the claim. This makes the explanation more complete.

Introduce the claim-evidence-reasoning (CER) format to your students as the “goal” of science by using concrete situations like images or artwork. You can then provide examples from science or scientists and connect to other content areas (e.g. argumentation in social studies). Then, there should be feedback as well as peer critique.

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The author is Secondary School Teacher III at San Juan National High School, San Luis, Pampanga