Family Science Learning Overview
The purpose of this set of activities is to help your family prepare everything you will need to deeply explore your family’s “Should We” question.
This includes getting ready to investigate events, processes, and relationships in LE 7.
Overview
This is a two-part activity.
- Part 1 (LE 6.B.1): Return to the work you did in LE 5.C, and decide which “Should We” question your family wants to focus on (or, decide on a new one!). Then, explore the question more deeply, and then create an initial model that shows your thinking about all of the different parts of your “Should We” question and how those parts are related. (NOTE: if the initial model you created in LEs 5.C or 6.A is related to your “Should We” question, you can use it and revise it.)
- Part 2 (LE 6.B.2): Using your “Should We” question and your initial model of that question, select at least two events, processes, and/or relationships that you need to better understand in order to deliberate about your “Should We” question. Then pose investigation questions that would help you explore the events, processes, and/or relationships that you chose.
What Can You Do To Support Learning?
- LE 6.B.1 and LE 6.B.2 both have two or three mini-activities to work on. Family members might want to work on parts of these activities over the course of several days so that no one becomes bored or overwhelmed.
- Because there are numerous parts, you might consider having a family member summarize what your family has accomplished so far before starting a new part to help everyone remember what you have already done.
- For each mini-activity, there are prompts written in the activity sheets that you can ask to help everyone participate and contribute ideas. More general prompts you can use are: How do you know? Why do you think that? I’d love to hear more about that — say more! How could we do that? Why is that important?
Activity Sheet
Connecting with Other Families
Share your “Should We” question, explorations of that question, initial model, and investigation questions with other families, friends, and neighbors. You can ask them for their feedback. Ask them if they know of any resources you might find helpful as you keep exploring your “Should We” question and investigate parts of it!
Connect to Other Activities
Learning in Places Frameworks to Consider
- Socio-Ecological Deliberation and Decision Making
- Modeling Socio-Ecological Phenomena
- Asking Powerful Questions in Field-Based Science
